Gereon Koch Kapuire

Heike Winschiers-Theophilus

Margot Brereton
email: m.brereton@qut.edu.au

Deriving Engagement Protocols within Community-Based Co-Design Projects in Namibia

Keywords: Community Engagement, Co-Design, Mutual Learning, Protocols, Participatory Design, Reciprocity, Indigenous Knowledge

Indigenous Knowledge (IK) is used by community members for survival in the rural context and to sustain their way of living. The procedures on how community members share their knowledge amongst themselves and with others are unique. Cultural practices communication protocols differ from mainstream research and technology development procedures. Thus appropriate community engagement is instrumental towards the success of technology codesign with communities. Co-design endeavors should be framed in consistent and harmonized partnerships between community members and researchers for mutual learning and benefit. However, this has not been formulated as an objective of many ICT endeavors with communities in the past. With a raising number of interaction challenges reported we are reviewing our own community design experiences and promoting the development of an engagement protocol.

Introduction

Engagements with rural communities have become a central theme in ICT4D, community technology design and related fields. It has been established that contributions from Communities is vital to develop relevant solutions and therefore researchers should partner and work cooperatively with community members [START_REF] Pearce | Community Collaboration and Climate Change Research in the Canadian Arctic[END_REF][START_REF] Seifer | Building and Sustaining Community-Institutional Partnerships for Prevention Research: Findings from a National Collaborative[END_REF][START_REF] Light | Research on an Equal Footing? A UK Collaborative Inquiry into Community and Academic Knowledge[END_REF]. However, researcher-community collaborations have reportedly faced numerous challenges which need urgent resolution at a conceptual and practical level, in order to ensure successful and sustainable co-operations. Thus, the paper draws upon related work and our interaction efforts with rural communities to co-design technologies. The various projects with different communities throughout Namibia are clarified and challenges encountered described, as a starting point. We have further involved communities into focus group discussions to guide further steps in the development of engagement protocols. We argue that for a long-term collaboration, engagement protocols must be developed jointly and a commitment of engagement beyond singular projects should be strived for.

Background

We have embarked in ICT research with a number of different rural communities in Namibia. Various ICT projects have taken off to explore the co-design of technologies with community members as an attempt to preserve traditional and indigenous knowledge. We describe the successful collaboration work to the fact that we involve community members in all activities of the research and development process, including later dissemination of results.

Theoretical and Methodological Grounding

Our community collaborations in Namibia are theoretically framed in the concepts of Ubuntu and Afrocentricity [35]. Ubuntu stresses principles of humanness in interactions, while Afrocentricity frames research activities and ethics [START_REF] Kapuire | An Insider Perspective on Community Gains: A Subjective Account of a Namibian Rural Communities' Perception of a Longterm Participatory Design Project[END_REF]. We have adopted a Community-Based Co-Design (CBCD) approach which is grounded in principles of participatory design and action research [START_REF] Winschiers-Theophilus | Being participated: a community approach[END_REF][START_REF] Blake | Case study 11.1: Deaf Telephony: Community-Based Co-Design[END_REF]. CBCD takes place within a communal value system and opens up a new debate around the principles of participation and its benefits within HCI4D and ICTD projects [START_REF] Kapuire | An Insider Perspective on Community Gains: A Subjective Account of a Namibian Rural Communities' Perception of a Longterm Participatory Design Project[END_REF]. The co-design methods allowed community members to be actively involved in design of tools and services. This promoted appropriate engagement and participation, creating trust between researchers and community members as a basis for a good continuous collaboration.

Engagement

Our research visits to the rural communities were overseen by engagement protocols. This is the way we enter the community, communicate, requesting for permission to conduct research, and participation by the communities. During every research trip, our first encounter was to get the community members interested in the research activities. It was important as community members leave their daily activities to partake in the research endeavors.

Rural communities are defined by many community members so the briefing for the purpose of the visit was handled in a focus group. The focus group encouraged community members explore ideas to create a common understanding amongst themselves, as well as with the researchers. This created harmony between the community members and the researchers. The introduction was way back when the project started. Even when the project matured, this process never changed. It has been an instrument to get proper engagement. It was crucial as there were different agendas at every technology intervention. Once community members were comfortable, only then technology and co-design sessions started. This was determined by the acceptance of the introduction.

This establishment allowed researchers and community members to create a partnership of trust. Part of the process to get engagement, was to explain to the communities about their duty as co-designers. Even though the concept of co-designing was difficult to understand at earlier stages of project interventions, with many engagements it became a term familiar to them later on.

Once a mutual understanding was met, a platform for interactions opened up. It was important to get community members interact by practically being engaged. This ensured the voice of communities to be heard when involved in technological interventions with researchers. Technology developments and research was based on reciprocity and consensus thereby enriching the outcomes.

Furthermore, the native and external researchers had appropriate structures to follow, which supported a fruitful and successful collaboration with the communities. The native researchers bridged the gap between the community and the external researchers [START_REF] Kapuire | An Insider Perspective on Community Gains: A Subjective Account of a Namibian Rural Communities' Perception of a Longterm Participatory Design Project[END_REF]. The native researcher used familiar analogies to get the underlying ideas across [35], as the culture was familiar.

During years of project work, a number of researchers have been part of the projects. Some leave a project, with new members joining, and some were continuously part of the project. This allowed community members to engage with old and new researchers. At times, they asked about the members who are no more part of the project. At every occasion, a native researcher always explained to the community members about the whereabouts of the others researchers in case they are not present. This was done to keep community members value their previous engagement sessions.

