'Global' Disjuncture and the Production of Locality: Knowledge, Identity and ICT use in a South African Healthcare System An ECIS Doctoral Consortium Proposal by

This proposal describes research I am currently conducting into the implementation of a healthcare information system into local clinics in Nyanga and Mitchell's Plain, two disadvantaged areas in the Cape Region of South Africa. The research has two aims. First, I am seeking to address a current serious deficiency of detailed empirical studies into the implementation of information systems in so-called ‘developing countries’, particularly African societies. Second, I hope to introduce some useful theoretical ideas into current IS discourse, drawn from Social Anthropology, concerning peoples’ construction of knowledge and identity within contexts of globalisation. If successful, my research should prove of interest to all those seeking to implement or study IS systems within multicultural environments. It will also have theoretical implications for the way in which groups of IS users within other contexts (e.g. ‘knowledge communities’) are studied by IS researchers.