ABSTRACT
A major portion of the world’s poor populations lives in rural area where agriculture is the primary source of occupation. Information technology based interventions in agriculture are directly related to the economic emancipation of these rural poor. However, to be sustainable the benefits of such interventions must percolate across all sections of the society. This chapter aims to explore and understand the role of information technology in achieving social inclusion of farmers in India using stakeholder theory and Bourdieu’s theory of practices. For this purpose, a qualitative approach is used to study the case of a state government organization in India that implemented an information technology project. The overall goal of the project was to provide fair prices to the poor farmers by interconnecting the agricultural market yards of the state. The data was collected through interviews and observations. For data analysis, the research utilized thematic analysis based on a constant comparative method. The study highlights stakeholder resignation as a type of practice that is exercised when the powerless stakeholders have lost all hopes of their social inclusion. The study has important implications for academics, policy makers, and the agricultural industry.
