ICT APPROPRIATION: A KNOWLEDGE CREATION PERSPECTIVE: A CASE STUDY OF RURAL COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING IN BANGLADESH

This thesis investigates information and communication tools (ICTs) as instruments of community development processes in the context of a case study conducted in collaboration with a community empowerment program (CEP) of the non-government organization (NGO) BRAC in Bangladesh by conceptualizing a learning theory-based model for ICT appropriation. The aim of this research is to understand the conditions of ICT appropriation as a collective knowledge creation process within rural community development projects—and, thus, to provide tools for perceiving and constructing local ICT development.
The theoretical basis of my research is Activity Theory, as developed by the Finnish psychologist Engeström on the basis of the Russian development psychologists Vygotsky’s and Leontjev’s research. This learning approach I have combined with Nonaka and Takeuchi's theory of the dynamics of knowledge creation in organizations. The study claims that ICT capacity building through a collective resource approach (participatory design) may sustain a knowledge-creation process based on hands-on participation and interaction among individuals, communities, and the sharing of artifacts and thereby offers an ICT appropriation model by addressing the relations between rural community capacity building and ICT as practices and values.