Challenges in Engagements

Based on current community collaborations, we observed that many newly joining researchers first lack the skills and knowledge to be able to build, develop and maintain a good relationship with the communities [35]. Equally the community has not developed strong mechanisms of expressing their own set of rules and regulations of appropriate interactions. While on the one hand researchers often lacked an understanding of contextual factors such as culture, on the other hand communities have not expressed explicit codes of ethics. Moreover, current codes of ethics developed in the academic research context foster a researcher-community power relation which is unacceptable and undesirable in a co-design collaboration research project.

At one workshop, a teacher raised a concern during an IK content uploading session. Teachers pointed out that trust is one of their main worries when collecting knowledge from the community members, sometimes due to political reasons.

Furthermore, some international researchers visited the country and engaged community members without the awareness of a local researcher. During a research visit, they promised things to the rural communities, and then suddenly disappeared once they were done collecting their research data. This created frustration when the local team visited the communities, as there were unsolved expectations by the community members. It caused distrust in the engagement process.

Towards an Engagement Framework

As our main aim is to co-design technologies with the community members, we strived to promote reciprocity. Communities are well informed on how their IK will be joining an information sharing society. And as such, our endeavors were influenced on how the community members participate in the co-design sessions. Thus, we aimed to strengthen our collaboration through harmonized participation. This was important as it ensured the voice of the community members to be heard. The challenges allowed us to inquire solution on how best to integrate new researchers into a community, and how best the community members can win from the research being undertaken in the community. We seek to systematically analyze our lessons learnt over the years in order to formalize a community engagement framework to guide further technology co-design processes.

3

Literature on Related Work

1 Community Engagement

Community engagement is the process of involving rural community members in active ICT research being conducted in their communities by researchers. It is a core element for researchers seeking for research output, to place themselves properly in the rural communities. [START_REF] Sabiescu | Emerging Spaces in Community-Based Participatory Design: Reflections from two case studies[END_REF] adds that an effective collaborative design entails designers and communities co-creating their own applicable tools. Thus, in order for strong community engagement to be built, [START_REF] Light | Research on an Equal Footing? A UK Collaborative Inquiry into Community and Academic Knowledge[END_REF] urge that ways be found to ensure all voices of the community are heard when involved in a research project. [START_REF] Tacchi | Finding a Voice: Digital Storytelling as Participatory Development in South-East Asia[END_REF] states that to make sure that community members understand how ICT is effective in their local context their voices must be found and heard. The use of ICTs for community development opens possibilities for voices to be exercised [START_REF] Sabiescu | Empowering Minority Voices[END_REF]. If your voice is heard, it evaluates to a democratic communication which creates openness and recognition [START_REF] Dreher | A Partial Promise of Voice: Digital Storytelling and the Limit of Listening[END_REF]. [START_REF] Winschiers-Theophilus | Being participated: a community approach[END_REF] urges researchers and communities to jointly define and negotiate their situated approach to participation and interaction around the technology co-design process.

Community Values

In a local context, values and protocols frame participation [START_REF] Winschiers-Theophilus | Locally Situated Digital Representation of Indigenous Knowledge[END_REF][START_REF] Winschiers-Theophilus | Community Consensus: Design Beyond Participation[END_REF]. [START_REF] Kapuire | An Insider Perspective on Community Gains: A Subjective Account of a Namibian Rural Communities' Perception of a Longterm Participatory Design Project[END_REF] added that user interactions are driven by communal values. We consider humanness as a set of values guiding community-based interactions [START_REF] Kapuire | An Insider Perspective on Community Gains: A Subjective Account of a Namibian Rural Communities' Perception of a Longterm Participatory Design Project[END_REF]. In order to comply with local ethics, humanness is practiced by involving community members in research agendas in a respectful manner [START_REF] Kapuire | Framing Technology Design in Ubuntu: Two Locales in Pastoral Namibia[END_REF]. Other collaboration values that have reoccurred in the literature are trust, respect, and reciprocity. Trust is crucial, as [START_REF] Dantec | Strangers at the Gate: Gaining Access, Building Rapport, and Coconstructing Community-Based Research[END_REF] advised, with a community based project they had, the designs were determined by the community. [START_REF] Pearce | Community Collaboration and Climate Change Research in the Canadian Arctic[END_REF] mentioned an example about a research project with an Arctic community that they have a common consensus in the process which developed from a mutual trust. When mutual understanding is achieved in the community based research, [START_REF] Dantec | Strangers at the Gate: Gaining Access, Building Rapport, and Coconstructing Community-Based Research[END_REF] stress that community members accept researchers easily into their setup. To have proper community collaboration, the AIATSIS (Australian institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies) [START_REF]Guidelines for Ethical Research in Australian Indigenous Studies[END_REF] elaborates that during a research commitment session, the community members and researchers are equal partners Furthermore, our relationship as researchers with any community is to strive for reciprocity [START_REF] Blake | Teaching Design for Development in Computer Science[END_REF]. [START_REF] Brereton | Beyond Ethnography: Engagement and Reciprocity as Foundations for Design Research Out Here[END_REF] argue that the notion of reciprocity can lead to sustainable designs, valid research, and profound innovation (2014). This determination is based on re-spect as communities can decide to participate in research if they feel like it [START_REF] Buchanan | Ethical Issues in Community-Based Participatory Research: Balancing Rigorous Research with Community Participation in Community Intervention Studies[END_REF]. [START_REF] Brereton | Beyond Ethnography: Engagement and Reciprocity as Foundations for Design Research Out Here[END_REF] added that reciprocity constructs joint trust, commitment and benefit. Even the AIATSIS [START_REF]Guidelines for Ethical Research in Australian Indigenous Studies[END_REF] comment that research is significant when there is reciprocity between the community members and researchers. To nurture collaboration values, [START_REF] Mulemi | Salvaging African Perspectives of Reality via Afro-Centric and Intersubjective Methodologies[END_REF] mentioned reciprocity between the researchers and participants based on an Afrocentric paradigm. Thus, [START_REF] Hunter | A Practical Framework for Navigating Ethical Challenges in Collaborative Community Research[END_REF] state that a partnership between the researchers and community members must be formed, and that mutual learning gets ensured when strategies are developed with the community partners [START_REF] Edwards | Ethical Validity: Expecting the Unexpected in Community-based Research[END_REF].

