While it is difficult to gauge the nature of the
participation actually employed in a research project
solely from reading papers, we suggest that much
of the applicable research reviewed in this survey
may exhibit the weaker variant; that is, the general
aims of the project are defined before engaging
with any speciac community, and participants have
only marginal input to make. While this may sometimes
be the most appropriate or feasible model
from the perspective of external researchers or technology
designers, its chief difªculty is that a project
that has been deªned outside the community that it
is meant to beneªt will often miss the real localneeds of the people. This form of participation can
only provide for discussions of the means by which
technology might be used to achieve some given
ends, but it does not open the question of whether
the ends themselves should be prioritized