Abstract

Women from developing countries, using the Internet for gender activism, have specific Internet needs - and even among this ‘group’ the needs vary. These users further represent women on the grassroots level without access to computer networks. The Internet situation among African women’s organizations is highly problematic. The WomenAction case data from Africa illustrate that an appropriate theoretical model must address both technological and social issues. It must also integrate gender, North-South and other differences. Available approaches are not entirely adequate nor complete to do so. Together, they however offer enough building blocks to address gender, Internetworking & development issues appropriately.

The diffusion of innovations theory demonstrates us - through its constraints - how we should not approach the matter. Constructivist technology studies (including gender & technology studies) are good starting points for an appropriate model. They however need additions to be suitable for the situation in the South. Critical development studies and the integrative view on global communication offer suitable building blocks for these additions.

Keywords 

social theory / information and communication technology - social aspects / Internet / gender / development
 
 

Acknowledgments

The WomenAction case study in this paper, is a joint research accomplishment by WomenAction and APC’s Women Program in Africa. The research team involved Ellen Kole (University of Amsterdam), Buhle Mbambo (University of Botswana), Marie-Hélène Mottin-Sylla (Enda-Synfev and APC Women’s Program in Africa), Dorothy Okello (McGill University) with the support of Lin Pugh (International Information Centre and Archives for the Women’s Movement, IIAV). We would like to thank everyone else who assisted this study and the respondents for making time and sharing valuable information with us.
 
 

WomenAction is an international coalition of Women’s Media and Communication Networks. Its mission is to be a global information, communication and media network enabling NGOs to actively engage in the Beijing+5 review process with the long term goal of women’s empowerment, with a special focus on women and media. 

APC Women’s Program in Africa is a network of organizations and individuals working to empower African women’s organizations to access and use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for equality and development.
 
 

I. Introduction

There is a strange contradiction in mainstream theorizing and empirical research on Internet connectivity for women in developing countries. Technology & development studies and the theory on the diffusion of innovations generally lack attention for gender aspects. Sociological (constructivist) studies on gender & technology, on the other hand, pay no attention to North-South relations. Within the field of communication studies, the attention seems to be either for gender or for international relations, without linking the two.

So if we study Internet connectivity issues of women from developing countries, which theoretical paradigm is appropriate? What empirical research is available and what does it tell us? What can the different approaches learn from each other? Do they have starting points in common? Which errors and constraints should we not repeat? In this paper I explore these topics, using empirical data from my present case study WomenAction: the Internet platform for women’s organizations worldwide to review the implementation of United Nations (UN) policy on women’s empowerment. I focus on women who are active in Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Africa.

The paper consists of five sections. In section II I give a brief overview of some prominent theoretical paradigms in the fields relevant to this panel. In the next section I present the practical situation and needs of African women, following from WomenAction research data. In section IV, I reflect on building blocks from the available paradigms, to arrive at an appropriate theory construct for the women under consideration. In the last section I summarize the adequate building blocks and give examples of relevant research issues.
 
 

II. Some prominent theoretical thinking on gender, technology and development

Quite a few research fields study two components out of the range ‘gender’, ‘technology/Information and Communication Technology (ICT)’ and ‘society/development’. I limit myself to the fields that matter to this panel: international studies, gender/feminist studies and ICT/communication studies. Because of my background, I interpret international studies as development studies or non-Western sociology. For ICT/communication studies, I include the sociology of technology. Here follow briefly some prominent theoretical paradigms in present research in these fields.

Let me start with development studies. From its emergence in the 1960s we see a shift from neo-classical modernization theories (first elaborated in Rostow 1960), via Marxist dependency theories (among others Wallerstein 1974, 1980; Gunder Frank 1980) to nowadays critical visions (Servaes 1989). The critical visions reflect the need for context-related development strategies. This need emerges from the disintegrating, culture-specific processes on the local level (called ‘empowerment’) that exist together with interdependent, integrating processes on the global level (‘globalization’). The tension and interaction between the local and global level are paramount features in nowadays development studies. Another important characteristic is the basic needs of people, both material and immaterial, which should guide problem-solving in developing countries. 

