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Information Technology for Development

Author ORCID Identifier

Anuradha Ganapathy: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-8464-9121

Richard Heeks: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4551-2208

Gianluca Iazzolino: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4153-1521

Abstract

Even though the field of ICT4D (information and communication technologies for development) has had a long-standing interest in understanding the relationship between ICTs, inclusion, and inequalities, the topic has not yet been reviewed systematically to date. We lack a comprehensive understanding of how these concepts have evolved, the emerging contestations in this space, and the implications they have for future research and practice in the area of equitable digital futures. In response to this gap, this paper provides a critical review of the ICT4D literature on digital inclusion and inequalities via a review of 77 articles on this topic. Our findings suggest that digital inclusion theorisations have matured beyond access-only, techno-determinist and universalist understandings of ICTs to embrace more socially embedded and human-centric approaches. However, important limitations remain, key amongst them being what we conceptualise as a “paradigm lag” in theorisation, i.e., where the literature continues to predominantly engage with how to maximise the development benefits of ICTs, while the more complex and politicised dynamics associated with newer modalities of the ICT4D paradigm, such as digital enforcements, data extractivism, and surveillance, continue to be underexplored. Overall, the paper emphasises the need to foster critical but also generative ICT4D scholarship that can strengthen evidence for positive structural transformation.

DOI

10.17705/1ITD.032208

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