Dissertation Improvement Award: ICTs and Capabilities in the Kudumbashree Mission of Kerala

这个论文改进项目由科学与社会计划资助，将研究Kudumbashree的影响，Kudumbashree是一个政府资助的针对印度喀拉拉邦妇女的发展计划。这项研究与当前最突出的发展观点之一，即Amartya Sen的能力方法特别相关，该方法侧重于商品而不是商品本身所产生的自由。具体来说，本研究考察了两类Kudumbashree项目——信息和通信技术（ICT）企业，它们提供数据输入和硬件组装等服务，并在不同程度上依赖政府支持；传统企业提供反映本土生产模式（如餐饮和工艺生产）的服务，并在公开市场上竞争。核心问题是，这些努力在社会和经济成果以及可持续性方面是否存在差异。在喀拉拉邦首府蒂鲁凡南得普拉姆及其周边地区进行了80次面对面定性访谈，访谈对象包括库杜姆巴什里企业集团和个人集团成员，以及库杜姆巴什里高级官员和该组织的社区支持者。对各企业集团的日常活动进行了观察，并对其年度财务报告进行了分析。本研究的智力价值在于其目的是对两个经常在理论上讨论但很少在经验上检验的主题进行评估：ICT发展政策和能力增强。本研究有助于性别、技术与发展的论述，也有助于对能力方法的理论理解。它对发展实践产生了更广泛的影响，增强了我们对发展政策与实践之间关系的理解，包括对在发展中地区贫困妇女中培养和维持经济增长有希望的战略和策略的理解。

This dissertation improvement project, funded by the Science and Society Program, will examine the influence of Kudumbashree, a government sponsored development initiative targeting women in Kerala, India. This research is of particular relevance to one of the most prominent current perspectives on development, Amartya Sen's capability approach, which focuses on the freedoms generated by commodities rather than commodities themselves. Specifically, this study examines two categories of Kudumbashree programs -- information and communication technology (ICT) enterprises that offer services such as data entry and hardware assembly and rely to varying degrees on government support and traditional enterprises that offer services reflective of indigenous modes of production such as catering and craft production and compete on the open market. The central problem is whether these efforts differ in terms of social and economic outcomes and sustainability. Eighty face-to-face qualitative interviews are conducted in and around Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, with Kudumbashree enterprise groups and individual group members as well as top Kudumbashree officials and community supporters of the organization. Observations of daily activities of each enterprise group also are made and their yearly financial reports are analyzed. The intellectual merit of this study lies in its aim to provide an assessment of two topics frequently addressed theoretically but seldom tested empirically: ICT development policy and capability enhancement. This research contributes to gender, technology, and development discourse as well as to the theoretical understanding of the capability approach. It has broader impacts on development practice by enhancing our understanding of the relationship between development policy and practice, including the strategies and tactics that show promise in cultivating and sustaining economic growth among poor women in developing areas.