Gender and the Information Revolution in Africa

The revolution in information and communication technologies (ICTs) has vast implications for the developing world, but what tangible benefits has it bought, when issues of social inclusion and exclusion, particularly in the developing world, remain at large? In addition, the gender digital divide is growing in the developing world, particularly in Africa - so what does ICT mean to African women? African Women and ICTs explores the ways in which women in Africa utilize ICTs to facilitate their empowerment; whether through the mobile village phone business, through internet use, or through new career and ICT employment opportunities. Based on the outcome of a extensive research project, this timely books features chapters based on original primary field research undertaken by academics and activists who have investigated situations within their own communities and countries. The discussion includes such issues as the notion of ICTs for empowerment and as agents of change, ICTs in the fight against gender-based violence, and how ICTs could be used to re-conceptualize public and private spaces. ICT policy is currently being made and implemented all over Africa, but the authors argue that this is happening mostly in the absence of clear knowledge about the ways gender inequality and ICTs are impacting each other and that by becoming alert to a gender dimension in ICT developments at an early stage of the information revolution, we may be able to prevent greater scaled undesirable effects in the future.

The contributors use a variety of theoretical approaches to analyze how women as a class have experienced specific twentieth-century revolutions. They identify the issues that prompted women to participate in the struggles, the roles they played, the contributions they made, and their hopes for better lives for themselves as women in the post-revolutionary society.

What is the link between information communication technology and women's empowerment in today's development context? How can ICT facilitate the pursuit of a better world? Exploring the rich complexity of the contexts in which they live and work, the authors of Women and ICT in Africa and the Middle East offer a multitude of perspectives and experiences, avoiding simplistic answers and solutions. Based on analyses from twenty-one research teams in fourteen countries, this much-needed, human-centred contribution to the fields of gender, development and information communication technology questions, demonstrates and suggests what it takes to wield the emancipatory potential of ICT.

Extrait de la couverture : " The revolutionary movements covered in this book occurred in: Algeria, Kenya, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. The book describes and analyzes the nature and impact of women's participation in these revolutionary movements. How did these revolutionary movements define women's liberation? What is the linkage between feminist theories of liberation and national liberation? Did the national liberation movements betray women? And what has been the fate of the original commitments (and impulses) toward women's liberation and gender equality?"

This book brings together conceptual debates on the impact of youth-hood and gender on state building in Africa. It offers contemporary and interdisciplinary analyses on the role of protests as an alternative route for citizens to challenge the ballot box as the only legitimate means of ensuring freedom. Drawing on case studies from seven African countries, the contributors focus on specific political moments in their respective countries to offer insights into how the state/society social contract is contested through informal channels, and how political power functions to counteract citizen’s voices. These contributions offer a different way of thinking about state-building and structural change that goes beyond the system-based approaches that dominate scholarship on democratization and political structures. In effect, it provides a basis for organizers and social movements to consider how to build solidarity beyond influencing government institutions. Chapters 3, 5, and 6 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.