Associate Professor Paula Uimonen, Director.

Paula has 15 years of experience in ICT for Development (ICT4D). She was one of the first scholars to treat the Internet as a tool for social development (1997) and has worked extensively with ICT4D in multilateral (UNRISD, UNDP, UNHCHR, ITU) and bilateral development cooperation (SDC, Sida), as well as global policy making (WSIS 2003 and 2005). Since 2004, she has advised government agencies in Tanzania on ICT integration in the culture and education sectors. As a scholar, Paula is specialized in digital anthropology, combining digital, visual and sensory research methods. A recent article on her research can be found here (in Swedish). Paula's dissertation (2001) was the first comparative, empirical study of Internet development in the developing world, based on multi-sited fieldwork in Southeast Asia. Her most recent research project focused on digital media and intercultural interaction at Taasisi ya Sanaa na Utamaduni Bagamoyo (TaSUBa), a national institute for art and culture in Tanzania. The results of this research are shared in the book Digital Drama. Teaching and Learning Art and Media in Tanzania (April 2012). Published in the Routledge Innovative Ethnographies book series, Digital Drama is a pioneering experiment in anthropological writing, combining textual, visual and hyperlinked forms of expression. In her current research project, Corruption in everyday life in Tanzania (2012-2013), she focuses on how ordinary citizens perceive, experience and respond to corruption in everyday life in Tanzania. The study is based on material gathered during the Chanjo project, a Spider-supported anti-corruption campaign combining music, mobiles, and social media. The results of this research will be published as an ethnographic road movie (2013).

Select publications

Uimonen, Paula. 2012. Digital Drama. Teaching and learning art and media in Tanzania. New York: Routledge.

Uimonen, Paula. 2012. Social and Mobile Media in ICT4D. In Social Media in Development Cooperation, Ricky Storm Braskov (ed). Ørecomm at Malmö University and Roskilde University. http://orecomm.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/SocialMediaOrecomm2011.pdf

Uimonen, Paula. 2011. African art students and digital learning. In Interactive media use and youth: learning, knowledge exchange and behaviour. Elza Dunkels, Gun-Marie Frånberg and Camilla Hällgren (eds.). Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. Page 222-239

Uimonen, Paula. 2009. Internet, arts and translocality in Tanzania. Social Anthropology/ Anthropologie sociale, 17 (3): 276-290

Uimonen, Paula. 2009. Lärande i en digitaliserad värld. In Didaktisk design i digital miljö: nya möjligheter för lärande. Staffan Selander och Eva Svärdemo-Åberg (eds.). Stockholm: Liber. Page 54-69

Uimonen, Paula. 2006. ICT User Study at Bagamoyo College of Arts. Bagamoyo College of Arts and Sida/Embassy of Sweden Dar es Salaam, April 2006. Published with multimedia report.

Uimonen, Paula and Simbo Ntiro. 2006. The Impact of WSIS on Tanzania’s ICT4D Landscape, in Beyond Tunis: Flightplan. Kuala Lumpur: Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP).

Uimonen, Paula. 2003. Networking as a Form of Life: The Transnational Movement of Internet Pioneers, in New Technologies at Work: People, Screens and Social Virtuality, C. Garsten and H. Wulff (eds), Oxford: Berg. Page 145-163

Uimonen, Paula. 2003. Mediated Management of Meaning: On-line Nation Building in Malaysia, in Global Networks: A Journal of Transnational Affairs, special issue on Globalization, Creolization, and Cultural Complexity: Essays in Honour of Ulf Hannerz. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, Vol. 3, No. 3: 299-314

Uimonen, Paula. 2003. Networks of Global Interaction. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Volume 16, Number 2, pp. 273-286.

Uimonen, Paula. 2003. Digital Empowerment-A Strategy for ICT for Development (ICT4D) for DESO. Stockholm: Sida/DESO

Uimonen, Paula. 2001. Transnational.Dynamics @ Development.Net: Internet, Modernization and Globalization. Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology, no. 49. Stockholm: Almqvist och Wiksell International.

Uimonen, Paula. 1997. The Internet as a Tool for Social Development. Paper presented at INET97, 24-27 June, Kuala Lumpur.