Despite all the changes in development studies, in the field of technology and development studies we cannot yet witness a strong shift from the traditional prominent paradigm: the theory of diffusion of innovations (Rogers 1962). This paradigm is a communication approach of behavioural sciences. It covers the study of adoption or rejection of a new idea or technology, among various user groups. Notwithstanding the fact that many researchers, policy makers and practitioners still use the diffusion of innovations model, there is a lot of critique too. Some important criticisms are against treating technology as a neutral process; focusing on the individual adopter and thereby ignoring social structures; and neglecting development issues such as the widening socio-economic gap (Rogers 1983: 121-124; McMaster et al. 1997: 72, 74; Kole 1999: 22-24). 

Meanwhile in Western sociology of technology, constructivist approaches (such as the social shaping of technology and Actor Network Theory, ANT) emerged (for example Callon 1987, Bijker et al. 1987). A common feature of constructivist studies is the analysis of the (social) contents of technological processes, instead of treating technology neutral (Grint and Woolgar 1997: 19). The focus is on the (re)creation of socio-technical networks: Actors use their power sources to materialize their ideas into a new technology, and embed it into existing structures. Constructivist scholars reject dichotomies. They replace the dualism between ‘technology’ and ‘the social’ with an integrated network of relations. The line between the ‘micro’ and ‘macro level’ is also a fluid and dynamic balance: What starts as a practice on a limited scale on the micro level, may ultimately develop into a macro-social phenomenon (Hagendijk 1996: 93-95). 

Feminist scholars, at first criticizing all technology studies for ignoring gender aspects, developed gender and technology variants of constructivism from the early 1990s (Cockburn 1985, Wajcman 1991). Departing from the observation that technological processes and products are gender-stereotyped, they focus on the co-construction of gender and technology. Issues are for instance the underrepresentation and lack of influence by women in technology processes; the inclusion of non-paid and informal work in technology studies; and ‘gender benders’, persons or organizations consciously breaking through traditional constructs of ‘masculinity’ versus ‘femininity’ in technology processes. 

An important accomplishment of constructivist studies, both feminist and others, is transcending the user-designer opposition by treating technology users as co-producers: Users can apply technology in other ways than foreseen by the developers. Another constructivist notion is ‘user-scripts’ (or gender-scripts), being the interests, meanings, norms, ideologies and relations that are embodied in technology. Through materializing in hard- and software, they prescribe schemes of operations, tasks and responsibilities of the users.

I end up the overview of paradigms with communication studies. In relation to technology and development, communication scholars traditionally rely heavily on the diffusion of innovations theory, since both have strong roots in behavioural sciences. On the other hand, more progressive communication studies - in particular gender-focused research (e.g., Frissen 1997) - take a constructivist approach. This enables communication scholars to study both the contents of ICT messages and the social-technical processes of ICT design, production, acquisition and use.

International communication studies offers many different theories. The variety includes game and other theories on the micro level, through meso models such as theories of global information flows, to macro paradigms like systems theory and political-economy theories (Frederick 1993: 188-207). Considering nowadays international relations, Frederick proposes to develop an integrated theory of global communication. His proposition has rather comparable features as the critical development model and includes the role of civil society (ibid.: 267-275).

I will reflect on the above theoretical paradigms to construct an appropriate model for gender, development and Internetworking (section IV). Before that, I proceed with practice: the WomenAction assessment of the information and communication needs of African women, active in NGOs.
 
 

III. Situation and needs of women’s organizations in Africa

Let me first briefly present the WomenAction case study.

WomenAction case study

It is now five years ago since UN member states adopted a policy document on women’s empowerment, the Platform for Action (PfA), at the fourth UN World Conference on Women in Beijing. Apart from subjects such as health, women’s rights and education, the PfA includes a section on ‘Women and the Media’ (Section J). This section proposes research, funds, skills enhancing, equal access and other actions to counter ‘[...] women’s absence at the top levels of the media industry and gender-based stereotyping. In Africa, lack of access to information has major implications for development. Often, information reaching women, particularly rural women, fails to correspond to their real and practical needs’ (Njambi Wanjama 1996: 13-14). 

