nuevas TRENZAS informs
june 2013 N° 7
Control and Transgression. Young Rural Women’s Use, Appropriation and Impact of ICTs in Peru Andrea García, Mariana Barreto and Raúl H. Asensio Nuevas Trenzas Program-Perú Instituto de Estudios Peruanos Nuevas Trenzas is a research initiative developed in six Latin American countries. Its objective is to advance in the knowledge about new generations of young rural women in Latin America, as well as about their challenges, perspectives, abilities and perceptions in order to contribute to the design of efficient rural development public policies and programs with more possibilities of combining poverty reduction objectives and social inclusion. Within this framework, the study of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is important. Beyond its access and use, its value falls on the multiple meanings that their users ascribe to them. This, at the same time, depends on external factors such as context, gender, generational belonging and personal biography. In that sense this is a first approximation to the relationship between ICTs and young rural women, a collective considered key for rural development. The study was carried out in two different regions of Peru: Nuevo Pedregal in Piura, and Andaray in Arequipa. In both contexts, this study focuses on young rural women, the uses and the ways of appropriating cell phones and the Internet, as well as on the discourses that surround these technologies. Main Findings Gender Gap: Discourse Interaction and Practices In both localities different dynamics regarding the use of cell phones and the Internet were found. These dynamics trace back to gender issues, but they do not always coincide in both of the studied contexts. It has been suggested that cell phones satisfy, on the one hand, young rural women’s need for communicating with people related to work, family, and friends. Likewise it opens possibilities for group membership and allows a space for privacy. Ultimately, it is considered that cell phones have social value, in the measure that they allow young rural women to gain some independence-or allows, in a certain way, to avoid control-from their parents and even partners. In the case of the Internet, women of both localities state that men use it more frequently than they do, however this does not mean that they don’t use it. Likewise, gender norms still prevail and entail a differentiated appropriation of new ICTs. Unlike the case of cell phones, for using the Internet women have to travel to cabinas, places where one pays for using a computer connected to the Internet, until today the most important-and sometimes only-alternative for accessing this technology. This moving around implies costs in time and money. It also supposes a social interaction that is not always well seen. It must be pointed out that the cabinas are perceived by women as highly masculine spaces in which they do not feel fully comfortable.
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In summary, it seems as if young women have not achieved appropriating this technology as much as men, mainly because of gender biases, that demand more responsibilities and present more restrictions for women. In this line, it has been found that young men are more likely to create new relationships. Instead, in general, young women when using the Internet and ICTs tend to reinforce, at least discursively, already existent relationships. Generational Gap: Internet Starts in School There is also a strong generational gap, especially regarding the Internet. This is the result, above all, of the first moment of contact with this technology, which is mostly linked to school. On one side, the slow rhythm of penetration in rural areas generated a lack of availability of Internet service when the mothers and grandmothers of current young women were studying. On the other side, it is also true that in the last few years, a massive incorporation of rural women into the school system has taken place. Today, unlike only two decades ago, these women study as many years as their male peers. In both localities, it has been found that differences in age entail significant inequality both in the use of and the attitude towards this technology. There is a wide gap in terms of access between rural women belonging to the younger generation and their predecessors. In the case of mobile telephony, the older the women, the less use of these devices they make. Their uses are limited to basic functions, such as receiving phone calls. The first contact with the Internet is usually marked by fear, even among the youngest women. It is a feeling that combines the ambivalence of social discourses about new technologies with their own perception of lacking practical competence, which is in turn translated in the fear of spoiling the equipment. Beyond these generational differences in the use and access, ICTs also constitute a space for different generations of rural women to relate and interact among each other. The need or the desire for communication constitutes a first point of entrance and interest for using the Internet. In both localities, however, their use as a communication medium has not replaced cell phones yet, which is still the most accessible and preferred tool for communication. Unlike cell phones, one can observe that the level of education does impact the use of the Internet: the more years of formal education women have, the more they will use the Internet. Thus in rural areas the generational gap opens at a very early age, given that there are few older women who have had access to secondary schooling. In this sense, we find that the younger the generation of young rural women, the more in common they have with their urban peers than with their grandmothers, mothers or even older sisters. In this case being young becomes a much stronger identity mark than being a women o rural. Another Type of Gap: Co-habitation The “breaking point” refers to the phase during which young rural women chose to move in with their partners and form a home. It is a difficult transitionin the measure that co-habitation leads to many changes such as leaving the parents’ home, more household chores and new responsibilities as they become considered adult women, as well as the restriction of their vital space, such as their privacy, among others. It is during this critical stage, between being young and adult life when the ambivalent impact of new technologies in rural women’s autonomy is clearer. In both localities, we found that cell phones are highly valued by the parents as a tool for communicating with their daughters, who they consider they should protect more than their sons. Daughters also value keeping in touch with their families, when they are away from home. Cell phones, therefore, may be seen as a tool for inter-generational control. At the same time, however, it is a tool for transgressing. In spite of their parent’s rules, young rural women find in using their cell phones a space of privacy, greater freedom, and ultimately, of transgression. This complex play between control and transgression is even stronger among women who have partners. This dynamic, in
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some cases, may exacerbate until reaching a level of harassment. Vis-à-vis the use of cells phones as a tool for control, one finds other cases where the sole act of buying a cell phone may be a gesture of transgression, a kind of act for reaffirmation, for establishing a certain level of autonomy in their relationship with their partner. Conclusions This study has shown that, in spite of the limitations that young rural women face for appropriating ICTs; its use has allowed the creation of new spaces for interaction and privacy, highly valued by both single women and women in a relationship. For women, cell phones have become a personal device where they store information they wish to keep private. These are transgressive uses of technology, which must be contextualized in a moment of significant change among rural Peruvian women’s lifestyles, at an individual level as well as at a collective level. Greater access to mobile telephony and Internet, especially for the younger age group, has paved the way for new social dynamics that have consequences on each of the young women’s lives, as well as in their families and communities. In the studied localities, the introduction of mobile telephony and Internet is rather recent and its impact is still limited. However even if still incipient, ICTs are opening the possibility for significantly increasing young rural women’s social capital and generating new spaces, whose outcome creates, at the same time, greater margins for autonomy. Young rural women find in new ICTs spaces for privacy, growth, self-learning and self-realization. However, this does not mean that gaps and limitations have disappeared. Inequality gaps persist around the access and use of technologies, both at the gender and geographical levels. Along with the extension and consolidation of social capital, the creation of new spaces of sociability and the extension of individuation margins, ICTs have also promoted new practices and discourses about the control of young rural women. The challenge for ICTs is expanding the offers of services and becoming more relevant for the rural specific demand. It is necessary that stable initiatives exist, focusing on the processes of use and appropriation of the technologies. It is important that spaces are generated so that young rural women are able to learn how to use these tools, and at the same time, consider the characteristics, processes and dynamics of rural spaces.
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