Abstract
How can our knowledge of technology, including its design, be used to enhance the capabilities of all people? What is an appropriate technology? Can the choices people make about technology be embedded into the design process? Can the capability approach contribute to sustainable, appropriate technological solutions for development challenges? These are just some of the key questions posed in this chapter. First we position ICT development interventions as a useful vehicle for exploring the added value of the capability approach. Second we introduce the case of podcasting in Zimbabwe to provide a practical example. We explain what a capability approach of such a case would entail. This is then rooted in the appropriate technology movement, to which the capability approach may contribute its theoretical framework. Next, it is discussed how insights and theories from science and technology studies may be helpful in better understanding the complex dynamics between technology and human capabilities. These discussions then lead to a section about technology choice, for which well-being and agency are important considerations. It is argued that deliberate technology choice is the key to answering the questions posed earlier.
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- 1.
A literature review in 2009 – for example – identified 18 publications in this area, of which 13 focused on ICT and 10 more in particular on ICT4D (Oosterlaken 2009).
- 2.
An important distinction in the capability approach is that between functionings and capabilities, or between “the realized [functionings] and the effectively possible [capabilities]; in other words, between achievements on the one hand [functionings], and freedoms or valuable options from which one can choose on the other [capabilities]” (Robeyns 2005).
- 3.
The main sources of information for the case study are documentation of Practical Action about the project, its predecessors and the ideas behind the project (Mika 2009; Gudza 2009; Talyarkhan et al. 2005), fieldwork for his master thesis by one of the co-authors in the period April-August 2010 (Janssen 2010) and experiences of another co-author with the case and its predecessors while working for Practical Action (reflected upon in Grimshaw and Gudza 2010; Grimshaw and Ara 2007).
- 4.
According to Wikipedia “Agricultural extension was once known as the application of scientific research and new knowledge to agricultural practices through farmer education. The field of extension now encompasses a wider range of communication and learning activities organized for rural people by professionals from different disciplines, including agriculture, agricultural marketing, health, and business studies.” But, says Wikipedia, “there is no widely accepted definition of agricultural extension” – the page lists 10 definitions from different sources to illustrate this. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_extension, retrieved on February 11th 2011.
- 5.
Academics like Chambers (1997) conceptualize this as a process of participative learning and action. His approach is grounded in many years of practical experience from which he notes, “local people have capabilities of which outsiders have been largely, or totally, unaware” (Chambers 1997, p. 131).
- 6.
Grimshaw (2004) attempted to relate these criteria to the case of open source software. The main reason for this was to refute the often quoted view that “new technologies” could never be “intermediate technologies”.
- 7.
The example of a car can illustrate this. Basically a car remains just a specific configuration of wires, metal, nuts and bolts and so on, until it is embedded in a network with roads, gas stations, traffic rules, driving schools and the like. Only in such a network could the artefact be understood as a car, with all the powers that cars have. And only then will it be expanding people’s capabilities to move about (Oosterlaken 2011).
- 8.
Note though that, as Elder-Vass (2008) points out, ANT generally denies the causal efficacy of social structures. Yet one could borrow some insights from ANT while still ascribing causal efficacy to three different entities: social structures, humans and technological artefacts.
- 9.
The case can also illustrate ANT’s insight that technical artefacts can be seen as ‘actors’ in the sense that their mere presence or absence makes a difference to the course of events. For example, during the field work a health animator explained the following: “Today I gave a lesson on cholera because it was recorded in the machine” (Janssen 2010, p. 85). Thus, the mere availability of the podcast devices may ‘seduce’ the health animators to be guided by these, while in the absence of the artefacts they would perhaps have come to a decision to distribute a different lesson by word of mouth.
- 10.
See Robeyns (2005, pp. 107–109) for an extensive discussion of different forms of individualism within the capability approach. Note though that Smith and Seward use the term ‘methodological individualism’ in a different way than Robeyns.
- 11.
See amongst others the project evaluation by Mika (2009), which recognizes the legal and regulatory environment with respect to communication technology as a factor that may work against a positive project outcome.
- 12.
How actors perceive a technical or financial problem, for example with either determination to tackle it or a readiness to admit defeat, may in this case have been influenced by the attitude of the powerful President’s office.
- 13.
In her article Kleine (2011) presents not only the determinism continuum, but also her wider approach to operationalizing the work of Sen. To that end, she has developed the Choice Framework, which carefully considers aspects of the context in which technologies are applied. Kleine would thus be the first to agree that her determinism continuum needs to be used without excessive focus on the technology in isolation from the context of application.
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Acknowledgments
This research has been made possible by a grant from NWO (the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research) and the kind collaboration of Practical Action, first and foremost in the person of Lawrence Gudza. We would also like to thank Dorothea Kleine and Sabine Roeser for their useful feedback on an earlier draft of this chapter.
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Oosterlaken, I., Grimshaw, D.J., Janssen, P. (2012). Marrying the Capability Approach, Appropriate Technology and STS: The Case of Podcasting Devices in Zimbabwe. In: Oosterlaken, I., van den Hoven, J. (eds) The Capability Approach, Technology and Design. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3879-9_7
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