Abstract
ICT4D research is strongly oriented to practice but hardly ever explicitly uses the research paradigm of pragmatism. We argue that, though highly-relevant to ICT4D, pragmatism suffers some shortcomings in terms of its philosophy of the world, explanatory power, truth-testing, and values. We suggest that “pragmatist-critical realism” – a novel research paradigm combining pragmatism and critical realism – can address these shortcomings and provide a valuable foundation for ICT4D research; particularly action-oriented research. We outline a four-step operational methodology for pragmatist-critical realism based on a research project that created an “e-resilience” action plan applying ICTs to strengthen resilience of farming communities in Uganda. We hope other action- and design-oriented ICT4D researchers will be encouraged to assess whether pragmatist-critical realism could form a useful basis for their future research.
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Notes
- 1.
Notably eight of the eleven items linking ICT4D research to the philosophy of pragmatism were from South Africa-based authors.
- 2.
Some authors go further and interpret this as a metaphysical commensurability e.g. “Dewey [7] describes pragmatism to be based on both realist and idealist metaphysics. Pragmatism accepts things and events as existing independent of any observers, but at the same time emphasizes reason and thought as originators of elements in the external world. Goles and Hirschheim [13] describe pragmatism as taking a middle or dual position between positivist and interpretivist ontologies.” [12: p. 141].
- 3.
Material here on critical realism summarises from Heeks and Wall [16], which should be referred to for further detail.
- 4.
We also believe that a realism-based approach to ICT4D work is more likely to build consensus within the ICT4D community than a constructionist approach given the great bulk of publication in the field adheres to some form of realism [14], suggesting a preponderance of realist worldviews within the ICT4D research community.
- 5.
Though arguably the association of mixed methods ought to be stronger to critical realism – where they can be seen as a requirement for validation of mechanisms [16] – whereas under pragmatism, methods are judged on their practical value rather than there being some inherent requirement to mix quantitative and qualitative [2].
- 6.
The emphasis on iteration is slightly different from the interpretation of abduction by some critical realists [e.g. 4, 11] which emphasises induction more than iteration, seeing abduction as an activity after fieldwork that moves from the empirical data to the re-description of that data “using theoretical concepts” [ibid.: p. 188].
- 7.
In the terminology of critical realism, the former is a retroduction-first approach, the latter a retrodiction-first approach [36].
- 8.
Material here on resilience summarises from Heeks and Ospina [15], which should be referred to for further detail.
- 9.
A mythical beast that combined parts of a lion, goat and snake.
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Acknowledgements
The field project in Uganda was supported by funding from Lutheran World Relief and the University of Manchester’s Strategic Investment Reserve Fund. We also thank two anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this paper.
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Heeks, R., Ospina, A.V., Wall, P.J. (2019). Combining Pragmatism and Critical Realism in ICT4D Research: An e-Resilience Case Example. In: Nielsen, P., Kimaro, H. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies for Development. Strengthening Southern-Driven Cooperation as a Catalyst for ICT4D. ICT4D 2019. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 552. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19115-3_2
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