Episode 5: Interview with two sociologists in the Caribbean on digitalization

In this episode I have the pleasure of introducing to you two sociologists who live and work in the Caribbean and whom I had the great pleasure to meet during my field research stay in the beginning of 2024. Elly Helings in Curaçao and Raymond Jessurun in Sint Maarten will share with us their perspectives on the digitalization of public services in these two islands, which are both officially autonomous since 2010 but are still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. We will discuss some commonalities and differences between the two islands concerning access to digital public services. And we will talk about challenges, local factors affecting the current situation, and ideas for improvement.

See more on the project: https://www.hcw.ac.at/en/forschung/projekte-und-aktivitaeten/digital-public-services-and-ombuds-role-in-access-to-justice.html

See more on my work: https://personen.hcw.ac.at/julia-dahlvik/

This research is funded by Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [grant DOI 10.55776/V970].

Transcript

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Podcast Episode 5

Julia Dahlvik: Welcome to this next episode of My podcast on on the research project. Today I have the great pleasure of introducing to you two sociologists who live and work in the Caribbean. and whom I had the great pleasure to meet during my field research stay in the beginning of this year 2024. So I would like to thank you both, Elly Hellings in Curaçao and Raymond Jesserun in Sint Maarten once more for your warm support of my study. And doing sociological research on access to administrative justice in this part of the world was very instructive for me. And now I'm looking forward to our conversation in which you will share your perspectives on the digitalization of public services in Curaçao and Sint Maarten, which are both officially autonomous islands since 2010, but are still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

So it will be very interesting if we can find some commonalities and differences between the two [00:01:00] islands concerning access to digital public services. And before we start with the questions, may I ask you to briefly introduce yourselves? 

Elly Hellings: Okay. Thank you very much, Julia. Thank you for the invitation. I'm happy to be part of this podcast. And my name is Elly Hellings, as you mentioned my name already. I'm a sociologist working as an independent researcher and project program advisor in Curaçao and also on the other islands of the Dutch Caribbean. And I've been on those islands. I've been involved in various research projects in the social domain, including studies on the impact of COVID on vulnerable families. And that's where I met Raymond. And however, my primary focus in the research has been lately on new developments in general and also addressing child abuse and relational violence and providing parenting support among others. I think that's a short introduction about the kind of research I do on the islands.

Julia Dahlvik: Thank you. [00:02:00] 

Raymond Jessurun: Well, I'm a sociologist, but I was born in Curaçao and have served as a public servant. The government of the Netherlands and to reach the former Netherlands and to reach, but I'm now residing in Sint Maarten and I'm the research coordinator at the University of Sint Maarten. And as such, we have met Julia and have supported her research that was done here.

And as Elly told you, our communities are small. So we met, we met each other before in other research projects. That's how we work together, collaborate together. And we have welcomed the University of Applied Sciences of Vienna at the University of Sint Maarten in this collaborative effort to look into this comparison of how digitization is affecting the public and the public administration.

And so the whole thing was how we can get [00:03:00] the people for the interviews that Julia was looking for. And well, I think we were very successful. Julia will detail how much people and how much entities she got to see and got to interview. And we here in Sint Maartens were very privileged that she already could provide us after one month of fieldwork with preliminary results. 

Julia Dahlvik: Thank you, Raymond. Thank you very much. So yeah, maybe we can start with the first question. That would be, how do you perceive the situation in your local context with regard to the digitalization of public services? And for contextualization, how would you briefly characterize Curaçao? For someone who has never been there just to get some basic infos in this context. Elly, would you like to start? 

Elly Hellings: For sure. Yeah. Now, I think if we particularly look at digitalization in, within the government it's not a given, so [00:04:00] it's, it's still under development for a lot of things you have to go to the government in person. And that has changed a bit because of COVID, because we had very strict rules during COVID and where it was not able to visit any you know, Yeah, we had to stay at home. We had very strict rules. So the government had to start digitalizing some kind of help and supports. Due to go fits and I think that that has helped, but and some services have increased, but we still have our issues and challenges in due to the fact that the administration, the data is not easy accessible and it's not always up to date. So I think that in general is, is, you know, gives an overview of how the situation is concerning digitalization. 

