ELISA

Wertetechniken und die Überwindung des Digital Divide: Ethische Implikationen des IT-Exports nach Subsahara-Afrika (ELISA)

01/01/2016 to 30/09/2016

https://uni-tuebingen.de/de/79771

The project explores the practice of digitalisation in sub-Saharan Africa and its ethical implications. Thereby, it regards the interaction between the implementation of technology and the conceptualisation and enactment of values, and the impact of IT-import on peoples’ capabilities to live a self-determined life in the concerned regions. It examines amongst other theories of justice a capability-centred theory as developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum as the origin of a potential ethical obligation (or at least justification) to close the global “digital divide”. At the same time, the project is guided by the assumption that certain values are indirectly implemented through technology in the course of the development of the global information society. Thus, the project analyses whether and to what extent the (current) practice of export of IT-technology is ambivalent for the importing society. The project offers a critical evaluation of the ethical implications of IT-export in the case of one sub-Saharan African country, focusing on access to information and privacy/data protection.