L’utilisation d’Internet comme source d’information est en augmentation rapide et mondiale. Il y a une croissance massive du nombre d’articles universitaires et de revues disponibles en ligne. Dans certains cas, un abonnement doit être souscrit, mais de nombreux textes sont disponibles gratuitement pour l’utilisateur. En outre, un nombre croissant de nouvelles revues sont publiées uniquement en ligne. On le comprendra, en utilisant Internet pour la recherche universitaire, la théologie pratique est confrontée à un certain nombre de difficultés particulières. Cet article explique comment cette croissance rapide aura un impact sur la recherche dans la diversité culturelle, l’inculturation et le pluralisme en théologie, la théologie pratique, les études pastorales et la recherche en catéchèse.
The use of the Internet as a source for information is increasing rapidly and globally. There is massive growth in the number of academic articles and journals available online. Some of these require a subscription but others are available free to users. In addition, an increasing number of new journals are being published only online. This article discusses how this rapid growth will impact on research in Cultural Diversity, Inculturation, and Pluralism in Theology, Pastoral Studies and Catechetics. In particular, what will be the strengths and weaknesses in this regard?The article begins by examining the strengths of Internet research, pointing to its increasing ubiquity even in developing countries and the considerable growth of academic information available free online.However, using the Internet for academic research in theology faces a number of particular difficulties. There are many sites which focus on promoting various theological views and opinions, but by comparison there is relatively little available of an academic nature, since formal academic research in this area is comparatively small. In addition, much of the interest in theological study and research is moving to third-world and developing countries, since it is here that the Church is growing and the number of theology students is rising. Unfortunately, in these contexts, a lack of resources sometimes militates against the production of studies of an acceptable quality.This raises the vital necessity of competent research methodology in Contextual Theology, Pastoral Studies and Catechetics. Studies in the humanities often entail a dialectic between a narrative of what is “right” based on a knowledge base within the discipline, and research into a particular human context leading to a narrative proposing a “good” solution to a problem. This dialogue between the “right” and the “good” is of course a classic debate in the human and social sciences especially in ethics in human activity. The article examines the extent to which the discussion between the “right” and the “good” can be a useful metaphor for examining research in Cultural Diversity, Inculturation, and Pluralism in Theology, Pastoral Studies and Catechetics.Next, it considers particular problems raised by Internet research for data collection and verification in these areas. In particular, we note that data to be collected as information is normally localised to particular contexts and cultural domains as well as local initiatives in inculturation and specific pastoral contexts. In many contexts this information is not likely to be available online. And even if there is such online information, it may be difficult to verify its quality given the fact that online information is dependent not on quality but on the capacity of a provider to make it available. This may overemphasize research or information from first world institutions, which have the capacity to deliver online information. Studies done locally, possibly of a much higher relevance, may not be available online because of capacity constraints. In addition, relying only on Internet research may severely compromise the quality of the research. In other words field work in situ within a local context is usually essential not only to collect primary data but also to discover local studies carried out by local researchers but not available online.The stress on the local component also raises the question of supervision in research and the issues arising from etic and emic studies. These matters are also discussed with special reference to consequences in universities for Masters’ and Doctoral studies, where the student comes from the area being studied whilst the supervisor does not. The same problem affects post-doctoral research by research teams. Finally, the matter of the veracity of information from the Internet is discussed and some criteria are presented for promoting validity.The text is illustrated with examples of Internet resources that may promote effective research in the matters discussed.
