Reconceptualizing Development In The Global Information Age

Author : Manuel Castells,Pekka Himanen
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 360 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2014-08-28
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780191028274

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Reconceptualizing Development in the Global Information Age by Manuel Castells,Pekka Himanen Pdf

The conditions in which 'development'—the process by which people, individually and collectively, enhance their capacities to improve their lives according to their values and interests—operates have significantly changed in the global information age, a period characterized by the technological revolution in information and communication, the rise of the networking form of social organization, and the global interdependence of economies and societies. This volume aims to redefine the means and goals of development in this new context: first, by characterizing the specific mode of development, informational development, that the authors consider to be the driver of the creation of material wealth in the twenty-first century; secondly, by reconceptualizing human development as the fulfilment of human wellbeing in the multidimensionality of the human experience, ultimately affirming dignity as the supreme value of development; thirdly, by examining the relationship between informational development and human development. After first setting out its analytical framework, the book brings together a diverse set of empirically-rich case studies to illustrate this investigation from across the globe—Silicon Valley, Costa Rica, Chile, South Africa, Finland, the European Union, and China—and concludes by attempting to reconceptualize development. It raises important questions and provides observations, including examining the concept of 'dignity as development', to contribute to a policy debate that should provide specific answers linked to the conditions of each society, and be enacted by democratic institutions in a concerted global effort to save humankind while there is still time.

Author : Ronaldo Munck
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 231 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2021-05-17
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783030738112

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Rethinking Development by Ronaldo Munck Pdf

Development and underdevelopment are the main determinants of life-chances worldwide, arguably more so than social class. Marxism, as the underlying theory for social revolution, needs to have a clear understanding of the dynamics of development and social progress. Exploring the intersection of Marxism and development, this book looks at Marx’s original conception of capitalist development and his later engagement with under-developed Russia. The author also reviews Lenin’s early critique of the Russian populists' rejection of capitalism compared with his later analysis of imperialism as a brake on development in the non-European world. The book then considers Rosa Luxemburg, who arguably provides a bridge between these theorists and those that follow with her analysis of imperialism as a necessity for capitalism to incorporate non-capitalist lands. Turning then to the non-European world, the author examines the Latin American dependency theories, the post-development school and the recent indigenous development theories advanced by Andean Marxism. Finally, Munck addresses the relationship between globalization and development. Does this relationship suggest that it has not been capitalism but a lack of capitalism that has led to under-development?

Author : Magda Fourie-Malherbe
Publisher : AFRICAN SUN MeDIA
Page : 437 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2016-11-21
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781928357223

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Postgraduate Supervision by Magda Fourie-Malherbe Pdf

The 24 chapters contained in this volume provide diverse but also congruent perspectives on future foci for research into postgraduate education and supervision in the knowledge society.The chapters move from deliberations on challenges for postgraduate supervision at macro level (such as the pressure to increase postgraduate output and the implications of increasinglymanagerialist institutions) to meso level matters (the form and function of postgraduate education in specific countries) to the micro (rich case studies of individual institutions, programmes and supervisors).

Author : Nico Cloete,Johann Mouton
Publisher : African Books Collective
Page : 298 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2015-12-08
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781928331216

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Doctoral Education in South Africa by Nico Cloete,Johann Mouton Pdf

Worldwide, in Africa and in South Africa, the importance of the doctorate has increased disproportionately in relation to its share of the overall graduate output over the past decade. This heightened attention has not only been concerned with the traditional role of the PhD, namely the provision of future academics; rather, it has focused on the increasingly important role that higher education and, particularly, high-level skills is perceived to play in national development and the knowledge economy. This book is unique in the area of research into doctoral studies because it draws on a large number of studies conducted by the Centre of Higher Education Trust (CHET) and the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST), as well as on studies from the rest of Africa and the world. In addition to the historical studies, new quantitative and qualitative research was undertaken to produce the evidence base for the analyses presented in the book. The findings presented in Doctoral Education in South Africa pose anew at least six tough policy questions that the country has struggled with since 1994, and continues to struggle with, if it wishes to gear up the system to meet the target of 5 000 new doctorates a year by 2030. Discourses framed around the single imperatives of growth, efficiency, transformation or quality will not, however, generate the kind of policy discourses required to resolve these tough policy questions effectively. What is needed is a change in approach that accommodates multiple imperatives and allows for these to be addressed simultaneously.

