Ricerc@Sapienza

The aim of this special issue is to collect and put into dialogue theoretical, methodological, critical, and applied contributions dealing with the variety of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) uses in community development. In this introduction to the special issue, we first provide the readers with a quick overview of the field, conducted by analyzing the lexicon of titles and abstracts published in the past few years in information and communication technology for development journals.

The aim of this work is threefold: first, to show how, in the context of the gentrification process in the city of Banaras (now Varanasi) in India, social networking, and in particular WhatsApp video calls, make up an attempt by young sex workers in the red-light district (i.e., Shivdaspur) to overcome the spatial entrapment, physical and identity displacement issues resulting from the policies of “beautification,” and urban development of the city.