The rapid development the internet, and its adoption for new modes of communication, has given rise to various neologisms which incorporate the terms 'cyber', 'electronic' and just 'e'. Amidst the hype and counter-hype, it is possible to discern significant implications of internet-based modes of communication for identity, skill and social action. New modes of social organisation, and new forms of social practice, would seem to be afforded by the distributed nature of the new information and communication technology. The time and spatial dimensions of previous societal forms are transformed under the new circumstances, and with this, those societal forms are themselves potentially transformable.
This aspect of the re-skill.org.uk website is devoted to exploration of such potential of the new technology, and to examination of the extent to which such potential is being realised. Moreover, in keeping with the eleventh of Marx's Theses on Fuerbach, the orientation here is on the promotion of societal change, not merely its interpretation.
Much of the work presented here has been conducted with colleagues in the Odyssey Group, a network of academic staff in a variety universities, who share a similar perspective and interest in these issues. Many of these colleagues manage websites on related issues.
Online Papers:
The Skill of Travel: Networks into Neighbourhoods (with Steve Little, Open University, UK, and Frank Go, Erasmus University, NL), presented in the stream Accessibility, Mobility and Connectivity: Changing Frontiers of Daily Routine at "Frontiers of Sociology", the 37th World Congress of the International Institute of Sociology, held in Stockholm on July 5-9, 2005.
Participation
in an e-age: negotiation and the Moor Park Explore Club (with Margaret Grieco,
Napier University, and The Moor Park Explore Club, Moor Park Community Group,
North Tyneside)
Paper presented at British Academy of Management Annual Conference 2002, 'Voice
Off: Management at the Margins' sub-theme
E-rules for radicals?: community organising in an e-world
presented at "Organization Theory in Transition: Transitional Societies; Transitional
Theories", the 9th International Congress of Asia-Pacific Researchers in Organisation
Studies, December 2001, Hong Kong
E-experimenting:
building the Centre for Social Policy Studies (University of Ghana) website
(with Nana Araba Apt and Margaret Grieco, for the Odyssey Group)
presented at "Organization Theory in Transition: Transitional Societies; Transitional
Theories", the 9th International Congress of Asia-Pacific Researchers in Organisation
Studies, December 2001, Hong Kong
Meeting
the moment: Microfinance, ICT and the social exclusion agenda.
Paper presented to Ethics, Information Technology and Social Exclusion Conference,
Bolton, February 2001.
Archiving social
practice: the management of transport boycotts (PDF format)
Paper presented at the Eighth International Colloquium of the network of Asia-Pacific
Researchers in Organisation Studies, Sydney, Australia, December 2000
Relational
identity and relational technology: distributed responsibility and action in
modern commerce and administration
Paper presented at the Eighth International Colloquium of the network of Asia-Pacific Researchers in Organisation Studies, Sydney, Australia, December 2000
Electronic governance and commercial development in Africa:
the grassroots perspective.
Paper presented at the Institute for African Development, Cornell University,
September 2nd, 1999
Tele options for community business: an opportunity
for economic development in Africa.
Paper presented to BITWorld '99, Cape Town - South Africa, 30th June-2nd July,1999
The power of transparency: the Internet, e-mail,
and the Malaysian political crisis.
Paper presented to Asian Management in Crisis conference, Association of South
East Asian Studies, UK, University of North London, 12th June, 1999
No space is an island: ICT, electronic adjacency and civic
empowerment.
Paper presented at Conference on 'ICT Strategies for Islands and Small States',
UNESCO, Malta, March 1999.
The Odyssey Group is comprised of a number of academics who are, in various ways, seeking to explore the emerging social potential of new modes of electronically-mediated communication, particularly in respect of alternative forms of organising and managing and the promotion of greater social inclusion.