Julia Dahlvik: Can I just ask you what you mean with data in this context? 

Elly Hellings: Yeah, I mean if you look for instance at the, the, the civil registry, I mean, look at another department of the government where they register [00:05:00] streets, then they don't have they, it is possible that they don't, they don't have the same database. So streets in the one department of the government are different than the streets in another. government. So we don't have any database which we can use to for example, to have a sample for, to do research, because there is not such a database available. We don't have the basic administration. It is just not there.

Julia Dahlvik: Okay. Thank you. What is the situation in Sint Maarten? 

Raymond Jessurun: Much different. The push to go online and to send everybody to go online, even to make appointments. Or to look up information is there and that was already before COVID started. And what we see is that there are still a lot of challenges.

And where the interest of your research was particularly to look into How is the access to these online [00:06:00] services and everybody access to the public services using digitization? I think that we have now a situation, as in Martin, that a discussion became more public as we went public with the research.

We tried to get more people involved in reflecting and thinking about it. And we got very good cooperation, especially from some of the radio stations that were present at the presentation the review of the preliminary results. And that brought some more. Interest into the community to talk about.

We have to improve. We have to go steps forward, not step backwards. And so yes, I am happy with that development. And this is one of the things that we as a university really want to promote. That our research is in service of the development of the people, and the people have to experience [00:07:00] that you're doing research to assist them in their development, in the improvement of their development. And this was a very good example of how a researcher from abroad, Could collaborate with us and provide us with that support to provide the community with that insight. 

Elly Hellings: Thank you. Maybe I can add on that. You see a lot of differences between the different departments. So it's since COVID, particularly since COVID, but even before already, It is possible to make appointments digitally via email or via digital platforms to have an appointment to get your passport or things like that.

That's available right now. But if we look at someone who needs financial assistance because he is not working, he has no income. Then in, at least in Curaçao, it's like that's the, that person is made responsible for collecting all the different data information needed to be able to [00:08:00] request the social support, which means that that person has to go personally to all these, those different departments to collect that information, which is really 'drempel', how you say it in English, it's, it's really, it makes it difficult for people that they, it can be a reason not to request for support because it's, it's just yeah. They can't make it, they can't realize it, all this information, and it wouldn't be if the information, that's what I meant with administrative data, if the administrative data within the public government was organized in a more central way, then it wouldn't be necessary that someone had to go all these different departments to request for that information.

Julia Dahlvik: Hmm, yeah, that's part of what we call in the literature, it's called administrative burden, right? So it makes life for citizens very hard in this way. 

Raymond Jessurun: And I think that is not the idea of digitization when you can make it [00:09:00] possible that once you provide your data or government has those data. That all ministries can use those data and that there must be a protection of course for privacy, but it should not be that every time again, for every time that you come to a new ministry, another ministry, that again, you have to provide all those basic information, that basic data. On the other hand when you have your appointment and when you go to the entity because you've got your appointment.

You will get another disappointment when the, the, the servants, public servants will tell you, Sorry, I can't go online because we have no internet. So, yes, very good. We can get much more digitization, but basic requirements that you should 24/ 7 be able to go online in our situations when electricity drops [00:10:00] out and drops down, we have a blackout.

There is no Internet. And so these are challenges that we see in, especially in our societies that don't have backup systems or don't have utility services that are reliable 24/7. That is a challenge for us to participate in a worldwide global digitization. Even when we want to benefit in our local situation with these challenges that we face and that we see.

It can take you some time to do just a bank transfer because of the slow internet speed, because of whatever happened to the internet communication. You can't even access your bank account or you might be thrown out again and all of that. So these kind of hurdles, I say we have to see or we can get that improved also.

Elly Hellings: Yeah. Yeah. And I think another challenge is the fact that to be [00:11:00] able to make use of these digital services, you need either an email address or a telephone number. Yeah, the telephone number. Most people do have email addresses. It's not, not very common. People do have for work. Related purposes, but the, in, in general, the public does not use email addresses a lot or changes the email addresses a lot.

