Papers & Presentations
Who's steering this Waka? Thoughts on the relevance of "engaging regionalism" from the Community Online Aotearoa Project
Margie Scotts: Senior Analyst, Community Development Group, Wellington, New Zealand and Ross Himona (Rangitane, Ngai Te Whatuiapiti & Ngati Kahugnunu)
Conference interest areas addressed in this paper:
- Community development and organisation
- Innovations for information provision and empowerment to different communities.
Objectives:
- To draw from the Community Online Aotearoa experience learning's from an Internet initiative designed to increase access to electronically published information for community organisations;
- To challenge traditional definitions of communtiy development and governance as essentially local or regional activity;
- To reflect on and explore resistance to empowerment and change within the New Zealand/ Aotearoa community sector as presented by IT.
Information technology and Internet is something community development facilitators in New Zealand have to come to terms with if they are to work to genuinely empower people and communities in the new century. The tools of social change relevant to the 60's, 70's, and 80's are no longer adequate for the new century. The challenge is to both community workers and to communities who all need to maintain their access to information and ability to mobilise resources with tools that create access to power.
This involves moving beyond regionalism as a defining development concept, as a policy, and as a legitimisation of the local focus of development work because the Internet leaps completely over these sorts of boundaries.
It means extending the boundaries of how we define community, mastering the new tools of social change, and fundamentally re locating community development as a process in a more open space.
Biography
Margie Scotts has worked in paid and unpaid roles in community groups for about fifteen years and for the past five years in a community development unit within the NZ government. She is passionate about social justice and equity, young people, environment, employment and local economic development.Margie has been a late and reluctant starter on IT.
Ross Himona is a member of the Ngati Kahungunu tribe. Ross was born and raised in rural New Zealand close to his tribal roots.
He spent 20 years in the New Zealand Army retiring in the rank of Major in 1982, serving in Malaya, Sarawak, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Fiji, nine years in Australia, and seven years in New Zealand.
Since 1982 Ross has been involved in Community Development and Maori Development, and is presently engaged in a number of educational, cultural and technology projects, including the CommunityNet Aotearoa website initiative.
He owns and operates a community development consultancy, and owns two companies in the Internet industry. Top