Serious Question for CI: Is it the Answer to Most Social Ills?
I have been involved with CI for the past 3 months now, and I am beginning to get used to the ideologies behind CI and the common terms often used by CI faculty, staff, students, and enthusiasts. Terms like community engagement and information technology as well as all the various acronyms like CI, CTCs, CII, and ESLARP just to name a few; I’m actually quite proud of myself for getting the swing of things so quickly. However there is one nagging question in the back of my mind to which I have not found the answer. Behind all the ideologies, terms, and acronyms is a sense that community informatics is a solution to all the social ills that plague communities. I guess, then, that my specific question would be is community informatics the answer to most problems in the community?
The answer, I believe, is yes and no. Yes, because our society is becoming more and more dependent upon technology, especially information technologies for communication. No, because technology cannot solve the problems of poverty, institutionalized racism in the education and justice systems, or homelessness; only community members, special interest and grassroots organizations, and local government officials can truly do that. And yes again, because information technologies bring together all of those groups and can provide tools, such as GIS, to simplify efforts to cure social ills. But no again, because those groups must choose to be actively involved in any project to rid their communities of the specific social ill. I’m not quite sure if you can see my dilemma, but, as a new student trying to piece together some sort of meaning or future direction within the GSLIS program from class work, an assistantship, and extracurricular activities, it is a serious one.
The seriousness of the problem lies in the real issue which is that Community Informatics cannot happen without the community at large. If, for instance, local government officials decide that they are not interested in the issue of poverty within their community, then special interest groups and community members would be left to piece together funding and initiatives without their help. That would mean that a segment of the community would not be likeminded in the sense that they would not be educated on the issue, creating what would become a cacophonous community—a community that is split because some are educated on the issue and agree on initiatives to solve it and some are ignorant of the problem (or the true nature of the problem) and do not know enough information to know how to respond to the proposed initiatives. A cacophonous community is one that is likely to be divided on the issue instead of united in an effort to create a visible and lasting change within the community.
Furthermore, a cacophonous community will make it difficult for any initiative to succeed since the time, talents, and expertise of part of the community will be lacking in any projects to come from an initiative that is not totally supported by the community at large. I call it a cacophonous community because the community is not just divided on what action to take against a specific social ill (if any is to be taken), but the mentality and attitude of the entire community on the issue is divided in a way that it creates an atmosphere of disunity within the community at large. This is the Achilles Heel of CI, one that I think GSLIS CI enthusiasts may take for granted in the relatively forward thinking and privileged community of Urbana-Champaign.
This issue creates a new question, one that is more important than whether or not community informatics is the answer to most problems in the community: can Community Informatics happen in a community when the community is a cacophonous community? Within this question lies a host of other questions, such as can community informatics happen when state government officials do not support or desire to fund initiatives by community members to cure social ills? Or when rural areas of a community are located an hour away from the urban areas where special interest and grassroots organizations often forget about them? At what point is it impossible for CI to happen?
When I started this post, I honestly admitted that I did not have an answer to the initial question. The reason I find it difficult to come to a positive conclusion is because I cannot answer these later questions. However, in my short time at GSLIS I have come to realize that the best way to answer this question is to continue to do what I am doing right now. I need to continue to take CI courses that interest me, attend interesting lectures about CI, work closely with those involved in CI, ask faculty and staff about their experiences, collaborate with peers to work on CI projects, and stay involved in the CI Club. Only when I can understand how CI works in an area with high community involvement can I begin to understand how CI might work in a cacophonous community; I believe there is an answer. I just don’t think I’ve found that answer yet.
–Noelle Williams
October 19th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Noelle, thanks so much for these thoughts. I think there is an inevitable tension in community informatics that we must always be aware of and reflective about. The “cacophonous” community–an excellent phrase–is complex and probably inevitable, but how one responds to the cacophony is central to partnerships and real impact. Although I think evaluation is important, I am not sure we ever really know whether we “succeed.” On another, less important, level, I think we need a place on the CII website that identifies the alphabet soup of CII.
October 20th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
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