Journal:Critical questions for community informatics in practice from an ethical perspective

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Full article title Critical questions for community informatics in practice from an ethical perspective
Journal The Journal of Community Informatics
Author(s) Wolske, Martin; Rhinesmith, Colin
Author affiliation(s) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Simmons College
Primary contact crhinesmith at simmons dot edu
Year published 2016
Volume and issue 12(3)
Page(s) 236—242
DOI None
ISSN 1721-4441
Distribution license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5
Website http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/1325
Download http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/1325/1236 (PDF)
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Preamble

Community informatics (CI) in practice informs and equips individuals and groups in geographic communities to advance the agency of constituents.[a] Information and communication technologies (ICT) are selected, designed, and implemented in ways that are consistent with constituents’ own values and goals. This approach includes recognition that ICT non-use may also be appropriate, particularly when the use of ICTs would contradict constituents’ values and goals. Community informatics practice seeks to make “effective use” of technology[2] to support community development projects in ways that advance a sustainable approach to community enrichment and power.[3] CI practice integrates participatory design of information technology resources, popular education, and asset-based development to enhance quality of life.[4] However, without its own set of ethical guidelines and practice standards, CI remains underdeveloped as a field of practice.[3]

Collaboratively developed through three years of conference workshops, this set of guiding critical questions seeks to further promote ethical practice in CI. This document serves as a complement to the researcher-focused "Code of Ethics for Community Informatics Researchers"[5] and expands upon the "Ethics of Community Informatics Research and Practice" pattern card.[6] While there often is overlap between research and practice, community informatics is increasingly informing projects undertaken by those who do not primarily identify as academic or career researchers but who do important work at the intersection of information, technology, and society at the community level. Therefore, this document also serves as a complement to the codes of ethics and standards of practice for community-centered professions such as social work, urban planning, public health, and library, archival, and information science.

These guiding critical questions affirm the need to state social justice principles more explicitly in community informatics. Unequal power relations will always be a factor, and CI practice can benefit from guidelines to ensure these relationships are more equitable. The groups that comprise communities are not homogeneous, nor singular[7], and include nonhuman residents.[8][9] On the other hand, individuals belong to multiple, intersecting communities[7][10]; this includes those with leadership roles in CI projects. Power relations exist within and between communities, and they are ever changing. Further, knowledge of the world is socially constructed within specific historical and social contexts that are fundamentally mediated by power relations. Facts are always determined by some degree of ideological inscription.[11] Power inequalities and other injustices in practices, relationships, and social systems can only be confronted by leveraging group difference as a resource for dialogue comprised of both shared action and reflection.[7]


Footnotes

  1. ↑ Throughout this document, we use Stoecker’s[1] distinction between constituency (that is, “people who have important life experience in common”) and community (that is, “a collectivity in a local setting whose members interact in many different ways that results in the mutual enhancement and sustainability of the collectivity and its constituents”).

References

  1. ↑ Stoecker, R. (2014). "What if?". All Ireland Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 6 (1). http://www.aishe-j.org/?page_id=137. 
  2. ↑ Gurstein, M. (2003). "Effective use: A community informatics strategy beyond the digital divide". First Monday 8 (12). http://firstmonday.org/article/view/1107/1027. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Stoecker, R. (2005). "Is community informatics good for communities? Questions confronting an emerging field". The Journal of Community Informatics 1 (3). http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/183/129. 
  4. ↑ Campbell, N.D.; Eubanks, V. (2004). "Community Informatics as a Pathway to Social Change". Brillo Magazine. Archived from the original on 17 March 2005. https://web.archive.org/web/20050317102659/http://www.brillomag.net/COPC/CI/index.html. 
  5. ↑ Averweg, U.; O'Donnell, S. (2007). "Code of ethics for community informatics researchers". The Journal of Community Informatics 3 (1). http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/441/307. 
  6. ↑ Stoecker, R.. "Ethics of community informatics research and practice". Public Sphere Project. http://www.publicsphereproject.org/node/266. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Young, I.M. (1997). "Difference as a resource for democratic communication". In Bohman, J.; Rehg, W.. Deliberative Democracy: Essays in Reason and Politics. MIT Press. pp. 383–406. ISBN 9780262522410. 
  8. ↑ Leopold, A. (1949). "The Land Ethic". A Sand County Almanac. Ballantine Books. 
  9. ↑ Kimmerer, R.W. (2013). "Learning the Grammar of Animacy". Braiding Sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions. ISBN 9781571313355. 
  10. ↑ "Introduction". Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition Against Multiple Oppressions. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2003. pp. 1–39. ISBN 9780742514591. 
  11. ↑ Kincheloe, J.L.; McLaren, P. (2005). "Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research". In Denzin, N.K.; Lincoln, Y.S.. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research. SAGE Publications. pp. 303–342. ISBN 9780761927570. 

Notes

This presentation is faithful to the original, with only a few minor changes to presentation. In some cases important information was missing from the references, and that information was added. A few minor capitalization and punctuation changes were also made. In a case or two, the original URL no longer works, and an alternative or archived version was used.

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