Journal of Community Informatics (2004–)

“Community Informatics (CI) is the study and the practice of enabling communities with Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs). CI seeks to work with communities towards the effective use of ICTs to improve their processes, achieve their objectives, overcome the “digital divides” that exist both within and between communities, and empower communities and citizens in the range of areas of ICT application including for health, cultural production, civic management, e-governance among others. CI is concerned with how ICT can be useful to the range of traditionally excluded populations and communities, and how it can support local economic development, social justice and political empowerment using the Internet. CI is a point of convergence concerning the use of ICTs for diverse stakeholders, including community activists, nonprofit groups, policymakers, users/citizens, and the range of academics working across (and integrating) disciplines as diverse as Information Studies, Management, Computer Science, Social Work, Planning and Development Studies. Emerging issues within the CI field include: community access to the internet, community information, online civic participation and community service delivery, community and local economic development, training networks, telework, social cohesion, learning, e-health and e-governance. The Journal of Community Informatics aims to bring together a global range of academics, CI practitioners and national and multi-lateral policy makers policy makers. Each issue of the Journal of Community Informatics contains a number of double blind peer-reviewed research articles as well as commentaries by leading CI practitioners and policy makers providing feedback on how the significance and application of research for practice and policy development.”

Editor in Chief: Michael Gurstein
Associate editors: Shaun Pather, Alvin Wee Yeo
Open access
ISSN 1712-4441

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Mohammed A. Bamyeh: Anarchy as Order: The History and Future of Civic Humanity (2009)

This original and impressively researched book explores the concept of anarchy—”unimposed order”—as the most humane and stable form of order in a chaotic world. Mohammed A. Bamyeh traces the historical foundations of anarchy and convincingly presents it as an alternative to both tyranny and democracy. He shows how anarchy is the best manifestation of civic order, of a healthy civil society, and of humanity’s noblest attributes. The author contends that humanity thrives on self-regulation rather than imposed order, that large systems are inherently more prone to tyranny than small systems, that power is the enemy of freedom, and that freedom and community are complementary rather than opposing values. He concludes that a more rational world is produced not by delegated representatives but by direct participation in common affairs.

Bamyeh offers a concise philosophy of anarchy in the context of war, civil society, global order, experiences of freedom, solidarity, the evolution of modern states, and tax systems. He distinguishes anarchy from more familiar ways of thinking about the relationship between state and society that highlight the importance of power and control for social order. Further, he argues that the necessity for expert guidance or social collaboration in some areas of common public life does not require such areas to be run by a grand, overarching, or representative state. A cogent and compelling critique of the modern state, this provocative book clarifies how anarchy may be both a guide for rational social order and a science of humanity.

Publisher Rowman & Littlefield, 2009
World Social Change series
ISBN 0742556735, 9780742556737
241 pages

review (David Baronov)

publisher
google books

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Nora Farik (ed.): 1968 Revisited: 40 Years of Protest Movements (2008)

Essays and Interviews with Protagonists of 1968.

Contents
* Preface by Nora Farik and Claude Weinber
* What is left? 1968 revisited introduction by Ralf Fücks
* 1968 – Again! Reference year for an age. The events in Brazil by Marcelo Ridenti
* Poland in 1968: „The freedom we needed so badly was so obvious elsewhere“ by Teresa Bogucka
* 1968: Czechoslovakia by Oldřich Tůma
* 1968 in Moscow – A Beginning by Alexander Daniel
* 1968 – An East German Perspective by Wolfgang Templin
* Germany 1968 – SDS, Urban Guerillas and Visions of Räterepublik interview with Klaus Meschkat
* Apartheid South Africa in 1968: Not quite business as usual by Bill Nasson
* Belgrade, June 1968 by Nebojša Popov
* May 1968 in Belgium: The crack bursts open by Benoît Lechat
* „Today the big political game is ‘bashing the 1960s’“ interview with Daniel Cohn-Bendit

Publisher Heinrich Böll Foundation EU Regional Office Brussels, May 2008
Democracy series, Volume 7
68 pages

Publisher

PDF (English, updated on 2024-1-18)