Dot Com Mantra: Social Computing in the Central Himalayas

Billions of dollars are being spent nationally and globally on providing computing access to digitally disadvantaged groups and cultures with an expectation that computers and the Internet can lead to higher socio-economic mobility. This ethnographic study of social computing in the Central Himalayas, India, investigates alternative social practices with new technologies and media amongst a population that is for the most part undocumented. In doing so, this book offers fresh and critical perspectives on issues of contemporary debate: free learning with computers, relevant and global information, the range and role of actors as intermediaries of digital information, impact of direct versus indirect access on social computing, gender and technology and transnational consumption and production of knowledge.