Challenges

Some researchers do not respect cultural norms due to the unknown rural community they are placed at. Even if it's intentional or not, the failure to respect cultural norms is a concern as it leads to conflict, and increases negativity in engagements [35].Working with rural communities, challenges such as unmet expectation by the community members is visible especially when the agenda is not well explained at start of project.

In most cases researchers want to speak and think for community members especially new researchers embarking research in a community. [START_REF] Peters | Collaborating with Communities in Africa: a Hitchhikers Guide[END_REF] urge that community members should speak for themselves. If what they are expecting or thinking is not spoken, long term engagement will not be sustainable. [START_REF] Light | Research on an Equal Footing? A UK Collaborative Inquiry into Community and Academic Knowledge[END_REF] suggest that researchers and the community can share decision making when they develop a code of research ethics. According to [START_REF] Pearce | Community Collaboration and Climate Change Research in the Canadian Arctic[END_REF] there is an ethical obligation by researchers to engage with the community members as they are part of the research focus. An MOU approach is a strategy proposed by [START_REF] Hunter | A Practical Framework for Navigating Ethical Challenges in Collaborative Community Research[END_REF] which addresses rules of engagement between researchers and community members. It is not an easy task to engage communities due to cultural differences which increases fear of participation by community members [START_REF] Edwards | Ethical Validity: Expecting the Unexpected in Community-based Research[END_REF]. Another ethical challenge comes when responsibilities are being shared when all research partners are gathered together [START_REF] Green | Ethics and Community-Based Participatory Research: Commentary on Minkler[END_REF]. [START_REF] Light | Research on an Equal Footing? A UK Collaborative Inquiry into Community and Academic Knowledge[END_REF] emphasizes that community members must be protected, as well as researchers having guidelines, thus, all research requires ethical guidelines. Vulnerable community members should not be oppressed, and should get a chance to receive benefits of the research outcomes [START_REF] Dearden | See no evil? Ethics in an Interventionist ICTD[END_REF]. So this makes it vital to identify ethical goals by involving the communities in the approval [START_REF] Dickert | Ethical Goals of Community Consultation in Research[END_REF]. If consensus is not met new ethical goals and guidelines need to be developed [START_REF] Buchanan | Ethical Issues in Community-Based Participatory Research: Balancing Rigorous Research with Community Participation in Community Intervention Studies[END_REF].

Formalizations of Collaboration

Once their voice is heard, freedom for the community members to claim their own IK is created. This ensures that their ideas and opinions raised is shared and protected. [START_REF] Macaulay | Participatory Research with Native Community of Kahnawake Creates Innovative Code of Research Ethics[END_REF] best described that community ownership of data prevents potential misuse of the results during the research journey, or even after the research is finished. To identify protections ensuring the safety of the community members, consultation efforts should be designed and conducted [START_REF] Dickert | Ethical Goals of Community Consultation in Research[END_REF].

In most research projects data is collected and kept by the researchers, and returned to the community members for getting permission on how the data is disseminated [START_REF] Light | Research on an Equal Footing? A UK Collaborative Inquiry into Community and Academic Knowledge[END_REF]. Taking back the data is vital, as community members get informed about the status of the project, and can guarantee their results are correct [START_REF] Pearce | Community Collaboration and Climate Change Research in the Canadian Arctic[END_REF]. [START_REF] Pearce | Community Collaboration and Climate Change Research in the Canadian Arctic[END_REF] add that this creates a platform for feedback about the research by the community members. It also makes the community members share a common understanding about the aims of the research [START_REF]Guidelines for Ethical Research in Australian Indigenous Studies[END_REF]. [START_REF] Dantec | Strangers at the Gate: Gaining Access, Building Rapport, and Coconstructing Community-Based Research[END_REF] founded an approach to facilitate the exchange of knowledge between rural communities and researchers using a participatory rural appraisal. [START_REF] Hunter | A Practical Framework for Navigating Ethical Challenges in Collaborative Community Research[END_REF] presented a structure for establishing effective community research partnerships which is useful when implemented prior to formulation of the research design. To test the relevance of the structures members facilitated the discussions [START_REF] Hunter | A Practical Framework for Navigating Ethical Challenges in Collaborative Community Research[END_REF]. [START_REF] Narayan | Can anyone hear us? Voices from 47 countries. Poverty group[END_REF] introduced a participatory poverty assessment method that they developed which showcased the participation of poor men and women. [START_REF] Hunter | A Practical Framework for Navigating Ethical Challenges in Collaborative Community Research[END_REF] conducted workshops for researchers and community as a tool for effectively establishing community research partnerships.

