Since the founding colloquium in 2003, the Community Informatics Researchers Network (CIRN) annual conference has been marked by collegiality and interdisciplinary thinking that bringing together people from a variety of countries in an ideal Italian setting.
Themes have ranged across issues such as power and privilege, gender and sexual identities, forms of knowledge, documentation, participation and community-based research, measurement, and the applied arts. While CIRN centers on a particular theme each year, we welcome work related to any aspect of community informatics, community archives, and development informatics (also know as ICT4D).
We are particularly interested in topics from researchers and practitioners that can address the challenges of nurturing community-focused research within wider theoretical and practice frameworks. We also have a research student (masters and doctorate) presence and encourage the submission of current or planned work in colloquium sessions. CIRN offers a unique opportunity for interaction with other students in an international setting. More generally, CIRN is a highly social event in a small and culturally-rich part of Italy.
Community Informatics is concerned with improving the well-being of people and their communities through more effective use of information and communications technologies (ICTs). Community informatics foregrounds social change and transformative action in emergent social-technical relationships rather than in prediction and control.
Community Archives is concerned with empowering communities in support of such objectives as democracy, human and civil rights, self-determination, sustainable development, and social inclusion. Recordkeeping and archiving are fundamental infrastructural components supporting community information, self-knowledge, and memory needs, thus contributing to resilient communities and cultures while supporting reconciliation and recovery in the aftermath of conflict, crisis, and oppression.
Development Informatics (also called ICT4D) is involved with the use of ICTs in international development settings. The purpose of international development is heavily contested, and thus, the use and interpretations of ICTs in that space is also subject to a wide variety of interpretations.
Larry Stillman, Monash University, Australia, Co-Chair
Tom Denison, Monash University, Australia
Colin Rhinesmith, Simmons University, USA
Misita Anwar, Monash University, Australia
Aldo de Moor, CommunitySense, Netherlands
Barbara Craig, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Kiera Ladner, University of Manitoba, Canada
Martin Wolske, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Mauro Sarrica, Sapienza University of Rome
Natalie Pang, National University of Singapore
Sarah Vanini, University of Sheffield, UK