research-article

Gender and Participation: Critical Reflection on Zenzeleni Networks in Mankosi, South Africa

Authors:

Tigist Shewarega Hussen,

Nicola J. Bidwell,

Carlos Rey-Moreno,

William D. TuckerAuthors Info & Claims

AfriCHI '16: Proceedings of the First African Conference on Human Computer Interaction

Pages 12 - 23

https://doi.org/10.1145/2998581.2998584

Published: 21 November 2016 Publication History

Abstract

This paper unveils the complexity of gender dynamics by reflecting on lessons learned in Zenzeleni Networks and provides a different perspective to notions of "participation" by asking "who participates and how?" The paper employs a feminist conceptual framework, particularly social constructionist theory and intersectionality, to understand women's participation and experience, analyzing multi-layered and intersecting structural injustices that marginalize women's choices, empowerment, scope for agency, and sense of ownership. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions gathered information from women living in Mankosi and women who are working for Zenzeleni Networks, respectively. Results show that gendered power dynamics of the community were reproduced within Zenzeleni Networks. Although women play a key role in the everyday operationalization of Zenzeleni Networks, their role has been considered part of their domestic duties, which results in misrecognition and underrepresentation of their work.

References

[1]

Bina, Agarwal. 2001. Participatory exclusions, community forestry, and gender: An analysis of South Asia and a conceptual framework. World development 29, 10 (Oct 2001), 1623--1648.

[2]

Bibi, Bakare-Yusuf. 2003. Beyond determinism: The phenomenology of African female existence. Changing Cultures: Feminist Africa Journal, 2, African Gender Institute, University of Cape Town.

[3]

Shaowen, Bardzell. and Elizabeth, F. Churchill. 2011. Feminism and HCI: New Perspectives, Special Issue Editors' Introduction. Interacting with Computers, 23, 5, iii--xi.

Digital Library

[4]

Nicola, J. Bidwell, Thomas Reitmaier, Carlos Rey-Moreno, Zukile Roro, Masbule Siya, and Bongiwe Dlutu-Siya. 2013. Timely relations in rural Africa. In Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries (Jamaica, May, 2013). IFIP WG 9.4, 92--106.

[5]

Nicola, J. Bidwell, Masbule Siya, Gary Marsden, William D. Tucker, M. Tshemese, N. Gaven, S. Ntlangano, Simon, Robinson., and Kristen A, Eglinton. 2013. Walking and the social life of solar charging in rural Africa. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 20, 4, Article 22, 33 pages.

Digital Library

[6]

Nicola, J. Bidwell. 2014. Moving the centre to design social media for rural Africa. AI & Society, 1--27.

Digital Library

[7]

Nicola, J. Bidwell, Thomas, Reitmaier, and Kululwa Jampo. 2014. Orality, gender & social audio in rural Africa. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems (Nice, France, May, 2014) COOP, Springer, 225--241.

[8]

Nicola, J. Bidwell, Simon, Robinson. Elina Vartiainen, Matt Jones. 2014. Designing social media for community information sharing in rural South Africa. In Proceedings of SAICSIT 2014 (Centurion, South Africa). ACM, New York, NY, 104.

Digital Library

[9]

Brayton, J. 1997. What makes feminist research feminist? The Structure of Feminist Research within the Social Sciences. http://www.unb.ca/web/PARL/win/feminmethod.htm.

[10]

Ineke Buskens. 2014. Developing the capacity for gender awareness in development research: Some thoughts and suggestions -- A think piece for the IDRC's Information and Networks Team, IDRC: Ottawa.

[11]

Ineke Buskens, and Anne Webb. 2014. Women and ICT in African and the Middle East: Changing Selves and Changing Societies. Zed Books, New York.

Digital Library

[12]

Yaliwe Clarke. 2004. Tradition, marriage and structural violence in urban Zambia, Masters thesis, University of Tromso, Norway.