Author : Gerard Goggin,Mark McLelland
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 548 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2017-02-17
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781317607656

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The Routledge Companion to Global Internet Histories by Gerard Goggin,Mark McLelland Pdf

The Routledge Companion to Global Internet Histories brings together research on the diverse Internet histories that have evolved in different regions, language cultures and social contexts across the globe. While the Internet is now in its fifth decade, the understanding and formulation of its histories outside of an anglophone framework is still very much in its infancy. From Tunisia to Taiwan, this volume emphasizes the importance of understanding and formulating Internet histories outside of the anglophone case studies and theoretical paradigms that have thus far dominated academic scholarship on Internet history. Interdisciplinary in scope, the collection offers a variety of historical lenses on the development of the Internet: as a new communication technology seen in the context of older technologies; as a new form of sociality read alongside previous technologically mediated means of relating; and as a new media "vehicle" for the communication of content.

Author : Richard Heeks
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 410 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2017-11-08
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781317313564

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Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) by Richard Heeks Pdf

Mobile phones are close to ubiquitous in developing countries; Internet and broadband access are becoming commonplace. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) thus represent the fastest, broadest and deepest technical change experienced in international development. They now affect every development sector – supporting the work of hundreds of millions of farmers and micro-entrepreneurs; creating millions of ICT-based jobs; assisting healthcare workers and teachers; facilitating political change; impacting climate change; but also linked with digital inequalities and harms – with the pace of change continuously accelerating. Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) provides the first dedicated textbook to examine and explain these emerging phenomena. It will help students, practitioners, researchers and other readers understand the place of ICTs within development; the ICT-enabled changes already underway; and the key issues and interventions that engage ICT4D practice and strategy. The book has a three-part structure. The first three chapters set out the foundations of ICT4D: the core relation between ICTs and development; the underlying components needed for ICT4D to work; and best practice in implementing ICT4D. Five chapters then analyse key development goals: economic growth, poverty eradication, social development, good governance and environmental sustainability. Each chapter assesses the goal-related impact associated with ICTs and key lessons from real-world cases. The final chapter looks ahead to emerging technologies and emerging models of ICT-enabled development. The book uses extensive in-text diagrams, tables and boxed examples with chapter-end discussion and assignment questions and further reading. Supported by online activities, video links, session outlines and slides, this textbook provides the basis for undergraduate, postgraduate and online learning modules on ICT4D.

Author : Mark Swilling
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 331 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2019-11-06
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780429603723

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The Age of Sustainability by Mark Swilling Pdf

With transitions to more sustainable ways of living already underway, this book examines how we understand the underlying dynamics of the transitions that are unfolding. Without this understanding, we enter the future in a state of informed bewilderment. Every day we are bombarded by reports about ecosystem breakdown, social conflict, economic stagnation and a crisis of identity. There is mounting evidence that deeper transitions are underway that suggest we may be entering another period of great transformation equal in significance to the agricultural revolution some 13,000 years ago or the Industrial Revolution 250 years ago. This book helps readers make sense of our global crisis and the dynamics of transition that could result in a shift from the industrial epoch that we live in now to a more sustainable and equitable age. The global renewable energy transition that is already underway holds the key to the wider just transition. However, the evolutionary potential of the present also manifests in the mushrooming of ecocultures, new urban visions, sustainability-oriented developmental states and new ways of learning and researching. Shedding light on the highly complex challenge of a sustainable and just transition, this book is essential reading for anyone concerned with establishing a more sustainable and equitable world. Ultimately, this is a book about hope but without easy answers.

