This course explores the relationships between colonialism, the growth of digital networks and applications, and community development. It re-frames problems like the ‘digital divide’ by illustrating how people and communities are taking ownership and control of solving them.

It recognizes that this work faces significant challenges. Historic and ongoing inequalities restrict the abilities of individuals and communities to effectively use digital technologies. However, people are also undertaking many projects of self-determination, including in the area of technology development. This course explores these initiatives, focusing on how they represent expressions of Indigenous resurgence and innovation in the emerging network society.

The course was initially developed in 2013-2014 as SOCI 2804, a for-credit course in the Department of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick (UNB). It is part of the First Nations Innovation project, which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The project is a partnership between UNB, Atlantic Canada's First Nations Help Desk, the First Nations Education Council in Quebec, and Keewaytinook Okimakanak K-Net Services in Ontario.
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Topic outline

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TOPIC 4 – Conceptual frameworks: The social shaping of technology
In this topic, we shift our focus on Indigenous peoples to explore some of the 'big picture' questions involved in technology development more generally. We will introduce some of the theories around these issues. Science and Technology Studies is an academic field of study that explores the ways that people interact with technologies. In particular, the theory of the "social shaping of technology" offers us a way to think about these processes. We discover that technologies are impacted by both social action and physical constraints. Critical authors like Robert McChesney show us how power is always involved in the ways that technologies are designed and used. The social shaping approach to studying technology does not reflect a level playing field. Instead, it is structured as a field of conflict and compromise between different groups, from powerful multinational corporations to local communities.

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First Mile Connectivity Consortium
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Supported by the SSHRC-funded
First Nations Innovation Project
This course came about through discussions among the project partners, who wanted to generate freely available online resources to support community-based ICT development.

Please email the course developer Rob McMahon with any suggestions, or if you have additional material you'd like to see here.

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