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Whose Global Village?: Rethinking How Technology Shapes Our World
A call to action to include marginalized, non-western communities in the continuously expanding digital revolution
In the digital age, technology has shrunk the physical world into a “global village,” where we all seem to be connected as an online community as information travels to the farthest reaches of the planet with the click of a mouse. Yet while we think of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook as open and accessible to all, in reality, these are commercial entities developed primarily by and for the Western world. Considering how new technologies increasingly shape labor, economics, and politics, these tools often reinforce the inequalities of globalization, rarely reflecting the perspectives of those at the bottom of the digital divide.
This book asks us to re-consider ‘whose global village’ we are shaping with the digital technology revolution today. Sharing stories of collaboration with Native Americans in California and New Mexico, revolutionaries in Egypt, communities in rural India, and others across the world, Ramesh Srinivasan urges us to re-imagine what the Internet, mobile phones, or social media platforms may look like when considered from the perspective of diverse cultures. Such collaborations can pave the way for a people-first approach toward designing and working with new technology worldwide. Whose Global Village seeks to inspire professionals, activists, and scholars alike to think about technology in a way that embraces the realities of communities too often relegated to the margins. We can then start to visualize a world where technologies serve diverse communities rather than just the Western consumer.
In the digital age, technology has shrunk the physical world into a “global village,” where we all seem to be connected as an online community as information travels to the farthest reaches of the planet with the click of a mouse. Yet while we think of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook as open and accessible to all, in reality, these are commercial entities developed primarily by and for the Western world. Considering how new technologies increasingly shape labor, economics, and politics, these tools often reinforce the inequalities of globalization, rarely reflecting the perspectives of those at the bottom of the digital divide.
This book asks us to re-consider ‘whose global village’ we are shaping with the digital technology revolution today. Sharing stories of collaboration with Native Americans in California and New Mexico, revolutionaries in Egypt, communities in rural India, and others across the world, Ramesh Srinivasan urges us to re-imagine what the Internet, mobile phones, or social media platforms may look like when considered from the perspective of diverse cultures. Such collaborations can pave the way for a people-first approach toward designing and working with new technology worldwide. Whose Global Village seeks to inspire professionals, activists, and scholars alike to think about technology in a way that embraces the realities of communities too often relegated to the margins. We can then start to visualize a world where technologies serve diverse communities rather than just the Western consumer.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2017
21 people are currently reading
434 people want to read
About the author
Ramesh Srinivasan
14 books18 followersRamesh Srinivasan is Professor of Information Studies and Design Media Arts at UCLA. He makes regular appearances on NPR, The Young Turks, MSNBC, and Public Radio International, and his writings have been published in the Washington Post, Quartz, Huffington Post, CNN, and elsewhere.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
May 31, 2018
Has anyone involved in this book ever learned how to present their ideas? Structurally speaking, this was a terrible book.
First: the author is unnecessarily verbose. Does he really need to pepper his book with highfalutin jargon? It is possibly par for the course for an academic paper; however, this is definitely not written for the layperson.
Second: terrible choice in citation style. Another hint that this is not for the lay reader: the vast majority of the citations are "[author name], [year]". There is no hint of which book the author is citing from. This is a legitimate style of citation; however, this is a terrible style for the casual reader who wants to read more and is not familiar with the style of citation. Basically, you would take the [author, year], flip to the references section, and then look for the author being cited.
And related to that terrible citation style: this book seems to be an exercise where the author demonstrates how many other academics he has read. Some of his citations are one to two word long; sometimes, you don't even know why he's citing them. Footnote 19 and 20 of Chapter 1 start from:
Why are you quoting Cooke and Kothari? I can guess how they are relevant, but it also feels like he's just throwing their names in to hit a citation quota.
