In this chapter, we will offer some reflections on ICT accessibility, uses and perceptions by rural women. Using a sociological conceptual framework based on discussions on gender, ICT gap, and women empowerment (Stromquist, 2014; Mezirow, 2006), we will try to understand, in an innovative way, the available statistical data collected in national and international surveys on this subject; we will also add qualitative data collected in an exploratory study, conducted in a Portuguese rural village. This study was a multi-site ethnographic research project (Falzon & Hall, 2009) with participant observation and in-depth interviews. We analysed the infrastructure conditions and constraints, with the aim of giving a voice to the interviewed women, in order to better understand their representations of ICT and the reasons for their use and non-use. The results allow us to advance some possible paths to mitigate some of the constraints to ICT empowerment among rural women.

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• Physical Sciences - Natural Sciences