Hence, various attempts have been made to create frameworks which try to engage community members in research. For example, [START_REF]OCAP: Ownership, Control, Access and Possession. Ottawa: First Nations Information Governance Committee, Assembly of First Nationals[END_REF] developed a framework as a Canadian initiative, which allows decisions be made by communities involved in research partnership, in regards to what research will be conducted. Even though the framework allows for community engagement, [START_REF] Zaman | Indigenous Knowledge Governance Framework: A Holistic Model for Indige nous Knowledge Management[END_REF] shared that the framework is limited to data and information governance. Therefore, [START_REF] Zaman | Indigenous Knowledge Governance Framework: A Holistic Model for Indige nous Knowledge Management[END_REF] developed a structured Indigenous Knowledge Governance Framework (IKGF), which has a communication engagement layer. Indigenous people need to participate in decision making [START_REF] Holland | Digital Collectives in Indigenous Cultures and Communities Meeting: Meeting Reports[END_REF], and also influence policies and laws that support the safety of their knowledge [START_REF] Kamira | Proceedings of the Information Technology in regional areas[END_REF], as such the part presented in the framework allows the process to establish collaboration between community members and researchers [START_REF] Zaman | Indigenous Knowledge Governance Framework: A Holistic Model for Indige nous Knowledge Management[END_REF].

Academia has been identified to coordinate efforts between rural communities, governments and businesses to support ICT4D (research) projects [START_REF] Mushiba | Academia's Responsibilities in Community-Based Co-Creation Education -A critical review of two cases in South Africa and Botswana[END_REF]. [START_REF] Martinez | ICT Application from the Perspective of University Social Responsibility in ICT4D Projects[END_REF] added that universities are in a position to solve community issues, and as such they endorse development of consistent university-community collaboration. The Academic Designer's point of reference with communities is made possible through continuous discussions and re-interpretations of engagements by the community themselves [START_REF] Kapuire | An Insider Perspective on Community Gains: A Subjective Account of a Namibian Rural Communities' Perception of a Longterm Participatory Design Project[END_REF]. Therefore, strong university-community collaboration has been essential for fruitful community-based co-creations. While attempts were made to regulate the engagement much works still needs to be done and therefore we are investigating the derivation of engagement protocols alongside our projects.

Community Collaboration Approach

At this point of time we have no formal collaboration framework in which we operate. Much of the interactions are guided by best practices, lessons learned from the past experiences as well as individual researchers'' knowledge about local protocols.

Research studies towards IK protection is a significant focus in the developing Namibia. The presentation for the need to preserve IK reached the ears of local funders, government and other tertiary institutions in Namibia. The stakeholders have shown the need to partake in this exciting journey to protect the country's rich cultural belongings.

One of the national objectives is to develop local communities. Cases have been presented for the collection of IK to promote an information society. Local IK is derived by community members being engaged in the projects. Our focus is to allow the voices of the community members to be heard as well as promote reciprocity. This creates harmony, as community members feel appreciated as they can raise their opinions which is taken as a design construct.

As such researchers have various outcomes when executing research. Thus, their visit to the communities is based on this outcome. It is important for the researchers to be aware that even though they have their own agenda and expectations from a specific community, engagement protocols still needs to be followed. This allows projects to have a partnership between communities and stakeholders.

Engagement Challenges Exemplified

In the following we first depict a number of various selected challenges that we have been facing in the different projects followed by community focus group sessions elaborating on community-researcher interactions.

Wikipedia and Motivation

Wikipedia has become one of the most popular repository [START_REF] Gallert | Clash of Cultures, Clash of Values: Wikipedia and Indigenous communities[END_REF]. As such, we aimed to show school teachers and community members how to use the platform to upload content. The idea was highly welcomed and teachers participated in uploading content sessions held. We motivated teachers to continue uploading content while we are not there. One researcher kept monitoring the platform to see any uploaded content. We noted that nothing was done. We than tried the sessions with different communities. The same process happened. We concluded that teachers are not motivated enough to upload content in our absence.

We opted for another attempt by identifying a champion. The champion was someone who will be a leader to motivate others to upload content. Yet again the champion was not motivated enough to monitor and lead others. [START_REF] Mushiba | Exploration of Value Sensitive-Persuasive Technology Design for Wikipedia Adoption in Namibian Schools[END_REF] suggested the usage of a persuasive technique based on motivational factors as a worthy tool to improve the upload of content on Wikipedia. To keep the teachers aware, we created a Facebook page to keep them tagged to the idea. The researcher provided the teachers with reminders. Yet again teachers were not motivated enough. This has been our biggest challenge with our Wikipedia project.

Indigenous Communities Engaging with Teams of Local and International Researchers

The project involved local and international researchers from different countries having various research outcomes. The international researchers were not based in Namibia, so the agreement was for them to engage with the communities upon arrival. At one encounter, various researchers visited a community to establish a partnership and agreement with the traditional leaders to conduct research. Some international researchers did not understand the culture of the community members causing distrust and hindering the relationship to be established. We established that the local team is the gatekeeper to the communities. Gatekeepers are researchers who have worked with rural communities for years and through that trust have been built [35]. Rules like how to behave and what to say was communicated to the international researchers, which was not well respected. Cases occurred where they raised insensitive questions. The local team had to constantly keep a close guard to the questions and replies by the international researchers. This also created conflict between local and international partners.

Discussions

We had regular discussions with the community members alongside the technology design sessions to ensure the community members can express concerns about processes. Recently we had a dedicated focus group session with community members from our two research sites namely Erindiroukambe and Otjisa. Community members who have been co-designers took part in the focus group discussions. Being involved in the project for a long time facilitated the conversation.

The elders from Erindiroukanbe reflected on how happy they are being part of the project. For them seeing researchers enter their community is a sign of learning something new. They learn about new technologies, how to co-design technology and services, understand the evolution of ICT and development. They also learn how to collect IK and preserve it. The community members repetitively insisted that researchers should come frequently. One of the native researchers is from the local research site making is easy for collaboration as community members felt comfortable. This resulted for the elders to welcome the researchers as being part of the community.

