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

[markuspetz]

In ciresearchers@vancouvercommunity.net Doug Schuler wrote
>
>Dear all, a special issue of the Journal of Community Informatics ([
>http://ci-journal.net ]http://ci-journal.net) will be devoted to ´Linking
>the Local with the Global within Community informatics`, guest-edited by
>Liisa Horelli and Doug Schuler.
>
>The Journal of Community Informatics 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. The field of community informatics seeks to explore the
>potentials of ICTs and their applications for economic, ecological and
>socio-cultural development efforts at the community level. It seeks to
>ensure that individuals and communities can take advantage of the
>opportunities that these technologies can provide.
>
>For this special issue of the Journal, we are inviting submission of
>original, unpublished articles. 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.
>
>You can find the full Call for Papers below. Looking forward to hearing
>from you. Warm wishes, Liisa and Doug


Annex


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) 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We invite submissions of original, unpublished articles for a forthcoming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/cie ... ubmissions

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@publicsphereproject.org