In June 2000, the UN monitor the national implementations of the PfA by its member states. NGOs worldwide effectuate a shadow process, producing alternative evaluation reports and lobbying for accelerated implementation. The whole process by UN and NGOs, from 1995 on but gaining momentum in the period 1999-2000, is called the Beijing+5 process. 

To prepare for Beijing+5, a collaboration of UN organizations and NGOs from North and South took the initiative for WomenAction: an electronic platform to support worldwide NGO participation in Beijing+5. It consists of a global and regional websites, databases and discussions on the Internet or through email. The WomenAction mission is to be an information clearinghouse to keep NGOs updated on the Beijing+5 process. Another objective is to be a communication link to involve women in Beijing+5 and to stimulate discussion. Its long-term goal is women’s empowerment, with a special focus on women and media. Ways to achieve all this are training of regional facilitators and lobbying at UN meetings on section J of the PfA (IWTC 1999: 8). 

The African WomenAction partners, however, faced the problem that there were hardly any usable data on African NGO women ICTs. The few available data (e.g., APC Women’s Network Support Program 1997, Huyer 1997, Kole 1998) were either general, not regionally disaggregated or not up-to-date. What kind of information do African women need to participate in Beijing+5? Are they linking up by email or other computer network applications? What are the problems they encounter in electronic networking? What are their training and support needs? Are there differences between women from Anglophone and Francophone Africa? To answer these questions, WomenAction and the APC’s Women Program in Africa executed an electronic survey. 26 Women, mainly from NGOs and other organizations in civil society, returned the email questionnaire. The survey results were used in lobbying at the regional Beijing+5 meeting (APC-Africa-Women and WomenAction 1999). They are also available for WomenAction website design. Future research plans are an electronic evaluation and the assessment of the design process. 

WomenAction research results

The main results of the joint APC-Women-Africa/WomenAction study are:

• 55 To 70% of the respondents work in information, communication, ICTs or the media; or have special Beijing+5 assignments in these areas. They act as intermediaries between the ‘Internet community’ and organizations without computer network access.
• These ICT intermediaries report substantially more Internetworking problems than other organizations. For instance, 68.8% of the organizations ‘facilitating information and communication for Beijing+5’ experience lack of skills in electronic communication, against 16.7% among other organizations (see figure 1). 55% Of the organizations working in the information, communication and/or ICT sector report search problems in information retrieval, while only 9% of other organizations report these problems. 
• In information dissemination, lack of electronic connectivity is the biggest problems. More than half of the respondents (57.1%) state that ‘few’ of their recipients have a connection to a computer network (figure 2). Lack of devices and connections occur mostly among respondents in grassroots/Community-Based Organizations (CBOs).
• Respondents rank email and Internet as the least successful media to reach their grassroots. More traditional means of communication like telephone, postal mail, radio in Anglophone Africa, and in particular face-to-face communication surpass the modern electronic media in grassroots communication effectiveness.
• Most respondents have a full Internet connection and a web browser like Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. Yet, the majority of the respondents lack sophisticated technology features such as frames or plug-in programs to read more advanced webpages. Less than one third of them - including many ICT intermediaries - can use advanced multi-media applications.
• There is a very strong preference for text-based data, while the respondents least desire graphical format. First choice applications to retrieve and disseminate information are ‘email and mailinglists’. Websites are third choice for information dissemination, after ‘newsgroups/discussion groups/Bulletin Board Systems (BBS)’ (figure 3). The latter applications are especially popular among small and Francophone organizations. 
• The women report a multitude of problems, including technical, connectivity, financial, lack of skills, language, access problems, lack of time and more. The average number of problems experienced in one field (equipment, communication, retrieval, repackaging/redistribution or dissemination) is two to three per user. A big half of the respondents (58.3%) experiences problems in all areas (Pearson’s r of the problem scores ranges between 0.738 and 0.904).
• All respondents ask for training and support, in particular non-technical training and on-line available tools. ICT intermediaries express an extra need for training of facilitators and for financial support to redistribute electronic information to other organizations.
• Asked to rank success factors of the WomenAction platform, the respondents first and foremost chose for ‘women-friendliness of the system/information’. This criterion even surpassed factors to ease the work, such as ‘support and training’, ‘a user-friendly system’ and ‘time-saving tools’ scoring high as well.

