Paper short abstract:

This paper offers a theoretical analysis of the role of disruptive technologies in sustainable community development, from a communicative ecologies perspective. It contributes conceptual and design insights for the design and evaluation of community development interventions.

Paper long abstract:

Development as a process implies transformation, it shatters the status quo. Sustainable development, on the other hand, embodies notions of continuity into the future and with respect to existing forms and processes. Disruptive technologies, akin to disruptive innovations, are likewise transformative: they shift power balances, endanger existing and create new markets, value chains and technology support infrastructures.

This contribution employs communicative ecologies as a conceptual lens to examine the role of disruptive technologies in sustainable community development. In an ecological approach, notions of disruption and sustainability are not opposite, but integrated: disruption is natural in the process of growth and change, but for the system to survive, there needs to be an opportune connection between past and present, which can ensure continuity and therefore sustainability of the life form.

The paper focuses on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) interventions in community settings that are disruptive with respect to the status quo and asks: How can we design ICT interventions for sustainable community development that seek to introduce novel, potentially disruptive technologies? A structured analysis and theorisation of processes around ICT integration and local appropriation is offered, drawing on selected development projects from our own experience and the literature, which have employed communicative ecologies as an analytical, programme or evaluation design tool.

The paper addresses the track theme of innovation vs. technological change in inclusive and sustainable development. The main contribution to knowledge is a theorisation of the role of disruptive technologies in sustainable community development from a communicative ecologies perspective.