[p2p-research] Call for Papers -- Linking the Local with the Global within Community informatics -- Journal of Community Informatics

[Michel Bauwens]

*Journal of Community Informatics:*

*Call for Papers for Special issue on Linking the Local with the Global
within Community Informatics*
* *
*Guest editors: Liisa Horelli and Douglas Schuler*

The Journal of Community Informatics
(*http://ci-journal.net)<http://ci-journal.net/>
* is a focal point for the communication of research of interest to a global
network of academics, Community Informatics practitioners and national and
multi-lateral policy makers.
We invite submissions of original, unpublished articles for a forthcoming
special edition of the Journal that will focus on Linking the Local with the
Global within Community Informatics. We welcome research articles from
different disciplines, case studies and notes from the field. All research
articles will be double blind peer-reviewed. Insights and analytical
perspectives from practitioners and policy makers in the form of notes from
the field or case studies are also encouraged. These will not be
peer-reviewed.
* *
*What is Community Informatics?*

Community informatics* *

*...links economic and social development efforts at the community level
with emerging opportunities in such areas as electronic commerce, community
and civic networks and telecentres, electronic democracy and
online-participation, self-help and virtual health communities, advocacy,
cultural enhancement, and e-planning among others.*

*...is concerned with carving out a sphere and developing strategies for
precisely those who are being excluded from this ongoing rush, and enabling
these individuals and communities to take advantage of some of the
opportunities which the technology is providing. It is also concerned with
enhancing civil society and strengthening local communities for
self-management and for environmental and economically sustainable
development, ensuring that many who might otherwise be excluded are able to
take advantage of the enormous opportunities the new technologies are
presenting.*
* *

- Michael Gurstein in *Community Informatics: *

*Enabling Communities with Information and Communications*
* *
*Why a special issue on Linking Local with the Global within Community
Informatics?*

Community informatics (CI) is the study and practice of information and
communication systems (especially involving networked digital systems) in
the community. Regardless of the agreement on the broad definition, there
are inherent tensions within the CI community and with the CI perspective
itself. The "simple" idea of community is the source of one tension since
there are a multiplicity of definitions and usages of the word "community",
many of which are semantically loaded or ambiguous. Is, for example, a
"virtual community" a *real* community?

Another source of tension is between the local and the global, the focus of
this special issue. What's *local* and what's *global*? What is their
significance in terms of our focus on "community"? How do we define the two
terms so that they are meaningful and useful to our work? Perhaps these
terms distract us from conceptualizing our enterprise in ways that are more
useful? What characterizes phenomena or artifacts as belonging to one or the
other (and how do they influence each other)? Interestingly, the community
of community informatics researchers, practitioners, and activists itself is
part of a new hybridity that blurs local and global.

The term glocalization has been coined to focus on the intermixing of local
and global influences which are present and active everywhere. Although the
phenomenon is not new, it has intensified in recent years due to the
Internet, mass communications, mobile telephones, air travel, war,
migration, economic interdependence, environmental impacts, and other
aspects of 21st century mobilities. But identifying and naming a phenomenon
is only the beginning. We must not mistake our use of a new term for
understanding. For example, how would glocalization help us understand a
network of local communities?

The availability of urban and community ICT could allow people to understand
the larger impacts of their everyday decisions. It could also enable people
to understand and promote not only the particularities of the local but also
commonalities of the global, and to engage with the broader global “sphere”.
Consequently, people could become actors who are engaged in the *glocal
networks* of mobile people, goods and information.

However, glocal influence or interaction could be directed from the
top-down, laterally, or from the bottom-up. CI implicitly embraces the
tension between the local and the global. On some level, global and local
pit two types of forces against each other. How does CI consider this clash
or intermingling of forces? Does it advocate larger barriers, shelters, or
hiding places, from these forces or does it inspire or promote the type of
collective intelligence that goes beyond "using ICT?" The recent debate on
the CI-research list brought up the idea that CI could be used, in addition
to the benefit of communities, to the benefit of global communities. This
debate raised arguments that both supported and questioned the claim. On the
one hand, there is the risk that glocalisation can dilute (and downgrade)
the "community" to some larger (and less individually significant) whole. In
that case, it may be important to preserve the 'local' as it maintains the
community's domains of control and power over the circumstances that impacts
it. It can be reasoned that greater globality essentially removes
self-control and self-governance.

On the other hand, glocalisation provides new strategic options for
movements who seek resources and support far beyond national boundaries,
such as the Chiapas, in Mexico. The global opportunities even begin to play
part in the way local activists frame the issues they raise locally. Thus,
the "outside world" affects communities, but communities exert forces
outwards as well. Local communities can also share experiences and
strategies, thus mutually strengthening each other. We need to figure out,
how we are going to make the glocal or translocal connections work most
effectively. This special issue is intended to help surface the
opportunities, challenges, and risks around this theme.

These issues give rise to a large number of research questions. Some of
these are listed below but there are many yet to be identified and
researched. What processes underlie the forces of globalization? Which are
forces of localization? How are people affected by each? How do these forces
originate, diffuse, and make their effects felt? Do these forces affect all
communities equally or are gender, ethnicity, or other features significant
factors? And what should CI researchers / practitioners do in relation to
those forces? Is the issue trying to help communities use ICT more
effectively, or is it working in a general way to develop communication
systems that will help local communities intelligently address the problems
that they (and the rest of the world) face? In some situations, for example,
this means helping to develop collective problem-solving tools so people can
more effectively resist oppression or fight the status quo. Or should their
inhabitants be full citizens of the world with the rights and
responsibilities that accompany that status? How can we characterize the new
diversity of global / local relationships? What patterns exist? In what ways
might (hyper?) localism breed parochialism and isolationism? Can we embrace
CI without unnecessarily valorizing the local community? What are the
opportunities (and what should the limits be) to our research and activism
on behalf of and with the local community?

Because CI is a brand new field of research and practice we have the rare
opportunity to define our field. Is it useful — or even possible — to
conceptualize a social enterprise that is relevant today without explicitly
acknowledging climate change, environmental degradation, oppression,
poverty, human rights, war and militarism, and other "global" problems that
face us all, however indirectly. How should these manifest "global" concerns
be factored into our enterprise? And how does the role of information and
communication, the foundations of our enterprise, change — if at all — the
way we answer these questions? This positioning of our enquiry at such a
point should enable a new set of opportunities. CI integrates research and
engagement. So its view of localism and globalism needs to be informed
through those perspectives.

We invite authors to submit in English both full articles for peer-review,
as well as short pieces on specific experiences and/or policy and regulatory
issues, to be reviewed by the guest editors.
* *
*Please note the deadlines:*
Deadline for abstracts: 28 February 2010
Deadline for submissions: 30 May 2010
Publication date is forthcoming

*For information about submission requirements, including author guidelines,
please visit:*
*
http://www.ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions
*
* *
*For further information, clarifications, comments or suggestions, and to
send abstracts of papers for consideration, please contact:*

Dr. Liisa Horelli
Helsinki University of Technology
Centre for Urban and Regional Studies
liisa.horelli at tkk.fi

Douglas Schuler
The Public Sphere Project and The Evergreen State College
douglas at publicsphereproject.org


-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org

Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20091221/d7fac6bb/attachment-0001.html>