Disparities between user groups

Despite the low number of questionnaires, some data aggregations into subgroups show noticeable differences: 

• The percentage of small organizations suffering from problems in all areas of electronic networking (communication, equipment, redistribution et cetera) is 71.4, against 42.9% of the medium-sized organizations. The small ones ask for more training, in particular technical training (71.4% against half of the medium-sized organizations). The former attach much value to ‘user-friendliness’ and ‘time-saving tools’ as success factors for WomenAction - whereas medium-sized organizations value ‘cooperation’ and ‘local/regional input’ higher.
• In a comparable way, there are distinct needs and problems among respondents from Francophone and Anglophone Africa. For instance, in East (Anglophone) Africa financial problems are principal while in Francophone Africa the respondents suffer more often from language and connectivity problems. Another example is the strong Francophone preference for ‘research institutes’ and ‘media institutes’ as suppliers of electronic information, whereas the Anglophones require more often information from ‘governmental’ and ‘grassroots organizations’. 
• All female-only organizations experience problems; against only 37.5% of the sex-mixed organizations.

Recommendations

Considering the survey results, the research team formulated 13 recommendations for policy and practice and 6 recommendations for further research. The most important recommendations for practice and policy are:

• multi-disciplinary support/conditions
• availability of (on-line) support tools to ease/speed up the work
• sufficient training, especially non-technical
• extra support for ICT intermediaries and small organizations
• attention for disparities and respecting differences between Anglophone and Francophone users
• appreciation of other computer network applications than the World Wide Web
• links between the Internet platform and other media
• emphasis on text-based information
• raising resources to materialize the above recommendations

• to study experiences of African women coping with problems and limitations
• to assess the implementation of the recommendations in practice - in particular in the global WomenAction website design
• attention for the gendered nature of the problem score

We thus need a theoretical model capable of addressing all these distinct issues. It must address technological and social issues, while integrating both North-South, gender and other differences. Otherwise it cannot be appropriate to the needs and situation of African women in the NGO sector. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I search for appropriate building blocks available from the theories I presented in section II. 
 
 

IV. Reflection: searching for an appropriate paradigm 

Multidisciplinary 

If one thing is unmistakable manifest from the WomenAction case study, it is the fact that Internetworking in Africa is not merely a technical issue. The problems, barriers and envisaged success factors are political, social, economic, juridical and cultural as well. Examples are the lack of money; African women’s high workload and its consequences on tasks like information searching; and the need of support for non-technical issues such as how to use the Internet for activist purposes. The topics at stake thus ask for a model incorporating social issues.

This rules out the diffusion of innovations theory, neglecting the social context (Rogers 1983: 118-126). The theory is further technology-driven because of its ‘pro-innovation bias’ (ibid.: 92-103), an implicit assumption not to reject a new technology. The paradigm associates the latest technologies with ‘progress’ and thereby ignores the contigency of alternative technologies. The WomenAction case data, however, point to the great value that traditional media (face-to-face, telephone, postal mail and radio) have in Africa, next to email and Internet. Even amidst computer network applications, text-based systems are preferred above newer, graphical ones.

As a starting point for an appropriate paradigm, we must therefore reject the technological deterministic innovations-diffusion theory. Yet, the solution seems neither a social determinist model. Notwithstanding all the social aspects influencing Internetworking processes, technology certainly plays its part too - for instance in the long downloading times and in on-line available support tools. The best option is thus a paradigm that is multidisciplinary in nature. 

