Refracting gender and ICT theories through community lenses: Women as innovators and change agents

This paper presents the results of a five year study of womenpsilas roles and status in Ennis Information Age Town - one of the largest community technology projects in Europe. Womenpsilas diverse roles and contribution to the project are explored within an ethnographic research framework which investigates womenpsilas experiences, expectations and relationships with ICT, their knowledge and expertise, their vision, visibility and representation and their roles as mediators and influencers. Using three cases research findings are refracted through a feminist research lens which proposes an archetypal triad to describe womenpsilas individual and collective contributions to ICT development and diffusion. Womenpsilas individual and collective roles as technicians, tacticians and tattlers illustrate womenpsilas engagement and agency in ICT, challenging the gender technology theories which portray women as passive, excluded or disconnected from technology.