‘Technology is Everywhere, we have the Opportunity to Learn it in the Valley’: The Appropriation of a Socio-Technical Enabling Infrastructure in the Moroccan High Atlas

Abstract

This paper describes the appropriation processes involved in establishing a socio-technical enabling infrastructure in a valley in the High Atlas of Morocco. We focus on the challenges of co-establishing such an intervention in a rural/mountainous region that is already undergoing a process of continuous development and profound transformation. We reflect upon the changes and unforeseen appropriation by our local partners and inhabitants in the valley of a computer club primarily used as an informal learning centre for school children. We followed an ethnographic approach and combined research perspectives from both socio-informatics and anthropology. This paper sheds light on what a successful cooperation and intervention in this kind of challenging environment can look like. It does this by taking seriously competing expectations, fragile infrastructural foundations and the socio-cultural context. Despite the challenges, the intervention managed to lead to the establishment of a socio-technical enabling infrastructure that plays a particularly valuable role in local educational endeavours and that is now moving towards supporting other members of the community. The paper thus provides insights regarding what has to be considered to create a mutually beneficial cooperation with all relevant stakeholders as well as a sustainable intervention.

Guides of the Atlas

“…This touches on the central issue of the actual learning process in practice, the first central empirical insights of which have been discussed in detail elsewhere (Rüller et al 2021;Rüller, Aal/Holdermann 2019;Aal et al 2018). Appropriation refers to the active and creative process in which users develop their social practices against the background of the newly created possibilities for acquiring information and communications technology (ICT) artefacts.…”

Adopting to the virtual workplace: identifying leadership affordances in virtual schools

“…In a recent paper, Rüller et al . (2021) show that creating socio-technical interventions to support learning in any form can come with both challenges and wins.…”

“…(2021) show that creating socio-technical interventions to support learning in any form can come with both challenges and wins. They show that it is vital to include the relevant stakeholders in educational intervention to facilitate an enabling infrastructure that can sustain over time and serve the people involved (Rüller et al ., 2021). In another study of virtual meetings, Saatçi et al .…”

“…In a recent paper, Rüller et al (2021) show that creating socio-technical interventions to support learning in any form can come with both challenges and wins. They show that it is vital to include the relevant stakeholders in educational intervention to facilitate an enabling infrastructure that can sustain over time and serve the people involved (Rüller et al, 2021). In another study of virtual meetings, Saatçi et al (2020) show that in distributed meetings, the interaction patterns are shaped by the social dynamics and the way interactions are formed between the participants within that meeting and enabled by the technical infrastructure that enables the virtual meeting on the one hand, and the technology that is weaved into the topic of the meeting on the other hand.…”

Moving beyond illiteracy: Is wearable and touch-sensitive technology the way to go forward?

“…It is a short and more reflective version of our recently accepted journal paper [27]. For a contextual framing of the research carried by our group in Morocco, please read further here [1,24,25].…”