A good choice are the critical views on development, advocating an interdisciplinary, contextual character (Servaes 1989: 1-3). These approaches study the options to use modern ICTs for local development of the people in the South. At the same time they pay attention to the constraints that the local users experience, following from social structures, including technological products (ibid.: 31-34). Frederick’s integrative model of global communication, including the same features (Frederick 1993: 269), is another candidate paradigm. Another option are constructivist approaches, departing from the mutual influence of society and technological development. 

Social relevance

However, constructivism developed by studying situations in the North. Consequently, there are some gaps that (critical) development studies may fill in; in particular aspects concerning Southern empowerment. Considering the development needs of African WomenAction users, we cannot ignore local participation by developing countries - even if the actual website development takes place elsewhere - and self-reliance within the global constellation. Problems such as ignoring (needs of) future users and lack of money will remain if the model does not address autonomy. The questionnaire respondents themselves emphasize the practical relevance of using the WomenAction survey data for development purposes: 

• ‘J’espere que ce questionnaire aboutira a une action concrete [...]’ (‘I hope that this questionnaire results in a concrete action [...]’);
• ‘Nous vour suggérons ultérieurement de voir en collaboration avec les organisations connectées dans quelle mesure nous pouvons y associer les organisations dont l’aspect institutionnel n’est pas encoire très dévellopé afin qu’elles accèdent elles aussi à l’information’ (‘We further suggest to you to see a collaboration with the connected organizations, in which case we can associate with the organizations where the institutionalization is not yet well developed, so that they also have access to the information’).

This is a legitimate choice in the case of NGO women in Africa, striving to improve their lives, contributing to change gender relations in society, and using the Internet as a tool in this process. The majority of the WomenAction respondents (91.7%) are active in civil society on subjects as women/human rights, environment, education, poverty and health. For these women it is critical that Internetworking adds value to their activist objectives: empowering themselves by learning new skills, supporting their grassroots’ life-improving initiatives by supplying them up-to-date information, establishing electronic coalitions to pressure the implementation of UN gender policy, and so forth. 

But even for ICT intermediaries, whose work focuses on information, communication and ICT as such, a problem-oriented approach is valid. The first reason is to improve their work situation wherein they encounter so many problems. A far more important reason, however, is that they are merely go-betweens. Their information, communication and ICT activities have no other purpose than supporting others, in particular NGOs, in processes of democratization, development and women’s empowerment. This is for instance reflected in the content of the respondents’ websites, containing issues such as ‘women in cyberspace for elections’; ‘African women on the Net for housing’, ‘for refugee issues’; and ‘job and study opportunities’. The global WomenAction website too, is structured along thematic issues like ‘violence’, ‘girl child’, ‘decision-making’, ‘water & sanitation’, ‘disabilities’ and ‘arts/crafts’ - the daily issues of NGO women. Even the PfA Section J activism is ultimately aimed at women’s empowerment. We cannot perceive Internetworking separate from the struggle for women’s advancement. 

A normative position contradicts most of the constructivist studies, that are more or less fatalist in nature. In constructivist views, the circumstances and the relations between actors, social aspects and technology determine the outcome of a technological process. It recognizes that there are no independent criteria for successful technology introduction. This means that, strictly speaking, constructivist scholars see no possibilities for prediction, anticipation and management of technology (Kole 1999: 39). 

Since the 1990s, there is nevertheless a shift in constructivist research. From the deconstruction of technology (how social aspects influence the shaping of a particular technology) some scholars changed towards the social construction of technology (new possibilities of technology and how these influence social relations). Gender and technology studies, for instance, aim to use outcomes from deconstructivist studies to redefine technology and to open options for interventions so that both men and women have equal access to technologies, and equal responsibilities in problem solving (Oudshoorn 1996: 27-34). The dynamic interaction between society and technology thus not only influences the outcome of Internetworking. At the same time it holds the opportunity to manage Internetworking:

One important question remains about a need-oriented approach: Whose needs are we talking about? The target group of the WomenAction questionnaire are women’s organizations connected to the Internet, in particular ICT intermediaries. Among the respondents, only one lacks an email connection and three of them have no full Internet connection. Three quarters of the respondents are NGOs, whereas only 12.5% are grassroots/CBOs. More than half of the WomenAction respondents represent grassroots or other constituencies: 160 on the average, but up to 1580 organizations. We can thus say that the analyzed needs are the intermediaries’ needs. 

