June Lennie, The Communication Centre, Queensland University of Technology
Community networking and interactive communication technology (ICT) projects based on feminist or social justice principles often aim to include a broad diversity of community members. However, the evaluation of a feminist action research project that aimed to include a diversity of women in rural Queensland in workshops about ICTs and the projectís online groups suggests that a complex range of barriers and issues affected the inclusion of various groups of women in rural areas. The participation and inclusion of a wide diversity of women in the workshops and online groups was only achieved in a limited way. Most participants were of white Anglo-Celtic background, in an older age group, farmers or professionals (or both), relatively highly educated, and involved in community or industry organisations. Few women in various disadvantaged groups participated. However, the rural participants tended to believe that a relatively high diversity of women had participated, compared with the projectís industry partners and research team. This suggests that researchers need to acknowledge project participantsí and stakeholdersí diverse and potentially contradictory understandings of the concepts ëinclusioní and ëdiversityí. The evaluation identified a complex range of social, cultural, economic, technological and methodological issues and barriers related to rural womenís participation and inclusion, including cost of access, work and family commitments, and lack of technical support. This paper argues that an analysis of the macro and micro contexts of community ICT projects seems essential to the effective evaluation of such projects.http://www.bus.qut.edu.au/schools/ampr/research/researchprojects.jsp