Marije Geldof

B.Sc, M.Sc (VU Amsterdam)

‘Earphones are not for girls’:
ICT in the lives of low-literate youth in Ethiopia and Malawi

Funding: Microsoft Research European PhD Scholarship
Supervisor: Prof. Tim Unwin
Advisor: Prof. Klaus Dodds
Email: m.geldof@rhul.ac.uk
Web: http://personal.rhul.ac.uk/pqfa/051/

What does it mean nowadays to be literate in a world fundamentally transformed by technology? In the past the concept of literacy was primarily defined in terms of people's abilities to read and write, but with the emergence of new technologies the concept has come to encompass a broader range of human competencies needed to access, manage, analyze, interpret and evaluate information and use it to solve everyday problems. Many people in developing countries lack these skills and are not able to fully benefit from the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

There are two approaches the narrow this divide, either by ensuring that everyone has the required skills to make use of ICTs or by making the ICTs fit the skills people already have. In other words either transforming people to fit the technology or transforming the technology to fit people. To make technology fit people it is critically important to have a clear understanding of the abilities and needs of these people and the context in which they live. The aim of my research is to understand the role of ICT in the lives of low-literate youth in Ethiopia and Malawi.

During six months of fieldwork in both countries young people participated in a combination of qualitative research methods that were focused on gaining an understanding of participants’ current knowledge and use of, and perceptions about ICT, the role of literacy skills in their lives, and their future ambitions and ideas about future technologies. This revealed how the context in which they live shapes the interaction with ICT, such as different physical and cultural constraints. Furthermore it provided insight into the role that literacy skills play in the interaction with ICT, such as the role of English and being educated.