Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Digital Elites and Digital Apartheid

Besides the lack of a solid research base for the digital native/immigrant (or net gen) discourse, one of our other critiques has been the fact that it represents a very North American view of the world and particularly of education. So from South Africa comes an insightful critique from Laura Czerniewicz who explains why it is a problematic discourse for her country:

"In the South African context, and indeed in many post colonial contexts, the term is loaded with baggage and problematic connotations. There exists another whole set of discourses to do with natives and settlers, native laws etc to which we do not wish to be party. And indeed, while the term has been reclaimed in some instances (such as The Native Club), there seems to be no sense of irony in the present use of the term digital native."

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