Can African youths be Digital Natives?
The workshop is held under the auspices of the “Digital Natives with a Cause?” project, a knowledge programme which is the result of a partnership between the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS, Bangalore) and Hivos (The Netherlands). The programme was initiated a year and a half ago as an inquiry into the emergence of the phenomenon of ‘Digital Natives’ – youth that have grown up in a world of technology and its practices. This study has found relevance in scholarship, NGO and civil society practice and legal and policy infrastructure discourse. The first part of the project started as a scouting study which looked at grey and published literature, grass-root practices and the policies that government and corporate stakeholders were developing around the rise of the Digital Natives.
The scouting study developed a new framework of looking at Digital Natives that challenge the available discourse by identifying knowledge gaps in the field. The primary motivations for both partners involved in the project was to understand the scope and the breadth of this new field and also to look at the potentials for social transformation and political practices in the young peoples’ interaction with digital and internet technologies. The scouting study is available online at http://www.cis-india.org/publications/cis/nishant/dnrep.pdf/view
The project also aims to give digital natives a voice, by incorporating a first-person narrative of the use of technology by youth. A book containing several case studies of varying cultural backgrounds and diverse methodologies will be compiled. The case studies will be the result of 3 workshops, of which the African workshop is the second in the series, that are being conducted across the developing world.
The kickoff workshop was held from 16 -18 August in Taiwan at the Institute of Ethnology at Academia Sinica in Taipei. The workshop, titled ‘Talking Back’ brought together twenty-two Digital Natives from regions as varied as Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Vietnam, Jakarta, India, China, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Moldova and Thailand.
Director of Researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society in India, Nishant Shah, explained the motivation behind the title of the workshop: “What does it mean to Talk Back? Who do we Talk Back against? Are we alone in our attempts or a part of a larger community? How do we use digital technologies to find other peers and stakeholders? What is the language and vocabulary we use to successfully articulate our problems? How do we negotiate with structures of power to fight for our rights? These are the kind of questions that the workshop poses.
”Using an ‘unconference’ methodology, the workshop focused on uncovering ways through which Digital Natives have managed to circumvent authorities in order to make themselves heard. The workshop also dwelt on what kind of support structures need to be developed at global levels for Digital Natives to engage more fruitfully with their immediate environments.
Despite some challenges in the lead up the event that saw some participants blocked from entry into Taiwan, the workshop participants were eager to connect with each other. The result was a ‘secret group chat’ via IM with the missing participants, which was soon coined their coup d’état – and a perfect example of Digital Natives in action.
Ultimately, the workshop provided the chance for Digital Natives to reflect upon their own practice and examine what it means to be a Digital Native in emerging societies in Asia. As Shah concluded, “The workshop was helpful in not only challenging the existing North-West centric understanding of who a Digital Native is, but also threw up new ways of thinking about how the young relate to digital and internet technologies. The conversations that started in the workshop continue online as new exchanges and dialogues happen across time zones and lifestyles.”
The second in the series of workshops will be held in Africa, and is being hosted by the African Commons Project in partnership of CIS and Hivos. Kerryn McKay, director at The African Commons Project, explains: ‘these workshops serve to document the first-person narratives of the digital natives. They also provide exercises through which the participants can learn how to converse meaningfully with other young users of technology in the region.’
A final workshop will be held in Chile, South America in the spring of 2011.