[13]

Bill Cooke, and Uma Kothari (Eds) 2001. Participation: the New Tyranny?, Zed Books, London, New York.

[14]

Nancy L. Deutsch. 2004. Positionality and the pen: Reflections on the process of becoming a feminist researcher and writer, Qualitative Inquiry. 10, 6, 885--902.

[15]

Paul Dourish, and Genevieve Bell. 2011. Divining a digital future: Mess and mythology in ubiquitous computing. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.

Digital Library

[16]

Marjorie, L. DeVault. 1999. Liberating method: Feminism and social research, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, PA.

[17]

Ayca Ergun, and Aykan Erdemir. 2010. Negotiating insider and outsider identities in the field: "insider" in a foreign land; "outsider" in one's own land, Field Methods. 22, 1, 16--38.

[18]

Greer L. Fox, and Velma MB. Murry. 2000. Gender and families: Feminist perspectives and family research. Journal of Marriage and the Family. 62, 4, 1160--1172.

[19]

Dan, Fowler. 2014. A mesh in Mankosi: A community informatics perspective. Masters thesis, University of London, Royal Holloway, Department of Geography.

[20]

Anita, Gurumurthy. 2004. Gender and ICTs: overview report. University of Sussex, Institute for Development Studies.

[21]

Sandra, Harding. 1996. Feminism, science, and the anti-enlightenment critiques, Women, knowledge, and reality: Explorations in feminist philosophy, 298--320.

[22]

Sandra, Harding. 2004. The Feminist STANDPOINT Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies, Routledge, New York and London.

[23]

Beth, B. Hess. 1990. Beyond dichotomy: drawing distinctions and embracing differences. Sociological Forum, 5, 1, 75--93.

[24]

Patricia, Hill-Collins. 2004. Some Group Matters: Intersectionality, Situated Standpoints, and Black Feminist Thought in Feminist Frontiers, 6th Edition, Boston: McGraw-Hill, 66 --84.

[25]

Caroline, Humphrey. 2007. Insider-outsider: Activating the hyphen. Action Research. 5, 1, 11--26.

[26]

Zoe, Irving. 2008. Gender and Work, in Richardson D., and Robinson V. (Eds), Introducing gender and women's studies, 3rd Edition, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 160--183.

[27]

Laura, Kramer. 2001. Culture and ideology. in L. Kramer, Ed. The sociology of gender. Roxbury, Los Angeles, CA.

[28]

Judith, Lorber and Suzan, A. Farrell. 1991. The social construction of gender. Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA.

[29]

Patricia, McFadden. 2001. Cultural practice as gender exclusion: Experiences from Southern Africa. Discussing Women's Empowerment. SIDA, 58.

[30]

Gertudes Macueve, Judite Mandlate, Lucia Ginger, Polly Gaster, and Esselina Macome. 2009. Women's use of information and communication technologies in Mozambique: a tool for empowerment? in I. Buskens and A. Webb, Eds. African women and ICTs: Investigating technology, gender and empowerment, Zed Books, London and New York, 21--32.

[31]

Nyaboe, Makiya. 2015.African Women Seek Feminism for Survival, The Wide Margin, http://thewidemargin.org/african-woman-seeks-feminism-for-survival/.

[32]

Chandra, T. Mohanty. 1991. Cartographies of Struggle: Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, in Mohanty, C. T., Russo A., and Torres, L. (Eds.) Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, 1-47, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

[33]

Uma Narayan. 1997. Contesting cultures: Westernization, respect for cultures and third-world feminists, in U. Narayan (Ed.), Dislocating cultures: Identities, traditions and third-world feminism. Routledge, New York and London.

[34]

Ada Okoye. 2002. Sharing the citizenship of women: A comparative gendered analysis of the concept of Legal Personhood in Africa. Gender and Women's Studies for Africa's Transformation (Oct 2004).