The elders from Otjisa mentioned that those who enter their community should humble themselves e.g. walking in a respectful manner. When the visitors approach the elders they should greet without stating their agenda. The elders will greet back which then the elder will ask what they are looking for and only then the visitors can proceed stating what brought them there. Once the elder feels comfortable and respected by the visitors, the elder warmly welcomed the visitors.

Ethical Questions

During one research trip in Otjisa, the researchers decided to accept a prior invitation by the elder to stay over for a couple of days. A focus group session was held to discuss how community members perceive researchers. The researchers asked a few questions (some listed in Table 1) to the community elders. "The person will be like your elder, or child, etc. So you do not have to make a difference from where you come from, and where you are. The only thing which will bring a difference is perhaps not able to do activities at the homestead." "How does it place you with others when we are at your homestead?" "It all depends on the hearts of the people. The community members have heard that you are here at my homestead. So any person who wants to know will come here. To come find out who are the people and what is the purpose of your visit."

Joint Engagement Protocol Development

Most literature suggests that engagement protocols should be settled before the project start, with elaborated informed consent. However, communities who have no experience with researchers would not be able to spell out those desirable rules. Also the process unfolds within the technology design space, so neither outcome nor negotiated methods are known at the beginning of the project only main agendas and underlying values are known. Thus, we suggest that it is an ongoing process of negotiation. In order to engage with the community members, it is best to develop the engagement protocol with them alongside the project. This elevates trust as they decide and agree on what is expected from them and are part of the outcome. Defining rules beforehand may result negatively depending on the take in by the community members. They do not want to sign anything as that gives the impression that we might have a bad intention.

It is also important to regularly inquire about dos' and don'ts. The process allows the researchers to know when to do anything. Even though researcher might think they know what is best, it is important to always re-confirm whether they are doing anything right or wrong. This is something we established to make sure new researchers do not fall short by doing something wrong.

In order to affirm engagement, a research day at the local tertiary institution was held whereby our co-designer was invited to attend. One of our co-designer from Otjisa gave a talk about the project. He talked about how happy he is being a codesigner. He demonstrated a tool he uses on a tablet which he co-designed. We also discussed a written paper with the elder. As academic papers are in English, we had the paper translated into the elder traditional language. He appreciated the effort of the elder, as he can read the work being published. This engagement protocol allowed the elder to affirm his position in the research team, and showed appreciation that he was chosen.

Engagement beyond Projects

Our co-designers regularly request for the research team to come longer and more frequent. The elders mentioned that researchers must just come even if there is no research agenda.

Engagement is a relationship established with all its responsibilities. Even though there are no research outcomes needed by the research team, the project still runs. Elders commented that they want the research team to come frequently even if there are no co-design expectations. For the sites which are new, at first encounter we create a partnership. This opens up space for the research team to sustain engagement. During a normal visit by the native researchers, researchers and elders gathered just sit to talk about normal things.

7

Future Work [START_REF] Hunter | A Practical Framework for Navigating Ethical Challenges in Collaborative Community Research[END_REF] urge that if a mutual understanding needs to be met by the researchers and communities, the aims and objectives should be clearly outlined. Therefore, we will analyze all engagements and technology sessions to initiate the co-design of the framework which will guide interactions between researchers and communities.

Table 1 .

 1 -Some Ethical Questions with Elder in Otjisa

	Researcher asked:	Elder Replies:
	"Don't you ever feel if there	"When you come to my homestead, we will find you
	are researchers they are in-	a place to settle down. So none of us will have any-
	vading your space?"	thing else to think about. It's a place where you can

Acknowledgments

We would like to give our sincere gratitude to the two rural communities working with the research team. We acknowledge and appreciate the National Commission on Research, Science and Technology (NCRST) for funding this project.


Sisa Ngabaza
email: sngabaza@uwc.ac.za

Young women in South African call centres: A case of women's empowerment or a repackaging of the conventional global factory?

Keywords: Young women, employment, call centres, Cape Town, South Africa

ICT4D is slowly making inroads into various communities in developing contexts globally, and this slow pace is equally noticeable within the field of gender and development. This paper draws from an ongoing research project that uses a qualitative feminist framework to investigate young women's participation in the call centre industry in Cape Town, South Africa. The paper further draws on intersectionality to tap into lived experiences of young women working in different call centres to critically explore the "value" for call centres as a project empowering young women economically in the South African context. Drawing from descriptive data collected from young women working as call centre agents, the paper argues that call centres may indeed be a huge ICT4D empowerment project for young women in the South African, but also cautions that call centres continue to parade the hallmarks of 'traditional female employment ghettos'.

Introduction

Call centre business, largely mediated by computer and telephone technologies has become a popular ICT4D phenomenon and viable mode of employment for young people in numerous countries across the globe. Key global players in the field include India and the Philippines, and of late South Africa has joined this bandwagon. In South Africa the industry has increasingly grown in the last two decades, placing the country in the lead on the continent [ ]. The government of South Africa is totally commitment to the call centre project and this commitment seemingly assures this growth. There is an increased interest in call centres as a viable project for employment creation, which has put call centres in the spotlight [ ]. This visibility has equally attracted offshore multinational companies, which find South Africa an ideal destination, with compatible time zones, proficient English language speakers, and competitive attrition rates. In essence, South Africa prides itself in delivering worldwide service at highly competitive rates [ ]. This paper draws on a study that focuses on the experiences of young women who work as agents in different call centres in Cape Town. The paper questions the value of call centres as economic empowerment spaces for young women in a South African context.