The critical development studies, emphasizing basic needs, refer however to grassroots’ needs. There may be a tension between the needs and situations of the grassroots and the NGOs representing them, especially the internationally oriented NGOs. Electronic platforms can be used to improve the lives of the grassroots women (for instance through supplying information on safe water systems). Yet NGOs can equally well use the Internet to strengthen the position of NGOs in the international political arena - and these goals may be contradictory (Kole 2000, Mwangi 1997: 36-39). In the WomenAction partnership, some WomenAction global steering committee’s members blocked the intended participating design of the researcher, in favour of NGO designers. This however resulted in not (directly) translating the African research results into website specifications.

The critical development approach emphasizes that empowerment takes place bottom-up on the local level and control and oppression top-down from the global level. It thus more or less assumes that tensions occur only between the local and global level. Thereby it ignores the power struggles among local and among global players. Focusing strictly on NGO women’s organizations using the Internet as a tool for Beijing+5, this may be a satisfactory view. It is nevertheless not at all adequate if we want to incorporate the empowerment objectives of these NGOs/ICT intermediaries in their claim to represent grassroots and CBO constituencies. To meet this deficiency, an appropriate model must attend to more than one social group on an analytic level. The empirical data support this criterion: The survey finds different situations for separate groups such as ICT intermediaries - end users; sex-mixed organizations - female-only organizations; and small - medium-sized organizations. 

Actors

Constructivist studies, in particular the ANT variant, make this possible. ANT pays attention to the actions of every actor, to all parties involved in the creation and transformation of socio-technical structures. ANT scholars analyze how diverse actors try to realize the (technological) solution they propose to a problem, in a process of negotiation, manipulation, persuasion, representation and mobilization with other actors (Callon 1987: 20-28). In a comparable way, feminist constructivists distinguish between male and female actors, and also between separate groups within the sexes to study gender issues, roles and identities in technology development.

The diffusion of innovations theory classifies actors into five ‘adopter categories’: from innovators via three groups of adopters to the laggards (Rogers 1983: 22). The disadvantage of this approach is of course that the study only involves the adopters of a technology. Diffusion scholars ignore other parties playing a part in the Internet implementation process - such as donor organizations supplying money and usually setting conditions; or grassroots not working with the Internet yet receive reformatted ‘electronic’ information. As a result, the studied diffusion process is not adequate for developing countries. As Díaz Bordenave noticed already in 1976 (in Rogers 1983: 123), more appropriate diffusion questions are for instance: What are the implications of technology diffusion in terms of equal sharing?; Who decides which innovations should be diffused?; and: Who controls the communication sources and channels of innovation-diffusion? These are important questions for the next stage of WomenAction research, on the website design and implementation process.

A second problem with actor classification is that no distinctions can be made within an adopter category. Another critique is that the diffusion of innovations theory perceives adopters as passive recipients. This is far from reality. Even end users may invent new ways of operating a technology. The creative ways of ‘filling in’ the WomenAction email questionnaire in alternative ways illustrates this. Constructivist studies recognize this practice by replacing the user-designer opposition with users being ‘co-producers’ of technology: All actors are actively involved in the (re)construction of a social-technical network, in the integration of a new technology into existing practices, technologies, identities and working relations. In the WomenAction case, the survey respondents (the future users) engage in the website design by expressing their needs explicitly. This is a matter of directing the design in a certain direction rather than writing computer program code. It nevertheless influences the end result and we should therefore not ignore it. 

The constructivist approach to actors enables explicit attention to non-average users, grassroots people and other actors playing a part in Internet introduction and use. If researchers take, for instance, ‘women’ as target group instead of the general category ‘users’, they cannot ignore issues such as a women-friendly design.