So it's, it's difficult to make use of that in, in regarding public services, digitalization of public services. And telephone numbers is also an, an, a challenge because our telephone providers with prepaid, most people have prepaid phone. And if you don't put money on your prepaid phone within a month, you lose, you can lose your number.

So, which also means that people change telephone numbers a lot. So, it's not a consistent information system where you can make use of those. Some kind of precondition. You need to have the email address or the telephone number to be able to use the digital [00:12:00] platforms, and that's not the case. 

Raymond Jessurun: Mm-Hmm. . And on top of that, it also has to do with financial possibilities. The poverty in Sint Maarten in particular with most recent census data. We have seen that for the basic needs to be covered four out of five persons. cannot cover their basic needs monthly. And when we look at, when we consider what is basic needs. Going online and accessing online your information and your services is now a basic needs, which was not the case 50 years ago.

And so the basic package we know that has increased very, very heavily with all these consumer prices that went up. But when we know include also go on time and then all that, what you need to go on, like for telecommunication services, what you have to pay, what you have to go for the smartphone, at least [00:13:00] what you have to pay.

Now, it is a lot of cost. And especially when people are in poverty, it is not easy for them to have these means of communication. I think of seniors. where the pensions are very low. They all have actually that bottleneck. They want to have access, they are willing to participate, but they are being excluded because of the means.

And it's only when you can address this handicap, I would say, that you can provide them with the means. That you then can also have them and online, that you can facilitate them to go online by seeing at school children. For instance, if you don't have internet and, and computer at home, you can come school.

Now, that is a problem for most of those children because transportation is regulated, but when you have to stay longer at school to do your [00:14:00] homework with the computer facility at school, how you reach home after that. So these are things that. Nobody actually looks into it when you start to digitize, you do it for your business, your department, for your service. There is so much more that you have then to consider and that is coming up now that we experience. That we have to look into this seriously and help to improve that situation. 

Julia Dahlvik: And Elly encourages, do you also see this situation as Raymond just described? that actually it seems that the government is not thinking enough of the situation of the citizens as users of these services?

Elly Hellings: Yeah, in some cases, yes. And particularly the seniors, as Raymond already mentioned, is And what we noticed, and that will change over time because it's, yeah, it will be a generation that yeah, one day will [00:15:00] disappear. But you see with all the generations they have, they still have difficulties in using digital or, or they, they, It's, it's, it's challenging for them to use the digital they, they don't want to use, not always.

So what we, what we saw in the research we did on the impact of COVID on vulnerable families, what particularly the elderly said we prefer to have the our, the contact with the government, not digitalized, but in person, either via neighborhood centers or other ways. personnel, not via a computer. And that's logical, I think, as it's for, for them, it's maybe still a bridge too far to use that way of the, that communication channel, but that will change over years, I think.

And most people do have a phone, I think, on Curaçao. And I, I think in, in Sint Maarten, it's the same, but not all person have Money on needs to either make a phone call or use data, and then they, they depend on the public wifi. And [00:16:00] that's not always either available or stable. 

Julia Dahlvik: Mm. Or safe. Maybe even to, to use for all your private Exactly. Yeah. Data details. Yes. Mm-Hmm. 

Raymond Jessurun: I think to add also what Elly said especially when you want to compare. People think of societies in Europe and in the, in the United States. And then you look at the cost of internet and that is very, very low because of volume. But when they have to provide those services to smaller communities, small island communities, the cost is very high.

And so it's nice to say, yes, it is a good way to go into that direction. But. There comes a lot of other economic factors in play and other things that are actually discriminatory in a very structural way. How in our globalization we have been addressing small island states or [00:17:00] small island situations, smaller communities in the world so this whole development is, is, is positive, but it has.