The current global economic environment promotes trade regimes that encourage the rapid growth of the service industry. Feminist scholars attribute this fast growth to the availability of women as cheap labour [ ], in an employment model that foregrounds low wage labour. This model of employment has been largely criticized for diverging from the traditional model of male employment, which emphasized permanent employment [ ], to that which centralizes part-time work such as call centre work. It is therefore not surprising that call centres are particularly pivotal in the service industry, with female employees constituting more than 75 % of call centre agents [ , ]. This feminization of labour is a current global concern for feminist scholars who are critical of the division of labour which differentiates what women do from what men do in wage work [ ]. Call centres indeed promote a shift from male dominated wage labour to that dominated by females, and it is within the context of labour differentiation that I question if call centres are in essence a space where young South African women can be economically empowered, or whether they are just a version of the global economic 'factory' that capitalizes on women as "a cheap, submissive …secondary workforce" [START_REF] Irving | Gender and Work[END_REF] (p.171).

Call centres are highly monitored environments, with call centre agents under constant surveillance from their managers. Monitoring includes activities such as tracking the number of calls, speed at which the calls are taken, time when the agent is on or off the phone, abandoned calls etc. [2, , , , ]. This surveillance renders call cen-tres as spaces highly charged with power dynamics, as agents are pushed to meet numerous targets through multiple incentives. The Global Call Centre Report [ ] explored 2500 call centres in 17 countries and found call centres in South Africa ranked amongst those with the highest degree of call centre monitoring [START_REF] Benner | The South African call centre industry: A study of strategy, human resource practices and performance[END_REF], which is a matter of concern.

There is a huge body of work on call centres globally and this work seems to be focused largely on labour operations, processes, and agents [ , ]. In South Africa such work is slowly emerging and seemingly in line with global trends. There are very few studies focusing on gender in call centre work and I have not come across any empirical work using intersectionality or a gender justice lens, to understand the nature of women's work in South African call centres. Yet it is necessary to disaggre-gate the 'call centre agent' as a worker, for a nuanced understanding of young wom-en's work in South African call centres. A feminist intersectional analysis necessitates sensitivity to multiple categories of difference [ , ] that constitute woman and worker, and this exploration is sensitive to the multiple intersecting categories that could possible shape young women's experiences as call centre agents.

Studies that raise the significance of gender in call centres have been conducted elsewhere. What is worrying though is that most of this global literature on women's participation in the call centre industry is more than a decade old [7, , ]. ICT4D are rapidly changing, as are the work environments; it is indeed concerning that empirical evidence is not reflective of this process. This paper will contribute towards this scarce literature and particularly, towards understanding the lived experiences of call centre agents in a South African context. Belt [START_REF] Belt | A Female Ghetto? Women's Careers in Telephone Call Centres[END_REF] conducted a similar study in the UK and Ireland and was of the impression that call centres seem "to bear many of the old hallmarks of those traditional female employment ghettos", spaces mainly occu-pied by women, specialising in low skilled undemanding jobs, which most women would find it difficult to leave. In this paper I question the value of call centres as economic empowerment zones for young women in this rapidly growing industry in a developing context.

2

The study

This paper draws from a large ongoing research project, informed by qualitative feminist principles. The large project employs multiple data collection methods such as surveys, focus group discussions, and in-depth individual interviews, to explore young women's lived experiences in the call centre industry in Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa. This paper reports findings from 15 semi-structured interviews conducted with call centre agents in and around Cape Town. Interviews were conducted with female call centre agents from an array of call centres which offer different services. Interviews were held in spaces where the agents were comfortable to do so. All participation was voluntary, and informed consent was obtained from all participants before commencement of the interviews. Ages of participants ranged from 19 to 35 years. Pseudonyms have been used throughout for anonymity purposes. Most interviews were conducted in English and some in the language preferred by the participant. These were transcribed verbatim and translated accordingly. This data was analysed through a qualitative thematic approach [ ] and the following section presents themes emerging from this analysis.

Findings and Discussion

Call centres as spaces of women's economic empowerment

In Cape Town, as is the trend in South Africa and probably in other global spaces, call centres recruit young people of school leaving age with a school leaving certificate or university students [START_REF] Benner | The South African call centre industry: A study of strategy, human resource practices and performance[END_REF]. These are people with absolutely no tangible qualifications for any kind of job, untapped cheap labour [START_REF] Taylor | India calling to the far away towns' the call centre labour process and globalization[END_REF]. Rob Davies of the Department of Trade and Industry in South Africa, cited in [ ], sees South African call centres providing an opportunity for employment and exposure, specifically for young people who fall in the 15 to 34 year age group. This means that call centres provide mostly entry-level job opportunities where young people are excited by the prospect of wage labour. It was therefore not surprising from this study that some young women found participating in the call centre as agents a financially empowering process:

Let me first explain why I say it (call centre work) is empowering: many call centre workers are women, single parents who fell pregnant when they were teenagers just like me, and never got a chance to finish studies because fathers of children ran away or are absent. Some call centres have flexi hours like this one, meaning you can work and take care of your children. (Nokulunga, 29 years)

This participant who had been working in this inbound customer care centre for nine years found the place a welcome source of income for her child and her own welfare. This optimistic view of the call centre was further emphasised by other participants who did not only see call centres as worthwhile employment ventures but were confident that they also promoted upward mobility within the industry for mostly female workers who might not have been open to such mobility in other sectors: I believe that call centre work is empowering to females, because they are more likely to be employed than males because of their characteristics. Call centre work is empowering to women because they feel that they can get into management positions much easier than males. While males feel that it is disempowering because, uhm …They aren't acknowledged the way that women are in call centres. (Buhle,25 years) Other participants further supported this sentiment:

