This paper [1] studies the vulnerable population of young girls in an area that has earned its ill-reputation for being susceptible to sex trafficking and crimes against women in rural West Bengal. The authors joined forces with a local afterschool centre, Pragati, that focuses on engaging girls with technology, vocational training and spreading awareness about adolescence, child marriage etc. Based on the fieldwork spread across one and a half years, at intervals of six months each, the authors have adopted the aspiration based design lens proposed by Toyama [2] to highlight the aspirations of girls enrolled in these centres. The paper also discourses over the aspirations of their mothers' aspirations for them and touches on the mothers' aspirations for themselves.
This study's research methodology was a literature review, followed by qualitative in the form of participant observation, clubbed with semi-structured interviews of the students, their mothers, and the teachers and staff at Pragati. There were no fathers available for the interviews. Considering the patriarchal structure, the men did not care for or pay attention to the girls' education. This raises questions about their inclination and acceptance of the idea of an afterschool centre. In an area where trafficking and assault is the norm, were parents willingly letting their children attend any program that was not a necessity? Since most girls were married off in their adolescent years, and parents were unwilling to educate them, did the staff at Pragati have a hard time convincing the elders to let their children stay enrolled. This may be an aspiration of the staff for the girls that their parents kept them engaged. There are directions like this that can be explored. The selection criteria and sampling technique were not disclosed.
An interesting quote in the paper states, "The poorer the person, the more limited I one's universe of aspirations". This was a direction that could be explored within the students enrolled in Pragati. There might be a difference in the students' aspirations and their parents who hailed from a varied range of economic backgrounds. Considering that the participants' economic background is not disclosed in the paper, since Pagati is an afterschool centre and the structures in small towns and villages provide limited resources and infrastructure, it can be assumed that girls from varied backgrounds attended.
Kumar et al. have an exceptional ideology and understanding of the aspirations-based design lens [2]. In most papers written based on a theoretical lens, the lens's adoption is direct. They have made their interpretation of the lens and acknowledged this difference in their paper.
Keeping in mind self-disclosure, the authors talk about their study's limitations, but they have not addressed directions that could counter the limitations. Since their visits were rare, and it is possible that the energy portrayed during visits was not the same throughout the course of the study. To counter this, interview questions could be posed to ask about the situation in their absence. Alternately, the study could have been conducted over a shorter duration but with more frequent visits. This would make the informants more comfortable with the researchers and would perhaps talk more freely, giving better insights.
One significant observation made in the research stated that the girls wanted both education and financial independence in the form of jobs. This was highlighted multiple times and shone over other observations made in the study. For instance, some informants talked about how girls who have phones tend to get involved with boys, resulting in sexual assault. Although this differs from the primary focus, the victim-blaming insight can be extended for a more comprehensive study. Moreover, the paper provides a very positive overview of the idea of getting educated in the girls' minds and that of the Pragati. There would be more downsides to it other than the bad quality of the computer program. The computer program may have been disappointing not just because of the depth it covered but also because the Pragati may be selling education as the only thing required for growth career-wise. From the paper, it seems like in cases like these, preaching for wholistic development may have taken a backseat.
Despite the eminent gaps highlighted, the paper follows a narrative, is well written and easy to follow. This may be an example of research well written over research well done.
References
Neha Kumar, Marisol Wong-Villacres, Naveena Karusala, Aditya Vishwanath, Arkadeep Kumar, and Azra Ismail. 2019. Aspirations-based design. In Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD ’19), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1145/3287098.3287117
Kentaro Toyama. 2017. From needs to aspirations in information technology for development. Information Technology for Development 24: 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/02681102.2017.1310713