<incom> JoCI releases Special Issue on Latin America and Community Informatics

[michael gurstein]

-----Original Message-----
From: Eduardo Villanueva Mansilla [mailto:evillan at pucp.edu.pe] 
Sent: November 30, 2007 9:46 AM
To: Michael Gurstein
Subject: Announcement



The Journal of Community Informatics has just released its Special Issue on
Latin  <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/issue/view/18> America and CI.
This special issue puts the spotlight on Latin America, a region full of
diversity on the one hand, and similar internal structural problems and
challenges on the other. 

One of the strengths of this issue is that it was able to span the rainbow
not only from Mexico to Chile and Argentina, but also from Notes from the
Field directly written by grassroots activists, all the way to Reflections
of program implementers from the public and the social sectors all the way
to scientific analyses from a range of CI researchers from throughout the
region. In this way, this issue reveals insights of the different “business
cultures” of the many sectors all trying to employ ICTs for the benefit of
underserved communities. 

The conclusion is simple: No approach is better than the other. They simply
“are”, because there is no golden rule. It is rather a finding of CI that
every community is different and every approach must be shaped responding to
the local reality and according to the cultures of the implementing actors.
However, it is a strength of this special issue to present different
approaches, a different vocabulary and different conceptual patterns, for
example, in the area of telecenters. This creates a special value, because
it provides a space of encounter not only for different approaches, but also
between grassroots activists and scientists. This space of encounter is of
special importance in Latin America, where the gap between both “worlds” is
bigger than elsewhere, because of several factors such as geography and the
social segmentation of most Latin American societies.

While most of the articles are in Spanish, this Special Issue will have a
gradual “mirror” version in English, that by the Spring of 2008 will provide
a full access point to the diversity of experiences and the common threads
that unite the region once called “nuestramérica”.  

Christoph Roessner

Eduardo Vllaneuva Mansilla

Guest Editors