[35]

Lorraine, H. Radtke, and Henderikus, J. Stam. 1994. Power/gender: Social relations in theory and practice. 13. Sage.

[36]

Kopano Ratele. 2007. Native chief and white headman: A critical African gender analysis of culture. Agenda, 21, 72, 65--76.

[37]

Thomas Reitmaier, Nicola, J. Bidwell, Masbule Siya, William D. Tucker, and Gary Marsden. 2012. Communicating in designing an oral repository for rural African villages. In Proceedings of Information Society Technologies - Africa (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) IST-Africa. IIMC, UK.

[38]

Carlos Rey-Moreno, William D.Tucker, Nicola, J. Bidwell, Zukile Roro, Masbule J. Siya, and Javier Simo-Reigadas. 2013. Experiences, challenges and lessons from rolling out a rural WiFi mesh network. In Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Symposium on Computing for Development (Bangalore, India). ACM, New York, NY, Article 11, 10 pages.

Digital Library

[39]

Carlos Rey-Moreno, Marie J. Ufitamahoro, Venter, I. M. and William D. Tucker. 2014. Co-designing a billing system for voice services in rural South Africa: Lessons learned. In Proceedings of the Fifth ACM Symposium on Computing for Development (San Jose, CA),. ACM, New York, NY, 83--92.

Digital Library

[40]

Carlos, Rey-Moreno, Renette Blignaut, Julian May, and William D. Tucker. 2015. An in-depth study of the ICT ecosystem in a South African rural community: unveiling expenditure and communication patterns. Information Technology for Development, in press.

Digital Library

[41]

Carlos Rey-Moreno, C., Amalia G. Sabiescu, Masbulele J. Siya, and William D. Tucker. 2015. Local ownership, exercise of ownership and moving from passive to active entitlement: A practice-led inquiry on a rural community network. The Journal of Community Informatics, 11, 2.

[42]

Carlos Rey-Moreno, William D. Tucker, Dominic Cull, and Rolf, Blom. 2015. Making a community network legal within the South African regulatory framework. In Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (Singapore) ICTD '15. ACM, New York, NY, Article 57.

Digital Library

[43]

Kentaro, Toyama. 2015. Geek heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology. PublicAffairs, US.

[44]

William D. Tucker, Edwin, H. Blake, Gary Marsden, Murray Pearson, and Rudi Westerveld. 2007. Reflection on three years of rural wireless Internet Protocol communication. In Proceedings of the Southern African Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (Mauritius: Telkom), SATNAC, 452--457.

[45]

William D. Tucker, and Edwin H. Blake. 2008. The role of outcome mapping in developing a rural telemedicine system. In Proceedings of Information Society Technologies - Africa (Windhoek, Namibia) IST-Africa, IIMC, UK.

[46]

Karin Widerberg. 2007. Among "The Others": Migration and gender and the ethnographic approach. University of York.

[47]

Nana, Wilson-Tagoe. 2007. Representing culture and identity: African women writers and national cultures. Feminist Africa, 2.

[48]

Alison Wylie. 2004. Why Standpoint Matters, in Feminist STANDPOINT Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies, Routledge, New York and London.

[49]

Robert Wyrod. 2008. Between women's rights and men's authority: Masculinity and shifting discourses of gender difference in urban Uganda. Gender & Society, 22,6,799-823.

