Abstract
This paper addresses the importance of using a power perspective to understand the social impact of technology in society. We use the Foucauldian concept of technologies-of-the-self to highlight the dialectical relationship between dominating structures of power and the individual capabilities of human actors, as mediated through technology, within a given context. This is done by studying the use of an mHealth intervention by health workers within a PHC (primary health care) centre in India. The study generates theoretical implications for understanding the processes of empowerment through technology within a developing country context.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Agarwal, S., Perry, H., Long, L., Labrique, A.: Evidence on feasibility and effective use of mHealth strategies by frontline health workers in developing countries: systematic review. Tropical Med. Int. Health 20, 1003–1014 (2015)
Bloomfield, B.: Power, machines and social relations: delegating to information technology in the national health service. Organization 2, 489–518 (1995)
Braun, R., Catalani, C., Wimbush, J., Israelski, D.: Community health workers and mobile technology: a systematic review of the literature. PLoS ONE 8, e65772 (2013)
Carmichael, S., et al.: Use of mobile technology by frontline health workers to promote reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition: a cluster randomized controlled Trial in Bihar, India. J. Glob. Health 9, 0204249 (2019)
Chib, A., Lwin, M., Ang, J., Lin, H., Santoso, F.: Midwives and mobiles: using ICTs to improve healthcare in Aceh Besar, Indonesia. Asian J. Commun. 18, 348–364 (2008)
Doolin, B.: Information technology as disciplinary technology: being critical in interpretive research on information systems. J. Inf. Technol. 13, 301–311 (1998)
Fornet-betancourt, R., Becker, H., Gomez-Müller, A., Gauthier, J.: The ethic of care for the self as a practice of freedom. Phil. Soc. Criticism 12, 112–131 (1987)
Glenton, C., Scheel, I., Pradhan, S., Lewin, S., Hodgins, S., Shrestha, V.: The female community health volunteer programme in Nepal: decision makers’ perceptions of volunteerism, payment and other incentives. Soc. Sci. Med. 70, 1920–1927 (2010)
Gopalan, S., Mohanty, S., Das, A.: Assessing community health workers’ performance motivation: a mixed-methods approach on India’s Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) programme (2012)
Hampshire, K., et al.: Who bears the cost of ‘informal mhealth’? Health-workers’ mobile phone practices and associated political-moral economies of care in Ghana and Malawi. Health Policy Plan. 32(1), 34–42 (2017)
Ilozumba, O., Dieleman, M., Kraamwinkel, N., Van Belle, S., Chaudoury, M., Broerse, J.: “I am not telling. The mobile is telling”: factors influencing the outcomes of a community health worker mHealth intervention in India. PLOS ONE 13, e0194927 (2018)
Trust, K.: Karuna Trust Annual Report. Karuna Trust, Bangalore (2020)
Kelly, M.: Foucault, subjectivity, and technologies of the Self. In: Falzon, C., O’Leary, T., Sawicki, J. (eds.) A Companion to Foucault, pp. 510–525. Blackwell Publishing Limited (2013)
Kemp, P., Dreyfus, H., Rabinow, P., Foucault, M.: Michel Foucault. Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. History and Theory, vol. 23, p. 84 (1984)
Maes, K.: “Volunteers are not paid because they are priceless”: community health worker capacities and values in an aids treatment intervention in urban ethiopia. Med. Anthropol. Q. 29, 97–115 (2014)
Markula, P.: The technologies of the self: sport, feminism, and foucault. Sociol. Sport J. 20, 87–107 (2003)
Modi, D., et al.: Cluster randomized trial of a mHealth intervention “ImTeCHO” to improve delivery of proven maternal, neonatal, and child care interventions through community-based Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) by enhancing their motivation and strengthening supervision in tribal areas of Gujarat, India: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials 18 (2017)
Mukherjee, A.: Understanding empowerment through technology driven power structures: Case from mother and child tracking system in India. In: International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) 9.4, Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Negembo (2015)
Naik, P., Shilpa, D., Shewade, H., Sudarshan, H.: Assessing the implementation of a mobile App-based electronic health record: a mixed-method study from South India. J. Educ. Health Prom. 9, 102 (2020)
Nimmagadda, S., et al.: Effects of an mHealth intervention for community health workers on maternal and child nutrition and health service delivery in India: protocol for a quasi-experimental mixed-methods evaluation. BMJ Open 9, e025774 (2019)
Nyemba-Mudenda, M., Chigona, W.: mHealth outcomes for pregnant mothers in Malawi: a capability perspective. Inf. Technol. Dev. 24, 245–278 (2017)
Orlikowski, W.: Using technology and constituting structures: a practice lens for studying technology in organizations. Organ. Sci. 11, 404–428 (2000)
Patel, A., et al.: M‐SAKHI—mobile health solutions to help community providers promote maternal and infant nutrition and health using a community-based cluster randomized controlled trial in rural India: a study protocol. Maternal Child Nutr. 15, e1285 (2019)
Prinja, S., Gupta, A., Bahuguna, P., Nimesh, R.: Cost analysis of implementing mHealth intervention for maternal, newborn & child health care through community health workers: assessment of ReMIND program in Uttar Pradesh, India. BMC Preg. Childbirth 18, 390 (2018)
Ritchie, J., Lewis, J., McNaughton Nicholls, C., Ormston, R.: Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers. Sage Publications, London (2013)
Sahay, S.: Are we building a better world with ICTs? empirically examining this question in the domain of public health in India. Inf. Technol. Dev. 22, 168–176 (2014)
Scott, K., George, A., Ved, R.: Taking stock of 10 years of published research on the ASHA programme: examining India’s national community health worker programme from a health systems perspective. Health Res. Policy Syst. 17, 29 (2019)
Seshadri, T., Madegowda, C., Babu, G., Nuggehalli, S.P.: Implementation research with the soliga indigenous community in Southern India for local action on improving maternal health services. SSRN Electron. J. (2019)
SOCHARA: An external evaluative study of the State Health Resource Centre (SHRC) and the Mitanin Programme. Society for Community Health Awareness, Research and Action, Bangalore (2005)
Som, M.: Volunteerism to incentivisation: changing priorities of mitanins work in Chhattisgarh. Ind. J. Gend. Stud. 23, 26–42 (2016)
Willcocks, L.: Foucault, power/knowledge, and information systems: reconstructing the present. In: Willcocks, L., Mingers, J. (eds.) Social Theory and Philo sophy for Information Systems, pp. 238–296. Wiley Publishing, Chichester (2004)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing
About this paper
Cite this paper
Pandey, P., Zheng, Y. (2020). Power, Technology and Empowerment. In: Bandi, R.K., C. R., R., Klein, S., Madon, S., Monteiro, E. (eds) The Future of Digital Work: The Challenge of Inequality. IFIPJWC 2020. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 601. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64697-4_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64697-4_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-64696-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-64697-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)
