incommunicado

Blogging about the 100 dollar laptop, Simputer and other low cost computer products aiming at solving problems in the third world may seem a bit late, as the hype of WSIS is slowly finding an everyday. However, I would like to take another approach to understanding this trend of cheap devices for alleviation of third world problems.
The logic behind these devices is that the cheaper a device is the more devices can be afforded by third world governments and placed in schools for educating poor children. The anticipated wonders and prospects of e-learning are sought to be proliferated to every little village. This could only be a project of goodness, where the possibilities of modern technology are being harnessed. However it also demonstrates a trend, which is problematic in various ways.
These devices are drawing together various discourses: it is financial: The price of the devices is the key argument for introducing these in the so-called third world, perceived as being the main barrier, when it comes to using ICTs. The countries that through the discourse of development have been dubbed as being poor logically need these devices to overcome this barrier. Secondly this is about enlightenment; information and communication technologies are providing information, which in this context equally means learning, education, knowledge and even anticipated as contributing to the development and implementation of equity (gender, economy etc.). Thirdly, the discourse on the very modern technology is being dragged in as well. These new devices are providers of connections they are windows to the world enabling every child to acquire the values and thinking from the modern western societies. So this cheap device trend is very straight forward and as a part of the modernising project of the third world it would seem like a great idea: Build a cheap, computer, sell it to poor countries and let technology educate these people for a better future. In this way, the cheap modern devices are representing a modern dream of using technology to solve problems, or as stated at the official website for the Simputer: The Simputer is a low cost portable alternative to PCs, by which the benefits of IT can reach the common man (my emphasis http://www.simputer.org/).
There are several problems in these rather simplified understandings of the problems faced by these areas and the easy solutions may even be distorting their own aims and targets.
Firstly, an interesting thing about this trend is the way in which the discourses of science and advanced technologies are increasingly being tied together with the discourses of economy i.e. in the development discourse issues around poverty. With the promise of a decrease in cost of these modern devices, technology now gets a role, where it’s benefits can be immediately harnessed and in this way fits very well into the sole focus on Socio-economic improvements by development rhetoric. Consequently, people working within science and technologies are able to fulfilling their visions of the mass proliferation of their technologies. The humanitarian ideals of socio-economic improvements are suddenly entailed in a physical artefact. With the modern institutions of Science, Enlightenment, Development Agencies and Economy working together there is an amplification of a unitary and homogenous definition of the third world countries now supported with physical devices, bringing the rhetoric of the western originating information society even closer together with development discourse. Rhetorically, the anticipated emphasis on the purely economic issue of poverty reduction as anticipated being a universal problem for virtually all countries outside North America and Europe still persist and the universal a priori anticipation of ICTs as beneficial in all cases (good here – good everywhere) adds to the homogenous picture of the third world poor country. I think that the biggest problem in this is that there is an increasing risk of easiness of ignoring perspective i.e. the trajectory and intentionality of who, who have an interest in this. Consequently, the practices from one perspective are being put forward as being universal and the only valid, ignoring the obstruction of local practices. In an interview with Wired News about the 100 dollar lap top, Nicholas Negroponte is asked the following question:


W[ired] N[ews]: Is the goal literally to make computers available to every child that wants one in the world?
And replies:
Negroponte: It's every child in the world whether they want one or not. They may not know they want one.
(http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,69615-1.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1)


In his mind there is no doubt that those who do not want this lap top should be almost enforced to get the thing and use it. This statement puts the technology in the driving seat as the remedy for saving those, who only appear as a rather undefined group of poor people. Apparently Nicholas sees no problems in intentionally enforcing other practices to other people; and he is backed up by this new (ish) close alliance between modern technology (and the promoted need for everybody to get technology), economic globalisation (and in development context the issue of poverty alleviation) and development discourse (homogenous dubbing of third world countries as poor). But the consequence may easily be that the targeted areas are getting fewer opportunities for actually taking a stand, evaluating and debating the integration of technology. Moreover, technology maintains and is strengthen in a stand, where it remains unquestioned and just anticipated as the necessary tool, consequently the space for debating technology becomes even smaller and the dominating western right version of technology implementation in a non western context becomes even stronger.
Only focusing on technology, as an issue of price anticipating that that could be a sort of solution for third world problems thus is only a solution in the isolated logic of modern development rhetoric. This easier solution of constructing ‘cheap devices’ may appear as a great idea, but outcome may in fact be a strengthening of a western position, where one solution easily silences local context and leaves out the voices of those, who are actually sought to be helped.