Richardson, P.E. orcid.org/0000-0003-4518-1055 and Wilson, S. (2024) Evaluating a women's digital inclusion and storytelling initiative through the lens of empowerment. Digital Geography and Society, 7. 100092. ISSN 2666-3783
Abstract
In terms of digital inclusion, a global gender gap has been widely documented with women more likely to face digital exclusions, particularly in rural areas and especially in the Global South. Digital inclusion initiatives (DIIs) aim to address these disparities by providing hard-to-reach groups with access to digital infrastructures and/or competencies. In this paper, we heed calls for contextualised DII research that centres the oft-neglected experiences of socially and digitally marginalised women. As such, we contribute a case study from a women's project in Zimbabwe and elaborate a feminist framework of empowerment as an approach to qualitative evaluation. The study involved online Digital Storytelling workshops co-facilitated by and for women, using WhatsApp as the main communication platform. Thirteen participants were interviewed on WhatsApp following the workshop programme. Beyond supporting the development of digital competencies, we found that remote storytelling fostered relationship-building and a sense of solidarity to develop between participants. The paper shares findings around the practicalities of using WhatsApp to mediate online digital storytelling initiatives, which has transferable practical applications in other hard-to-reach contexts. Furthermore, we argue that the feminist framework and approach elaborated in the paper could be deployed more widely, as a tool for both co-designing and evaluating DIIs with communities to enhance the empowerment gains of digital inclusion projects.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Digital storytelling (DS); Digital inclusion; Digital inclusion initiatives (DII); women's empowerment; Remote/digital fieldwork |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Geography and Planning |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EUROPEAN COMMISSION - HORIZON 2020 892865 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 19 Sep 2024 15:40 |
Last Modified: | 19 Sep 2024 15:40 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier BV |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.diggeo.2024.100092 |
Sustainable Development Goals: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:217401 |