ICT for Community Empowerment amongst Urban Underserved Communities: A Design for Participation Project

The paper highlights the methodological framework of an ongoing research focused on two issues of actuality in Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D): the role of ICTs in cultivating collective capabilities and the role of the participants in the different phases of a new design project in relation to development. A design-based research approach, rooted in exploratory ethnography and emergent design shows that when the researcher becomes ethnographer and designer and the users become resources for the co-production, a new methodology is born. It is a process of dialogue, never ending, in which the designer enters with the intention to make an impact, not only to understand. The participatory process is followed throughout the research, from the ethnographic phase of discovery and understanding, through the design phase of co-creation, till the evaluation final phase. This research is conducted in two marginalised urban settings of Cape Town. An exploratory phase, in which inductive ethnographic methods were used to explore the nuances of ‘agency', ‘capability' and ‘collective empowerment' that occur through technological dealings was followed by a still ongoing design phase, in which the two communities are involved in co-designing new ICT services that support their community activities. The assessment phase, which is directed towards the formulation of theoretical and design considerations, will look towards a participative evaluation process and a sustainable patterns.