The positive aspect is that the call centre promotes women, most of the call centres prefer to hire women because women meet targets and the call centre is about talking, and women like talking… (Nokulunga, 29 years) Uhm … well … females are more likely to get promotion opportunities … But from, like my previous experiences in the call centre, females got the permanent posts and management jobs before males. The challenge for females though is to get further up the ladder. Uhm … in other words I would say that it is harder for women to get beyond the lower management and to get into positions of higher management. (Nonhle, 27 years) My personal experience is that women are able to get the lower leadership positions because call centre companies see it as a way of empowering women. But in a way it does not fully empower women because they struggle to break the barrier of obtaining those superior leadership jobs, which are generally filled by males. (Tarin,25 years) These extracts raise a number of issues about the participation of young women in the call centre industry in Cape Town. Optimistically, call centres are sources of employment opportunities, a safe haven for those with almost no job qualification, offering financial independence for students, single mothers, and above all a worthwhile opportunity for women's overall participation in the economy. Further positive sentiments regarding call centre employment have been raised in those studies conducted particularly in high areas of unemployment [ ]. It should be noted that South Africa has very high unemployment levels and it remains a welcome initiative that call centres offer some kind of economic independence for those who would otherwise not have been employed.

Although these young women find call centres largely a source of economic empowerment, it should be noted that early global empirical work on call centres sees the cluster of women in the bottom rung as agents and in the managerial positions as, "ghettoising themselves" [START_REF] Belt | A Female Ghetto? Women's Careers in Telephone Call Centres[END_REF]. The main reason for such positioning of women is premised on the capability of women, particularly older women [ ], to provide sta-bility in the organisations. In such cases the expectation is that they will seldom move anywhere. This is the general feeling, particularly for those studies conducted elsewhere [ ]. Findings in this study seem to pick up continuities on the positioning of women in the lower rung. What seems to be different though is that the majority of women on this rung in South African call centres are young, when compared to Skene's [START_REF] Skene | Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks: Accessing Employment Opportunities for Mature Workers in the Call Centre Industry[END_REF] observation that call centres were an employment source for older women.

Call centres are indeed an empowerment project for young women in this context but the concentration of women in the industry as call centre agents as well as frontline managers also continues to draw parallels with the industrial factory. Perhaps we should be asking if call centres are a repackaging of the industrial manufacturing factory, with "large scale and continuous production, extensive monitoring and control of the workplace…repetitive of work tasks". Are call centre agents the new face of the "industrial proletariat", and the advent of call centres largely a "continuous largescale industrial production process?" [START_REF] Burgess | Emerging developments in call centre research[END_REF]. It is of concern and equally ironical that an industry hugely driven by ICT4D, such as the call centre continues to exhibit the same characteristics of work organisation that were prevalent in the conventional global factory [ ] as shown in some responses from the participants above. Perhaps further exploration is needed for a deeper, more nuanced understanding of these questions on women's employment in the call centre industry.

Participants further reported finding call centres empowering in terms of skills:

You also learn to communicate better and that also improves your communication skills and it also improves your negotiation skills. You learn a lot from working with a diverse range of people and you learn how to handle different personalities such as rude customers and nice customers. (Marceline, 32 years) It does expose you to various people and personality types, I guess you can become confident and learn valuable technical and human relation skills. (Nolwazi, 23 years)

Such positive notions on use of ICTs as potentially empowering in terms of skills in this industry have been noted elsewhere [START_REF] Hunt | Call Centre Work for Women: Career or Stopgap? Labour & Industry: a[END_REF]. Writing from New Zealand, the author cautions though that most call centres in this particular context are extremely small government ventures and this may be different in other settings. Although the participants in this study emphasised positive notions about skills they acquired from call centres, empirical evidence on other global work in call centres seems to foreground the use of ICTs in call centres as rather deskilling, repetitive, and monotonous. ICT use in the call centre industry has been critiqued for lacking intensive skilling, as agents are exposed to basic keyboard skills [ ]. Perhaps agents would benefit more if technologies in call centres were harnessed and utilized for intensive skilling and further potential growth for young women.

Pessimism in use of ICT4D in call centres for young women agents

A number of young women found call centres indeed a powerful economic empowerment venture for unskilled young people and students in tertiary institutions. However, juxtaposed to these views was a powerful pessimistic voice that was quick to dismiss the use of ICTs in the call centre by young women as empowering in any way:

As women we always have to prove that we are good enough to the clients, male employees and our bosses. So even though we are pressured, we are the hardest working because we try to show everyone that we know what we are doing. (Candice, 25 years)

Some spoke ambiguously about the remuneration process, which in most cases was also shaped by other intersectional factors in their lives. Feminist scholars are always conscious of the non-homogeneity of women as social players in different contexts, arguing instead that women's lived experiences are largely unique to other constraints in their lives [START_REF] Cole | Intersectionality and research in psychology[END_REF][START_REF] Yuval-Davis | Intersectionality and feminist politics[END_REF]. Although this paper generally refers to participants' age groups it should be noted that issues like race, language, class, and level of education were taken into consideration in the broad study. The study does not only acknowledge intersectionality for this group of workers, but also foregrounds the significance of how women's working experiences are mediated by other multiple factors in their lives. Whilst some participants expressed general gendered notions of participation, some were careful not to homogenise their experiences. Experiences were therefore diverse:

I am telling you if I could go back to school I would! There is no money there especially for someone like me who is not married with three children. (Noma 32 years)

