Developing an Action Plan for Rural Informatics

Abstract

Despite almost a quarter of the world’s population living in rural areas, rural-focused CSCW makes up a tiny fraction of published CSCW research and design. When CSCW work does focus on the rural there are issues with the way rurality is identified and understood and limitations in the approaches to research and design in rural contexts. Building on a recent increased interest in Rural Informatics, which has drawn on social science scholarship to take stock of previous rural research and set an agenda for rural computing, we aim to identify opportunities for CSCW research to engage with rural issues and foster a Rural Informatics community of practice. As the world relies ever more on rural areas and the importance of information technology to rural resilience is ever more apparent, the need to innovate and design from the rural must become more central to CSCW.