Johnstone, Justine

j.e.johnstone@lse.ac.uk

ICT and Development: towards a knowledge-based perspective

It is frequently claimed that proliferating information and communications technologies (ICT), particularly the internet, can significantly benefit developing countries by delivering knowledge gains - access to international research and technical expertise, for instance, but also the ability to develop and make better use of local knowledge resources. A number of frameworks have been proposed that relate knowledge, development and ICT, but they operate at different levels, rarely reference one another and tend to work with intuitive - often oversimplified - concepts of knowledge.

This thesis attempts to draw together the work that has been done in this field and to establish a firmer theoretical basis, grounded on an analysis of knowledge derived from cognitive psychology and contemporary epistemology - particularly the two strands known as process reliabilism and virtue epistemology.

In this analysis knowledge is understood as involving two dimensions, the informational and the conceptual, both of which need to be considered when adopting a knowledge perspective on development and ICT. The empirical work applies these ideas to a case study of a particular ICT/ development context: internet use among civil society AIDS organisations in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. I hope that the case study will serve both as a testing ground for my theoretical work, and as a contribution to greater understanding of how internet technology is in fact being used in development work.

Supervisor: Shirin Madon, PhD

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