Author ORCID Identifier
Jean Hardy: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3877-8208
Abstract
This paper examines how rural communities in the United States are made and make themselves legible to opportunities in the high-tech economy. Drawing on the concept of economic legibility, I develop a case study based on two years of ethnographic research on the high-tech economy in a remote region of the rural Midwest. Through ethnographic evidence, this paper argues that legibility does not reside within a passive set of assets but is actively formed in an ongoing relational process developed by internal and external actors across multiple scales. Rural communities cultivate legibility both through utilizing existing assets (e.g., digital infrastructure, higher education partnerships, local leadership) and working towards developing needed assets (e.g., entrepreneurial culture, tech workforce, investment capital) to become viable participants in the high-tech economy. By examining how legibility can be understood as co-constituted rather than imposed from outside, this paper challenges traditional power dynamics in development frameworks and offers implications for how ICTD research can better examine the relationship between rural communities and high-tech economic opportunities. The findings provide a nuanced understanding of how rural places negotiate their participation in contemporary economic development, balancing regional identity preservation with technological transformation while maintaining agency in determining which aspects of the high-tech economy best serve their development goals.
Recommended Citation
Hardy, J.
(In press).
Legibility & Rural Development in the American High-Tech Economy.
Information Technology for Development.
Available at:
https://aisel.aisnet.org/itd/vol32/iss1/16