African Women and ICTs explores the ways in which women in Africa utilize ICTs to facilitate their empowerment; whether through the mobile village phone business, through internet use, or through new career and ICT employment opportunities. Based on the outcome of an extensive research project, this timely book features chapters based on original primary field research undertaken by academics and activists who have investigated situations within their own communities and countries. The discussion includes such issues as the notion of ICTs for empowerment and as agents of change, ICTs in the fight against gender-based violence, and how ICTs could be used to reconceptualize public and private spaces.

The Editors

Ineke Buskens is a cultural anthropologist with a passion for research methodology and women’s empowerment and a deep appreciation of cultural diversity and individual human uniqueness. Having graduated in Leiden, the Netherlands, she has lived in Ghana, India, and Brazil, and since 1990 in South Africa. From 1990 to 1995, Ineke was head of the Centre for Research Methodology at South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council and, in 1996, founded Research for the Future. Ineke now leads the Gender Research into ICTs for Empowerment (GRACE) Networks in Africa and the Middle East (www.grace-network.net), which involves 28 research teams undertaking research in 18 countries.

Anne Webb is the GRACE Research Coordinator. Her commitment to feminist qualitative research is rooted in participatory action research approaches. Trained in sociology, adult education, and gender studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (Toronto) and the Institute of Social Studies (The Hague), Anne’s education has involved people from all walks of life and locations, formally and informally, in Canada, Europe and southern Africa.

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