Luddism for Community Informatics

Abstract

This paper begins with a reflection on my own history in community informatics, including my recent turn to an appreciation of Luddism. It then discusses a concern that community informatics may be contributing to an expansion of Marx’s four forms of alienation.  The paper then moves into a discussion of the data-information-knowledge-wisdom “pyramid” as a potential framework for a revised approach to community informatics and contrasts that revised approach with the potentially unsustainable approach of the field currently.