In a way, made wider the gap between our island nations and the rest of the world that is in a more developed stage of development. So that's a broader thing than what we just look at. Okay, simple. I have to get that service from government here. And yeah, what's about the digitization? It's a bigger, complex situation that we have to analyze. And especially for the cooperation from the research. I found this very useful that you wanted to make. Okay. These kind of corporations where as small island nations, we have other challenges than in bigger countries in the world, in the Western world. 

Julia Dahlvik: It's, it's, it's very interesting. Because as you say, as you mentioned also before, the. [00:18:00] Sometimes there is no electricity or even Sint Maarten is also in the hurricane area. So this is of course a particularity that is, can also be very relevant when we think about where are the servers, where is all the data stored and all that. Right. But we, we see this also in, in several other countries that the climate and the geography.

As we already talked about it in the northern part of Canada, for example, when it is very cold it's difficult to have all the infrastructure or even when there is only one cable up to the north for the internet and then there's a wildfire. So it can be very threatening also for the people and, and for the infrastructure.

So it's interesting to see, I think that there are so many different components and factors that can play a role when we think about digitalizing The world as, as such, but also in particular the public services, because as you said [00:19:00] now internet and access to internet has become a basic good because we all need to be able to use these public services and especially when they're only online yeah.

So, and, and Elly, you mentioned that it is particularly the elderly people seniors that have access problems at the moment, but I think it's rather safe to say that there will always be certain parts of the population, because we also talked about poverty that will have difficulties even in the future, even when it gets It's more and more normal for, for people to have access to devices and so on. But yeah, in many parts of the world, internet is still very expensive and there are so many challenges. 

Elly Hellings: Exactly. 

Julia Dahlvik: Yeah. 

Raymond Jessurun: But even the youth, I can give you the example that we had yesterday as a university, we were supporting an initiative for the youth of a secondary school. To have a what they call a scavenger's [00:20:00] hunt in town for them to see heritage and for different objects that they had to visit, they had to go online.

But they have no money on the phone, no data on the phone to Google. So here you see school taught, okay, this is how we put it together. And they taught, okay, they will be using their Google because this is also what they do in school. But then nobody actually thought of, well, these guys that are out there and they have no data on the phone.

How can they use Google? And they needed exactly at that moment to describe what is there to answer the questions that were on the paper. So, we have experienced that. I had to provide them my phone to do the Googling. And there was only one that could do it because the others didn't have. So, you see, here you see challenges that was not looked into.

And it's [00:21:00] always good to prepare those things. Whatever you want to do with more informant of people that are more knowledgeable about what can we do, what have we experienced already as bottlenecks, if we want to do so, and how can we prevent those kind of things to be more efficient, and what we would like to do for them to learn that situation.

So it's not only seniors, also youth with their challenges, but that has to do again with money on the phone, has to do with poverty, and How much, and they provide how much their parents can provide. And so here you see, there's not, everything is equal as possibility. 

Elly Hellings: And on the other hand, what was, I had an interesting experience last weekend. And it was youngsters introducing a completely new digitalization thing on the island. They organized a freedom festival because of the International Day of Freedom on last Sunday. And they had a system, they have thought out a system. It's really the [00:22:00] youngsters that, and it's a company, but it's only youngsters working there, they had a system where a cashless system.

So you were provided in a, in a wrist band with a chip on it. And you, you bought tokens, but it was all on the, on the wrist band. So you could order food. You could order drinks. only by showing that wristband, because you, you could, you had put money on it. I never saw it before, but it was in Curaçao where a group of young people tried something new.

So it, there are possibilities in another way. It's not government, but I mean, in, you have different groups on the island where people are far. They are thinking out new things. So it's, it's, yeah, so it's, it's interesting to see the difference, I think, and the possibilities that also are there. It's not only limitations. 

Julia Dahlvik: That's true. Of course, that's true. But the, I think the problem is very often that. Many of the practitioners tend to be quite techno optimistic and [00:23:00] technology will be there to, to create a better life for all of us ideally. I think if that is possible, that will be great. But I think there are quite a few challenges on the way ahead. So yeah, I think we're, we're coming slowly to, to the end already of our conversation, but I would like to ask you what if you could give the government, your local government one or two tips, what do you think they should do most immediately in this regard to provide more equal access for everyone to the public services in a digital era? What would that be?