Context

The context of an actor group influences Internet issues; think about the distinct WomenAction research results among Francophone and Anglophone women. Context aspects involve politics, legislation, economy and culture but also relate to strictly technical factors. Take for instance the electronic connectivity in Southern Africa - notably South Africa. It has a perfect distribution from ‘50% of recipients connected’ to ‘all recipients connected’ while the other African regions account entirely for the ‘few connected’ score. 

In our search for an appropriate model, we thus need to incorporate the context. The diffusion of innovations theory focuses on individuals (the adopters) rather than the social system in which the diffusion takes place. Although later versions of the model incorporate socio-metric data (Rogers 1983: 110-111), the theory addresses social structures as just one possible variable, and in a harmonious way only. Consequently, diffusion scholars attribute success or failure of technology introduction to individuals within society (‘individual blame bias’) rather than to social structures (ibid.: 106). The model overlooks problems such as lack of education and lack of capital among potential adopters; barriers that are often social in nature. 

Contrarily, the critical visions in development studies, the integrative view on global communication and constructivist approaches all have integrated the social context in their models. Yet they differ a lot in how they approach context. The integrative vision on global communication and development views study the tension between the local and the global level, stressing their distinctness. But are the local and global really separate from each other? Where does the local end and the global begin? And if we see the local and global as distinct, then where is cyberspace in this picture? Let us look at WomenAction once again.

Apart from being an electronic platform, WomenAction is a dynamic partnership, open to all women’s organizations and individuals striving for women’s advancement. Nine organizations initiated WomenAction when they met at the CSW meeting in New York, March 1999. By now, already 31 organizations from all over the world join the initiative. From the African continent, three members partaked in founding WomenAction (IWTC 1999: 8), now five participate. Eleven sites of African women’s organizations link to the Flamme website (this is the Beijing+5 electronic platform for the African region). 32 Women from all over the African continent subscribe to the Flamme discussion/mailinglist. The more Flamme grows, the more it looses its regional character. Among the 56 list members, there are already 5 African subscribers living and working outside the continent and 20 non-African list participants. Further, the more the entire WomenAction platform extends, the more it becomes a global player in the Beijing+5 process. 

In a virtual context such as WomenAction, it is thus hard to speak of separate ‘local’ and ‘global’ levels. The constructivist ANT addresses this issue by perceiving a fluid and dynamic ‘line’ between local and global (Hagendijk 1996: 93-95). The studied socio-technical transformation process starts with ideas (‘actor worlds’) in the minds of actor, for instance a technological solution (website) to a problem (lack of information). Founding WomenAction was such a happening, limited to the micro level (the New York CSW meeting). The successful realization of an actor world results in a so-called ‘actor-network’, a stable network of alliances between human actors and technological parts (Callon 1987). This are the resulting WomenAction electronic platform (websites, discussion groups, databases) and partnerships (lobby alliances, collaborations between WomenAction and the press or UN bodies). WomenAction has gradually developed into a macro-social phenomenon. In this view, the virtual world of Internet is one of the nodes in the WomenAction socio-technical network. 

Contrary to other constructivist approaches, macrostructures and macro relations have a real meaning in ANT. While focusing on the micro actions of actants, the culture transcending local situations may play an important part in shaping these interactions (Hagendijk 1996: 155). I would like to stress this point, to prevent making the same mistake (individual blame bias) as innovations-diffusion scholars.

Dichotomies

The above context discussion points to the constructivist stand to reject dichotomies as given ‘facts’. Scholars from this tradition perceive divides as social constructs. People create separations between micro-macro, local-global, masculine-feminine, technical-social, real world-cyberworld, designer-user and so on. To study technological development, the ANT principle of ‘free association’ tells that the researcher must abandon all a priori distinctions. I however agree with Hagendijk who proposes:

Considering the numerous new insights feminist studies obtained using this approach, its application may prove valuable as well in development divides. I propose researchers start using it for relevant development divides like ‘North-South’ and ‘local-global’. One may for instance study the African preference for mailing/discussion lists as information dissemination media, in relation to the Northern practice to disseminate widely through World Wide Web pages. Is this difference solely based on the technological state-of-the-art or influenced by (attributed) North-South characteristics such as ‘written’ versus ‘oral’ culture? Exploration of the ‘Anglophone-Francophone’ distinction may shed light upon the role of language (problems) in Internetworking; for instance, if/how language influences connectivity. Another example is the dichotomy ‘urban-rural’, in Internetworking in developing countries often running parallel with the NGO-grassroots divide. 
 
