A Spatial Perspective on Access to Knowledge and Mobile Phone Use

Madlen Krone and Peter Dannenberg ()

Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 2018, vol. 109, issue 5, 613-628

Abstract: Small‐scale farmers in rural areas in the Global South often lack access to crucial business knowledge due to, among others, spatial constraints, for example, peripheral locations and poor transport infrastructure. Studies on information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) argue that the use of ICTs like mobile phones, supports farmers by overcoming these constraints. Combining concepts about knowledge with relational and spatial proximity, this paper aims to contribute to the current debate on ICT4D studies. Based on a survey and qualitative interviews with horticultural small‐scale farmers in the Mwanza region, Tanzania, we analyse the potential and limitations of mobile phone use to reduce spatial constraints in order to access different types of knowledge. Our results show the benefits of phone use to access particularly external knowledge can only fully take place if the users already possess external contacts that are, however, usually based on personal relationships in close spatial proximity.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/tesg.12322

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:tvecsg:v:109:y:2018:i:5:p:613-628

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0040-747X

Access Statistics for this article

Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie is currently edited by Jan van Weesep

More articles in Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie from Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().