Elly Hellings: Yeah, I see. Yeah. If I can give two advices in my as a sociologist, I really would love and system where we can get data out of it to make to use the data for. Vision development, policies, et cetera. Right now, it's very often just thinking out loud, lacking of data. So that's [00:24:00] one of the advices. It, it is possible to create a system to have a valuable administrative data, to collect data and have it in a database where it can be. In my opinion, open source open data that also researchers and students, all people can make use of it for, for different learning purposes. So that will be a very yeah, I think it's an important advice. Another advice, If we look at the poverty situation on the island, where not everybody is able to buy data for his phone. It must be possible to have more public Wi Fi areas where students in neighborhood centers. I don't know, in some places on the island where people can make use of Wi Fi free of charge. 

Julia Dahlvik: Okay, thanks. Raymond, what would you say? 

Raymond Jessurun: Well, I would say, first of all, that the public sector started to follow the private [00:25:00] sector in this respect of digitization. And I want to advise our government to become the leader in how can you provide services to everybody in your society, and not only the ones that you want to have in your circle of business. The public administration must be there for everyone and so provide now as and become a leader in how can you come up with solutions, digital solutions that people can see, hey, this thing works for me because I have access. I have even the conditions to have the access. So how can that be stimulated? I would recommend government. become the forerunner. And we have a little experience with that, with, for instance, one of our main social services providers in islands which is semi government entity the SFV.

They [00:26:00] have become a little bit a forerunner of how can you provide public services. For your clients, as they call them, but in a way that it is more customer friendly and they are still not there that everybody that they have as a client has been provided with access and technology and with the means to have the access. But. This trend of trying to be a forerunner in providing services for all government is the first call to do that. And I hope that that will be the recommendation that it will pick up. 

Julia Dahlvik: Okay. That's great. Thank you so much both of you again, for sharing all of your insights on, on your, on your island. Is there any book or publication that you could recommend for people who would be interested in learning more about Sinhardin and Curaçao and the situation there? 

Elly Hellings: I would recommend reading "Brilliant Anarchy" by Boeli van Leeuwen . He's [00:27:00] not alive anymore, but he's, it's, it's a person that he lives on the island. He worked for the local government, but he also wrote for the local newspaper and he wrote in his book, Brilliant Anarchy. He wrote it. It's a collection of essays which he wrote, where in which he blends some personal anecdotes of his own experiences in his job with some sharp observations on the island's, colonial history, political dynamics, and the coexisting balances between order and. So he has a very interesting way of reflecting on freedom, identity, and governance in the postcolonial context. And that's a very interesting, I think if you read and understand that book, you know a lot about Curaçao. 

Julia Dahlvik: Perfect. Thanks. And what about Sint Maarten? 

Raymond Jessurun: Well, as I said Sint Maarten is a very touristic island. And so for people to, to know about Sint Maarten, they go online. So we recommend everybody that want to know more [00:28:00] about Sint Maarten, go online, Google it. And then you will see you have a southern part, which is a Dutch part. Then you have a northern part, which is a French part. But all the information that's interested for someone from abroad to come to the island is there.

And then if you want to know more about the people on the island, there are organizations that you can then contact that is also there so that you can get more information. And I send your recommendations. Coming for the first time to Sint Maarten, yeah, was an experience. You did almost everything online to start with, but then still you needed the person's help. On the ground, the persons in the fields to assist, and that is where I always tell every tourist, meet with the people in the island, and then you know much, much more of what we have to offer. 

Julia Dahlvik: I can only agree with you, and both in Curaçao and in Sint Maarten, I had a very nice time [00:29:00] meeting very nice people. So, yeah, thank you so much for taking the time for sharing. I think it was really interesting to learn more about the situation in, in these two Caribbean islands and yeah, I look forward to staying in touch and exchanging about our research and yeah, I wish you a very nice rest of the day.

Elly Hellings: Thank you so much. Thank you.