Cited By

Bühler MCalzada ICane IJelinek TKapoor AMannan MMehta SMookerje VNübel KPentland AScholz TSiddarth DTait JVaitla BZhu J(2023)Unlocking the Power of Digital Commons: Data Cooperatives as a Pathway for Data Sovereign, Innovative and Equitable Digital CommunitiesDigital10.3390/digital30300113:3(146-171)Online publication date: 29-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.3390/digital3030011
Bühler MCalzada ICane IJelinek TKapoor AMannan MMehta SMicheli MMookerjee VNübel KPentland AScholz TSiddarth DTait JVaitla BZhu J(2023)Data Cooperatives as Catalysts for Collaboration, Data Sharing, and the (Trans)Formation of the Digital CommonsSSRN Electronic Journal10.2139/ssrn.4413371Online publication date: 2023
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4413371
Jiyane G(2021)Recounting the Empowerment of Women in Rural Areas of KwaZulu-Natal from Information and Knowledge in the Fourth Industrial Revolution EraLibri10.1515/libri-2019-019771:1(41-50)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2021
https://doi.org/10.1515/libri-2019-0197
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Gender and Participation: Critical Reflection on Zenzeleni Networks in Mankosi, South Africa
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing and business

Recommendations

Moving towards Accommodating Women with ICT: Paying Attention to Self-inclusion Mechanisms
Interacción '15: Proceedings of the XVI International Conference on Human Computer Interaction

Recent developments of new information and communication technologies, as well as feminisms, are essential for understanding the major changes in our societies today. Feminist research of technology, traditionally, has been focused on explaining the ...
An empirical investigation on the challenges faced by women in the software industry: a case study
ICSE-SEIS '22: Proceedings of the 2022 ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society

Context: Addressing women's under-representation in the software industry, a widely recognized concern, requires attracting as well as retaining more women. Hearing from women practitioners, particularly those positioned in multi-cultural settings, ...
Feminism! What Is It Good For? The Role of Feminism and Political Self-Efficacy in Women’s Online Political Participation

Despite initial hopes for more egalitarian access to democracy, research has shown that political participation on the Internet remains as stratified as its offline counterpart. Gender is among the characteristics affecting an individual’s degree of ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

AfriCHI '16: Proceedings of the First African Conference on Human Computer Interaction

November 2016

279 pages

ISBN:9781450348300

DOI:10.1145/2998581

Copyright © 2016 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

In-Cooperation

University of Pretoria: University of Pretoria
University of Cape Town
SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 21 November 2016

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed limited

Funding Sources

CONFINE Integrated Project FIRE

Conference

AfriCHI'16

AfriCHI'16: African Conference for Human Computer Interaction

November 21 - 25, 2016

Nairobi, Kenya

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

5
Total Citations
View Citations
181
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)12
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1

Reflects downloads up to 12 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Bühler MCalzada ICane IJelinek TKapoor AMannan MMehta SMookerje VNübel KPentland AScholz TSiddarth DTait JVaitla BZhu J(2023)Unlocking the Power of Digital Commons: Data Cooperatives as a Pathway for Data Sovereign, Innovative and Equitable Digital CommunitiesDigital10.3390/digital30300113:3(146-171)Online publication date: 29-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.3390/digital3030011
Bühler MCalzada ICane IJelinek TKapoor AMannan MMehta SMicheli MMookerjee VNübel KPentland AScholz TSiddarth DTait JVaitla BZhu J(2023)Data Cooperatives as Catalysts for Collaboration, Data Sharing, and the (Trans)Formation of the Digital CommonsSSRN Electronic Journal10.2139/ssrn.4413371Online publication date: 2023
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4413371
Jiyane G(2021)Recounting the Empowerment of Women in Rural Areas of KwaZulu-Natal from Information and Knowledge in the Fourth Industrial Revolution EraLibri10.1515/libri-2019-019771:1(41-50)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2021
https://doi.org/10.1515/libri-2019-0197
Bidwell NDensmore Mvan Zyl ABelur SPace NTellioglu HTeli MNathan L(2019)Artful Integrations of Infrastructures by Community-based TelecomsProceedings of the 9th International Conference on Communities & Technologies - Transforming Communities10.1145/3328320.3328375(331-335)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3328320.3328375
Karusala NBhalla AKumar NHarrison SBardzell SNeustaedter CTatar D(2019)Privacy, Patriarchy, and Participation on Social MediaProceedings of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3322276.3322355(511-526)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3322276.3322355

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents