Putting context into ICTs in international development: an institutional networking project in Vietnam

This paper questions the adequacy of the technological orientation present in many popular discussions over the role of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in international development. In particular, the paper considers the impact of technology on how programme goals and development problems are understood, by relating critical computer design literature to the experience of deploying an Internet‐based research network in a university capacity‐building programme in Vietnam. The current technology‐focused discourse leads such work to tend to be envisioned merely in terms of selected means, such as ICT connectivity or skills. However, it is only through discussion of the ends, not means, of ICT deployment that the complexity of such deployment can be adequately understood.