Design Opportunities and Challenges in Indian Urban Slums-Community Communication and Mobile Phones

Abstract

This thesis investigates the area of community communication for marginalized communities belonging to Indian urban slums. The aim of the thesis is to identify design challenges and opportunities for mobile based community communication services for residents of Indian urban slums. The thesis is based on two ethnographic field research done in urban slums of India. The research is qualitative in nature and is best identified as participatory bottom-up exploration. The research is grounded in the conceptual frameworks of Community Informatics, Communicative Ecology and Communities of Practices. The thesis discusses the existing practices of mobile phone's use amongst the residents of Indian urban slums, identifies the 'Human Nodes' in community communication at an Indian urban slums, presents design opportunities and challenges for community communication services for residents of Indian urban slums, and proposes a design concept called as 'Asynchronous Voice based Community Communication Service' for residents of Indian urban slums.