CED Publications
CED Publications
Author: John D'Souza, Centre for Education & Documentation
CED works from the premise that there is no shortage of information
and that we are only alienated from it. We believe we have to fight the notion of
information as power where withholding it gives one a sense of one-upmanship over the
other, so that one day you can bring out a book or a pamphlet or report. We moved away
from the propaganda model or the “push” approach, to inquiry or “pull’
model. We believe that it is this push system of propaganda, which perpetutates the
top-down, hierarchical system of communications, which in turn is a reflection of the
social structure.
Information, in form, is an important pillar of the body politic. It is part of the
socialisation process within society. Its structure, use and sources betrays the kind of
society it operates within. In modern society, we have information handled in ivory towers
of academic institutions . Alongside we have simultaneous and mass propagation of common
images, through space communications or morning laxatives called newspapers. Now Internet
promises to be the PROZAC of cyber-junkies. Alongside is this apparently decentralised but
highly codified information be it from the district or international databases, in
electronic circuits available to tile bureaucrats, planners and corporate managers.
Also, the whole of the information superstructure is involved in the politics of
“manufacturing consent”.
NGO documentation centres have adopted the language and thought of market, and indeed
practice predominates the information system. The information institutions which are on
behalf of the poor, see it as their duty to."make” the information market
function properly, so that social terms are “included” be it through so called
“advocacy” or “social watch”.
In the absence of an immediate Structural Change movement, and the emergence of
international institutions apparently concerned with development, the radicalised NGO
seems to be drowned in the world of Structural Adjustment.” Left Action groups and
NGOs working in the organisation mode are now into projects for poverty alleviation and
advocacy for better policy within the dominant system. Documentation Centres are expected
to continue play the support or second fiddle role.
What we have seen in the nineties, is a slow and sure drag on all kinds of support
organisations which schools them into the predominant development agenda. Consider the
increasing funding to high profile ‘think tanks’, ‘social watches’,
policy studies, best practices literature. Witness the freezing of the development agenda
under the most radical rhetoric into the agenda21 after a spate of junkets called summits.
Challenge the notion of civil society which seeks to equate all kinds of efforts under the
sanitised “sum total of individual and collective initiatives for common public
good”
It is my belief that information centres must be able to stay away from the turbulent
tides of development fashion. While it is operating within the NGO environment and the
voluntary sector as a whole, it must stand on its own and develop a role and function that
makes free and easy access to development, analytical and critical information an
institution.
To serve as an institution, information centres will have to get out of their ivory
towers, the boardrooms of NGOs, and its tendency of talking down or making
“information packages” or IEC materials for the people. They must be founded on
the belief that relevant development and social information just needs to be organised,
and made accessible. That a person of whatever training, can and will understand what we
consider are “technical” issues, as and when it affect them. Thus a key to
accessibility is to shun academic or project terms, in favour of classifications, which
correlate to the problem, and not its abstraction, as most library science would.
Organisations working for the poor will have to establish open information centres, which
address the issues concerning them. These centres should not be restricted by its form to
the already ‘information rich’. These centres should be established in such a
way that they are part of the regular day to day information seeking mechanism of at least
the middle sections of society — the youth and the students, and bring in the second
and third levels of organisations like NGOs and Institutions like teachers, activists and
social and public workers into the information circuit.
Mario
Esteves 27 Oct 2004 10:45 AM [Permalink]HI JOhn.
Long time since I heard such relevant stuff on information sharing. Dont you think
Govindpur is fashioned precisely for this and this isa gret opportunity for you to share
with us the present trends of information needs, their formats, etc. How best to acess
info and how best to share through the centers you are talking about.
Mario
