Afterword: Why Digital Inclusion Now?

Abstract

Two decades or so after the first wave of interest in digital divide, and over a decade since benchmark research, research, policy, and initiative continues. In the present scene, it is striking that the longstanding term "inclusion" has come to the fore (not for the first time) as a widely referenced way to address new forms of inequality, exclusion, injustice, and lack of diversity. So: why digital inclusion, now? What are its uses, why is it becoming the handy ready reckoner or moniker for the new frontiers and struggles over social justice and inequality in relation to emerging technology? This is the high-stakes scene that this "Afterword" to an edited collection on "Digital Inclusion: Be on the Right Side of the Digital Divide" addresses.