Author : Robin Mansell,W. E. Steinmueller
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2020-08-28
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781789900613

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Advanced Introduction to Platform Economics by Robin Mansell,W. E. Steinmueller Pdf

Artificial intelligence-enabled digital platforms collect and process data from and about users. These companies are largely self-regulating in Western countries. How do economic theories explain the rise of a very few dominant platforms? Mansell and Steinmueller compare and contrast neoclassical, institutional and critical political economy explanations. They show how these perspectives can lead to contrasting claims about platform benefits and harms. Uneven power relationships between platform operators and their users are treated differently in these economic traditions. Sometimes leading to advocacy for regulation or for public provision of digital services. Sometimes indicating restraint and precaution. The authors challenge the reader to think beyond the inevitability of platform dominance to create new visions of how platforms might operate in the future.

Author : Muhammad Jameel Yusha'u,Jan Servaes
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 649 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2021-08-29
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783030697709

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The Palgrave Handbook of International Communication and Sustainable Development by Muhammad Jameel Yusha'u,Jan Servaes Pdf

The Palgrave Handbook of International Communication and Sustainable Development is a major resource for stakeholders interested in understanding the role of communication in achieving the UN’S Sustainable Development Goals. Bringing together theoretical and applied contributions from scholars in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and North America, the handbook argues that communication is a key factor in achieving the global goals and suggests a review of the SDGs to consider its importance. Reflecting on the impact of COVID-19, it highlights the need for effective communication infrastructure and critically assesses the 2030 agenda and timeline. Including individual SDG and country case studies as well as integrated analysis, the chapters seek to enrich understanding of communication for development and propose crucial policy interventions. It is critical reading for researchers as well as policy makers and NGOs.

Author : Manuel Castells
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2017-05-23
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781509517220

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Another Economy is Possible by Manuel Castells Pdf

Throughout the Western world, governments and financial elites responded to the financial crisis of 2008 by trying to restore the conditions of business as usual, but the economic, social and human damage inflicted by the crisis has given rise to a reconsideration of the inevitability of unfettered capitalism as a fact of life. A number of economic practices and organizations emerged in Europe and the United States that embodied alternative values: the value of life over the value of money; the effectiveness of cooperation over cut-throat competition; the social responsibility of corporations and responsible regulation by governments over the short-term speculative strategies that brought the economy to the brink of catastrophe. This book examines the blossoming of innovative new experiments in organizing work and life that emerged in the wake of the financial crisis: cooperatives, barter networks, ethical banking, community currencies, shared time banks, solidarity networks, sharing of goods, non-monetary transactions, etc., experiments that paved the way for the emergence of a sharing economy in all domains of activity oriented toward the satisfaction of human needs. Other innovations included the creation of cryptographic virtual currencies, epitomized by bitcoin, which blended a libertarian, entrepreneurial spirit with information technology to provide an alternative to standard forms of currency. On the basis of a cross-cultural analysis of alternative economic practices, this book develops an important theoretical argument: that the economy, as a human practice, is shaped by culture, and that the diversity of cultures, as revealed in a time of crisis, implies the possibility of different economies depending on the values and power relations that define economic institutions. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, economics and the social sciences generally, and to anyone who wishes to understand how our societies and economies are changing today.

Author : María del Carmen Sánchez-Carreira,Paulo Jorge Reis Mourão,Bruno Blanco-Varela
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2023-07-06
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781000907643

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Regional Development and Forgotten Spaces by María del Carmen Sánchez-Carreira,Paulo Jorge Reis Mourão,Bruno Blanco-Varela Pdf

This book constitutes a novel contribution, combining recent theoretical developments and empirical contributions, as well as the recent and latest trends and challenges on the issue of Forgotten Spaces. Forgotten Spaces - like the Forgotten Regions, in particular - are spaces that in potential can and do create significant value (if their resources are properly rediscovered) and create many potential costs (if these spaces are increasingly neglected by economic agents). The editors have identified a gap in current research because there is not enough empirical evidence about these places, as well as about the role of their actors. Abandoning regions can lead to, for example, pollution, uncontrolled forest fires, vandalism heritage deterioration, and potentially untreated industrial facilities, carrying potential costs not only in environmental sustainability, but also in values such as landscape aesthetics. Thus, this book reflects on the dimensions of the identification of such Forgotten Spaces, on the design of policies focused on minimizing associated costs and on the scope of programs to promote these areas, not only for upgrading them but also for promoting their environmental sustainability. The comparative approach of the empirical part also allows knowledge and experience from diverse longitudes and latitudes. The editors highlight the richness of the experience of Latin American countries, the polarization and interesting experiences from several sector rediscovered in Europe, as well as the holistic cases coming from several African experiences. This book will attract the attention of academicians, politicians and ultimately the attention of all decision-makers who most likely are forgetting many of the Spaces around them.

