Language, culture and communication in development cooperation On the role of ICTs in networking online communities of practice

Globalization results in the exclusion and marginalization of diverse categories of stakeholders at the local level in developing countries, while decentralization leads to integration and participation of some of these stakeholders. In this evolving process, increasingly facilitated by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), the role of language and literacy, and their relationship with culture, have been given scant attention. ICTs facilitate language marginalization and homogenization, while it is an open question whether they contribute to language growth and survival. Within the context of development cooperation and natural resource management, the Community-Based Natural Resource Management Network (CBNRM Net), which serves the global CBNRM community of practice, uses ICTs to communicate with its global membership. CBNRM Net is concerned with how globalization and decentralization is influencing traditional and modern CBNRM practices. This includes how the present massive use of ICTs to facilitate communication, relying largely on English, is affecting literacy and language in the area of traditional knowledge on CBNRM. The paper presents a framework for analyzing use of language, and impacts on culture, in online communication and networking.