Access to information is required to perform many economic and social activities and plays an essential role in supporting development objectives. While recent research has paid attention to the role played by information and communication technology (ICT) in empowering individuals living in marginalised communities, the importance of information itself and its role in supporting individuals and communities is often neglected.

This special issue will explore the crucial role of information in empowering and transforming communities facing systemic challenges. We are seeking contributions that discuss how information can drive meaningful change and resilience among marginalised groups. By focusing on information’s inherent power, this special issue aims to uncover how marginalised communities create, share, and preserve valuable knowledge in ways that are contextually relevant. We are particularly interested in receiving submissions by practitioners with experience of working with marginalised communities.

Themes and questions of interest for the special issue could be, for example:

• What are the reasons behind the information poverty of different marginalised communities?
• How can marginalised communities use information for socio-economic development and environmental resilience?
• How can marginalised communities maintain ownership of their traditional knowledge?
• How can traditional knowledge be used for economic development?
• How can traditional knowledge be used to support environmental resilience?
• How does access to information enable political advocacy and social justice among marginalised communities?
• How can partnerships between communities and external organisations be structured to ensure equitable information sharing?
• How can sustainable information systems be built in resource-constrained settings?

Author instructions

All proposals should be submitted directly to the Information Matters platform following the author instructions. Authors are also encouraged to provide illustrations to accompany texts. When submitting your article, make sure to select “SI PoI” as a tag to be considered for this Special Issue.

Pay special attention that in this special issue we are not seeking conventional scholarly papers but short texts (500 to 1000 words) accessible for the general audience. Work that is previously published elsewhere will be considered if it is rewritten in the format applicable to Information Matters. The texts will be published in parallel through SSRN in a citable format with a DOI, volume and issue and are indexed in a series of publication databases.

Important Dates

CFP Opens for submissions: December 2, 2024

Last date for submissions: February 28, 2025

Decisions and publication through IM website: Typically, within two weeks of submission

Publication of the special issue and indexing through SSRN: April 2025

Questions

For queries about the special issue, please contact the guest editors (email addresses below).

Guest Editor

• Dr Viviane Frings-Hessami, Monash University, Australia ([email protected])
• Dr Misita Anwar, Swinburne University, Australia ([email protected])
• Prof Gillian Oliver, Monash University, Australia ([email protected])
• Dr Md Khalid Hossain, Monash University, Australia ([email protected])