Author : Yu Hong
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2017-01-11
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780252099434

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Networking China by Yu Hong Pdf

In recent years, China 's leaders have taken decisive action to transform information, communications, and technology (ICT) into the nation's next pillar industry. In Networking China , Yu Hong offers an overdue examination of that burgeoning sector's political economy. Hong focuses on how the state, in conjunction with market forces and class interests, is constructing and realigning its digitalized sector. State planners intend to build a more competitive ICT sector by modernizing the network infrastructure, corporatizing media-and-entertainment institutions, and by using ICT as a crosscutting catalyst for innovation, industrial modernization, and export upgrades. The goal: to end China's industrial and technological dependence upon foreign corporations while transforming itself into a global ICT leader. The project, though bright with possibilities, unleashes implications rife with contradiction and surprise. Hong analyzes the central role of information, communications, and culture in Chinese-style capitalism. She also argues that the state and elites have failed to challenge entrenched interests or redistribute power and resources, as promised. Instead, they prioritize information, communications, and culture as technological fixes to make pragmatic tradeoffs between economic growth and social justice.

Author : Poonam Sharma,Swati Rajput
Publisher : Springer
Page : 809 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2017-03-27
Category : Science
ISBN : 9783319471457

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Sustainable Smart Cities in India by Poonam Sharma,Swati Rajput Pdf

This book presents fundamental and applied research aimed at the development of smart cities across India. Based on the exploration of an extensive array of multidisciplinary literature, this book discusses critical factors of smart city initiatives: management and organization, technology, governance, policy, people and communities, economy, infrastructure, and natural environment. These factors are broadly covered under the integrative framework of the book to examine the vision and challenges of smart city initiatives. The book suggests directions and agendas for smart city research and outlines practical implications for government professionals, students, research scholars and policy makers. A lot of work is happening on smart cities as it is an upcoming area of research and development. At international level, and even in India, the concept of smart cities concept is a hot topic at universities, research centers, ministries, transport departments, civic bodies, environment, energy and disaster organizations, town planners and policy makers. This book provides ideas and information to government officials, investors, experts and research students.

Author : UNESCO
Publisher : UNESCO Publishing
Page : 102 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2015-06-25
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9789231000898

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Keystones to foster inclusive knowledge societies by UNESCO Pdf

Author : Fernando Calderón,Manuel Castells
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2020-08-04
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781509540037

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The New Latin America by Fernando Calderón,Manuel Castells Pdf

Latin America has experienced a profound transformation in the first two decades of the 21st century: it has been fully incorporated into the global economy, while excluding regions and populations devalued by the logic of capitalism. Technological modernization has gone hand-in-hand with the reshaping of old identities and the emergence of new ones. The transformation of Latin America has been shaped by social movements and political conflicts. The neoliberal model that dominated the first stage of the transformation induced widespread inequality and poverty, and triggered social explosions that led to its own collapse. A new model, neo-developmentalism, emerged from these crises as national populist movements were elected to government in several countries. The more the state intervened in the economy, the more it became vulnerable to corruption, until the rampant criminal economy came to penetrate state institutions. Upper middle classes defending their privileges and citizens indignant because of corruption of the political elites revolted against the new regimes, undermining the model of neo-developmentalism. In the midst of political disaffection and public despair, new social movements, women, youth, indigenous people, workers, peasants, opened up avenues of hope against the background of darkness invading the continent. This book, written by two leading scholars of Latin America, provides a comprehensive and up-do-date account of the new Latin America that is in the process of taking shape today. It will be an indispensable text for students and scholars in Latin American Studies, sociology, politics and media and communication studies, and anyone interested in Latin America today.