It is of course empowering because its quick and easy money … Most students of X university work at the xxx Call Centre in xxx. They go to college all day and then the shift starts from 5pm until 10pm. It's an easy way of getting money and studying at the same time, especially for students who don't get enough money at home … It was the same for me. If I got enough money at home, I wouldn't have had to work 6 months in the call centre xxx. But I didn't have that money and my parents didn't have it, I was forced to go and work at the call centre … It's not conducive as a work environment. But I needed to do it to pay college registration money … You know, most of the people who work there are…people with no aspiration, they choose the easy way out, it's not empowering at all. (Fatima, 23 years) No! I am not well paid; in fact I am barely coping. If I had a family of my own, or still, rented a place I would not be able to survive. I don't know how the other people in the call centre make ends surviving on Rxxx per month. How can this be any form of empowerment? (Nolwazi, 23 years)

As evident in the above extracts, multiple intersecting factors seem to underlie young women's pessimism about call centres as an empowerment venture for young people. Both class and level of education are raised as challenges pinning down participants to call centre work. Further, another participant raises the challenge of single motherhood and an extremely troubling parenting dynamic for her and her child as shown here:

My early shift begins at 7am in the morning until 2pm in the evening, which means I have to wake up early and prepare myself and my child early … since I am a single mother I have to leave my child alone to wait for school transport which arrives at 7.30 to pick her up. Therefore I am constantly stressing because I am worried about my child's safety and my safety as well. I work a late shift, which normally happens for two weeks in a month … I work from 12 noon until 8pm and get home around 9pm in the evening. This means I have to leave my child alone for the whole evening without taking care of her. Therefore if you are a woman in the call centre industry it is not easy because you cannot care for your family as much as you would like to do. (Akhona, 32 years) Moreover, others continued to challenge the idea of call centre participation as a form of empowerment at all: I met people who have worked for 10 years in the same call centre at the same space and they were fine with their position as agents. There was this one girl, she was 21 years old at the time and she was permanent. She has no aspiration of studying. When we asked why she didn't work part time to have the opportunity to study, she said that she was used to the money. This work is not empowering; I could never do it for more than a year. It's not a comfortable environment. I don't understand people who are comfortable with this work. Work-ing10 hours a day for 10 years is not empowering at all! (Fatima, 23 years) More participants raised further pessimistic sentiments challenging the proposition of call centres as a space for women's economic empowerment:

Okay, so some of the challenges obviously the hours, we had to work 12 hour shifts, we had to work night shifts …; you are always sitting down which is also quite unhealthy. There is also a language barrier between the clients and us because they don't really understand our type of English, ja language barriers are frustrating. Sometimes clients even ask to be transferred to an American based associate. (Charne, 25 years)

Disempowering, 'cause I feel like I'm losing my IQ every f… single day, honestly speaking … in a call centre once you're in that position you can't climb. That's how it is in a call centre. (Marceline, 32 year)

Numerous studies seem to attest to the challenges of ICT4D within the call centre industry [7, 18, ]; with scholars citing multiple challenges particularly for women workers. Shift work has been raised as interfering with women's distinctive cultures, particularly in developing contexts [START_REF] Singh | Women in call centres[END_REF]. Further some scholars are largely dismissive of the empowerment discourse, instead seeing the use of ICTs in the call centres deepening women's exploitation on an international scale [START_REF] Cole | Intersectionality and research in psychology[END_REF][START_REF] Coyle | Women and Organisational Change[END_REF][START_REF] Russell | The Talk Shop and Shop Talk: Employment and Work in a Call Centre[END_REF]. Evidence from this study shows that more than 75% of call centre employees are women, and that the use of ICT4D in this context remains contested as both an empowerment but also an exploitative venture for young women in Cape Town.

Discussion

A number of participants emphasise the gendered nature of call centre work, indicat-ing that it is ideal and supportive to female employment because of their 'productivity and characteristics'. Call centre work is about 'talking and women like talking' as raised by some participants above. Is this a version of a 'female docility and nimble fingers' discourse [5, ] that has been central to feminist critique of women's work in the traditional global factories, or is it a 'recomposition' of a new exploitative form of labour for young women through ICT4D? Feminist scholars have criticised labour differentiation based on gender ascriptive notions between men and women, arguing instead for a labour force undifferentiated by gender, a labour force that can 'dispose' women's labour power as their 'own commodity … free of all the objects needed for the realisation of this labour-power' (Marx, 1976, cited in [START_REF] Elson | The subordination of women and the internationalization of factory production[END_REF]. Feminist scholars continue to challenge the disingenuous nature of women's work in global contexts, arguing that although women's wage work is an essential tool to fight patriarchal subordination, such work usually exposes women to the vulnerability of exploitation in low wage employment [START_REF] Eisenstein | Feminism seduced. How global elites use women's labor and ideas to exploit the world[END_REF]. Participants in this study were equally quick to under-line the low wages characteristic of most call centres in South Africa and the chal-lenges of making a living out of these wages. Here multiple intersectional factors mediating their experiences as young women in call centres emerged. These factors strongly accentuated the necessity to disaggregate the call centre 'agent' for a more nuanced understanding of their subjective experiences as female workers in call cen-tre employment in Cape Town.

Conclusion

This paper raises a dichotomous response to how young female call centre agents from a variety of call centres in and around Cape Town experience participation in the ICT employing call centre industry. Evidence given in this paper shows that young people find the call centre industry empowering as an employment venture in a place characterised by high rates of unemployment that are even higher for women. Within this broad context of empowerment, we are reminded of the challenges of call centre work as limiting in providing solid ICT skills with the potential to ensure women's growth in the economic sphere. Moreover we need to be mindful of the call centre industry continuing to exhibit the same qualities as those evidenced in the global factories popularly associated with women's exploitation.

Acknowledgement

This paper acknowledges support from the National Research Foundation (grant no 99220) in South Africa.