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Brazil has one of the largest millennial populations in the world and offers a key case study of an important slice of time: the adolescence of millennials in the 2000s. This case study offers important insight into a unique Brazilian dynamic, the LAN house phenomenon: a Brazilian solution to spreading digital technologies to the economically disadvantaged. This chapter explores the social roles and functions LAN houses played to the Brazilian youth, ages 12–15, in the 2000s, when they were first introduced in Brazil. Three research questions guided this investigation.

RQ1. What were the main uses and gratifications of LAN house use among the youth in Brazil in the early 2000s?

RQ2. What was the social construction of “Internet” and “LAN house” among the Brazilian user of LAN houses and its potential to foster advancement?

RQ3. What key roles do LAN houses play today?

RQ1. What were the main uses and gratifications of LAN house use among the youth in Brazil in the early 2000s?

RQ2. What was the social construction of “Internet” and “LAN house” among the Brazilian user of LAN houses and its potential to foster advancement?

RQ3. What key roles do LAN houses play today?

Two distinct methods of the study were employed: a survey and textual analysis. The results showed that Brazilian youth used the LAN houses to check Orkut (a social network site), e-mails and the Microsoft System Network (MSN chat), download music and play games. The internet was mostly perceived to have a negative influence, have bad content and serve as a distraction. With the changes in telecommunication and mobile use, the LAN houses have diversified their services, still offering opportunities for gaming and socialization, but also catering to older and working class by providing services such as government document digitalization and preparation. This case study has implications or the introduction of digital technologies to adolescent populations in the growing economies and developing nations.

In this paper, we examine the social stratification in the favelas, urban slums, both in general and how it correlates with technology. The analysis is based on Weberian stratification theory, since it provides for a broad understanding of the different factors that make up the digital inequalities.

Based on a 10-month critical ethnographic research dealing with LAN houses and state supported telecenters in the favelas of Vitória, Brazil, we analyze how the use of technology by residents of such marginalized areas expands our understanding of Weber’s axes of stratification, namely class, status and political power. The data was drawn from user observations, Facebook interactions, and 76 semi-structured interviews.

The drug cartel members belonged to the higher class of favela residents due to their access to material resources and ability to afford smartphones and data plans. However, in terms of status groups, they did not represent the pinnacle of the community. Where status was concerned, the highest stratum of the community was composed of the “Facebook’s celebrities,” the few teenagers who knew how to produce content online, such as images and videos. An additional axis of social differentiation, related to political power, was observed during the 2013 protests in Brazil. Favela residents arrived late to the event and found themselves “fighting” for demands stipulated previously by the organizers who belonged to upper classes.

We highlight what access to ICTs can, and cannot, accomplish in a “highly disorganized,” conflict-ridden, and institution-poor environment. With that we hope to encourage academics and practitioners to do a better job in developing appropriate policies and technologies.

This study looks at how local grassroots organizations as well as international Women Non-Governmental Organizations (WNGOs) and multilateral organizations such as the United Nations utilize social media to empower women in Jamaica and Brazil. The researchers also evaluate how issues of socio-economic background as well as social media infrastructure influence the selection of entities with which the respective WNGOS connect.

This study uses NodeXL, a social media research tool, to analyze the information found on WNGO social media pages such as Facebook and Twitter. The authors also use content analysis to make sense of the data on WNGO Facebook pages. The study specifically uses summative content analysis, a method that translates the frequency of occurrence of certain symbols into summary judgments and comparisons.

Social media usage by WNGOs in Jamaica and Brazil show striking similarities regarding who gets reached or are connected to the networks. The study reveals that women of lower socio-economic backgrounds in both cases are not being reached via social media. Further, the outcomes of the observed current social media communication patterns on WNGO social media sites suggest the occurrence of what the authors refer to as the “noticeboard” effect, wherein communication patterns are top-down, exclusive, and non-reciprocal in nature.

While social media offer less centralized ways of engaging in communication with local communities, inherent in social media infrastructure are issues of race, gender, and social class that affect how these communication platforms are used, potentially another dimension of the “Mathew Effect” in the context of social media usage for purposes of achieving national development objectives.

With the rise in internet penetration in both countries, WNGOs are increasingly incorporating social media into their communication strategies to accomplish development goals. This study is the first to compare both countries in this respect and so adds new insights to this area of the communication field.

This paper uses a method devised by Geary and Stark to estimate regional GDPs for 24 Swedish provinces 1855–2000. In empirical tests, we find that the Swedish estimations yield results of good precision, comparable to those reported in the international literature. From the literature, we generate six expectations concerning the development of regional GDPs in Sweden. Using the GDP estimations, we test these expectations empirically. We find that the historical regional GDPs show a high correlation over time, but that the early industrialization process coevolved with a dramatic redistribution of productive capacity. We show that the regional inequalities in GDP per capita were at their lowest point in modern history in the early 1980s. However, while efficiency in the regional system has never been as equal, absolute regional differences in scale of production has increased dramatically over our investigated period. This process has especially benefited the metropolitan provinces. We present detailed sources of our estimations and also sketch a research agenda from our results.

In 2012, I wrote an article titled ‘Māori research collaborations, Mātauranga Māori science, and the appropriation of water in New Zealand’.¹ The article attempted to critique Vision Mātauranga (VM)² policy by examining the relationship between Ngā Pae ō te Māramatanga,³ Ngāi Tahu iwi (tribe) and scientists with interests in freshwater. Seven years on, I admit to having barely scratched the surface regarding the multiple ways the policy is used as a mechanism to advance and create relationships between scientists and Māori communities in the co-production of new knowledge. Back then my commentary was somewhat sceptical of the policy’s design which does not deal with the unequal power relationships created between science experts and flax-root communities. I argued that VM had been created to commodify and globalise Māori knowledge that belongs to Māori communities and had become the expected mechanism for all engagement between university researchers and Māori communities. Much of the risk associated with forming new collaborations rested with Māori communities, and even more so with the Māori researchers who act as intermediaries and brokers between the communities and research teams. Back then, as a scholar trained in social anthropology, the way I understood knowledge transmission and the research part of my world was disconnected from the rest of my life. The probing and critical perspectives I had developed by privileging anthropological ideas and theory overshadowed other ways of interacting and understanding people and place. Like many of my anthropological colleagues I had learnt to be an ‘objective’ participant observer. The aim of participant observation is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals through intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time. This method is highly regarded by social and cultural anthropologists around the globe. Now as the Director of a Māori research centre, I am expected to participate in all manner of engagements with Māori and non-Māori groups, and I am constantly confronted by ethical questions when undertaking research projects. VM as a process forces me to ask questions that I never did when I was trying my hand at being a bona fide anthropologist. The questions that shape my scholarship now are as follows: Who will benefit from this research and what will my legacy be?