 

V. Conclusions

African women, using the Internet for gender activism, have specific information and communication needs - and even among this ‘group’ the needs vary. These users further represent women on the grassroots level without access to computer networks. The Internet situation among African women’s organizations is highly problematic. The WomenAction case data illustrate that an appropriate model must address technological and social issues, and also integrate North-South, gender and other differences. Available theoretical models are not entirely adequate nor complete to do so. Nevertheless, the diverse models offer enough building blocks to jointly construct a more appropriate paradigm for studying Internet, gender and development.

What we can learn especially from the diffusion of innovations theory are the pitfalls. We should not repeat its main theoretical constraints: lack of attention to the context/social influences; ignoring several social groups and disparities within groups; no attention for alternative technologies; and neglect of conflict. The constraints result in non-adequate research questions for a developing country situation. 

Contrarily, critical development studies and the integrative model of global communication integrate context factors. Their scholars pay attention to positive and negative implications of ICTs, and to social issues such as self-reliance and local capacity building. Their problem-directed, normative frameworks are preferable for African women using the Internet for empowerment. However, grassroots representation by ICT intermediaries does not stand out in critical development studies. This is due to the model’s emphasis on the grassroots level; and on tension and interactions between the local and global level - neglecting tensions on the levels themselves.

Constructivist technology studies - including gender and technology research - bring out several usable building blocks: the mutual shaping of technology and society (or of technology and gender); the attention to all social groups involved in Internetworking processes, and to distinctions within groups; and the creative exploration of cultural distinctions, resulting in new insights and more appropriate concepts. The big disadvantage of constructivism is its fatalist nature, ruling out technology management. Yet problem-solving management seems very important to support African NGO women in Internetworking. Gender & technology constructivist studies, on the other hand, counter this deficit by applying the mutual shaping concept to social construction rather than deconstruction. Another added value of the latter studies is the explicit attention to gender issues in technological processes. 

In summary, constructivist and gender technology studies are good starting points to build an appropriate model for African NGO women & Internetworking. This starting point however needs additions to be suitable for the African situation. Critical development studies and Frederick’s proposal for an integrative theory of global communication offer very useful building blocks for this purpose. From a purely theoretical point of view too, the preference for constructivism is a logical one. It is a popular approach in so many fields - the sociology of technology, gender studies, communication studies and now even starting in development studies (Hamelink 1997, Kole 1999) and diffusion studies (McMaster et al. 1997). The choice for a model should, however, always take roots in empirical data - or else it will be inadequate for one situation or another, or for one social group or another. 

In brief, an appropriate model may look as follows:
 
 
 

features	examples
problem-oriented and normative	based on ‘participating democratization’, ‘advancement of women’, ‘appropriate technology’, ‘local capacity building’
departing from the mutual influence of technology and society	implications of social issues (economy, culture, politics, legislation, social relations) on ICT processes (access, decision-making, use, etc.),  implications of ICT processes on society; implications gender issues (identities, relations, power sources, etc.) on Internetworking, implications Internetworking on gender
studying the transformation of the social and technical to realize the emergence of a socio-technical network	negotiations, manipulation, website building, alliances, mobilization of resources, training, electronic tool diffusion
attention for distinct actor groups (including the excluded), distinctions within groups and intermediary roles	donor organizations, ICT implementers, women; relation ICT intermediaries (-users) - grassroots
creatively exploring cultural divides, including specific development dichotomies	‘North-South’, ‘urban-rural’, ‘Anglophone-Francophone’, ’local-global’ - e.g., a fluid and dynamic ‘line’ between local and global

 
 
 

References