Third, and the most irritating thing: the complete and utter lack of structure. A typical chapter goes something like: "This chapter will talk about XYZ, but let me take a detour into ABC, and then JKL [this being "background", although I had my doubts of the necessity of the detour], now we'll talk about XYZ [talks about it for a bit], oh, let's talk about MNO now."
Just look at the start of Chapter 2, titled "Digital Stories from the Developing World". We start chapter 2 with a recap of Chapter 1, then link to Chapter 2 ("This chapter discusses the potential of rethinking technology from the perspective of storytelling, linked to the sharing of voices within and across users and communities."), goes to a discussion of what storytelling is and cites various authors talking about storytelling in the digital context (e.g. Eric Michaels and the Australian Warlpiri's encounters with satellite television), and then goes:
Seriously? What did you just spend the previous pages talking about? You were basically leading up to this point! Can you signpost things better?
If I were (re)writing this book, I would start with the ethnographies at the beginning of each chapter. Those are the interesting points; and then go into the theory. Show how the theories apply.
I also had the sense that a lot of his "theory" is just repeating what other scholars have said. So the original part is the ethnography, and you should put the good stuff first.
Anyway, on to the actual substance.
Content-wise: ok, he doesn't feel like he's saying anything novel, or arguing anything. A lot of the book talks about how:
He brings up the example of the One Laptop Per Child project, which describes those without Internet and mobile phone access as the "last billion". He observes:
So technology can promote inequality - economic inequality, provide a form of "soft power" imperialism by spreading specific values, and widen the gap between the haves and the have nots.
Despite this, different cultures interact with technology differently. They can appropriate it (e.g. in One Laptop Per Child, the laptop was used as a light source), they can use it for self-actualisation and to start a conversation. His main point is that the introduction must be done through a grassroots approach, rather than a top-down approach as the latter may not only empower economic inequality, but may also impose particular cultural values worldwide. In contrast, by shifting perspectives to empowering the marginalised community, the conversation shifts from what the community needs to the assets that community has.
A lot of this book doesn't feel "novel" - and it doesn't function as a primer to the field, either. I felt the strongest parts were the ethnographies, but those are buried towards the end of each chapter. This makes it a solid 1.5 star, rounded to 1 because of the poor structure.
Lastly, I liked his observation that while "citizens across the world may celebrate the innovative uses of Facebook by liberal youth activists in Egypt's Tahrir Square", the "filtered narrative also ignores that what causes many people to protest are the dire conditions they face and the social networks that bind them which often have no relation to technology. Neighborhood councils, labor unions, mosques, and other rallying points are often forgotten in a technologized narrative of social change". (To be fair, though - this could be because narratives get simplified.)
First: the author is unnecessarily verbose. Does he really need to pepper his book with highfalutin jargon? It is possibly par for the course for an academic paper; however, this is definitely not written for the layperson.
Second: terrible choice in citation style. Another hint that this is not for the lay reader: the vast majority of the citations are "[author name], [year]". There is no hint of which book the author is citing from. This is a legitimate style of citation; however, this is a terrible style for the casual reader who wants to read more and is not familiar with the style of citation. Basically, you would take the [author, year], flip to the references section, and then look for the author being cited.
And related to that terrible citation style: this book seems to be an exercise where the author demonstrates how many other academics he has read. Some of his citations are one to two word long; sometimes, you don't even know why he's citing them. Footnote 19 and 20 of Chapter 1 start from:
...Without such mindfulness, community-based research introduces what development scholars Irene Gujit and Meera Kaul-Shah call a "new type of tyranny". [18] These projects, despite their use of the "community" label, perpetuate rather than combat inequality. [19]
Footnote 18: Gujit and Shah, 1998.
Footnote 19: Cooke and Kothari, 2001.
Why are you quoting Cooke and Kothari? I can guess how they are relevant, but it also feels like he's just throwing their names in to hit a citation quota.
Third, and the most irritating thing: the complete and utter lack of structure. A typical chapter goes something like: "This chapter will talk about XYZ, but let me take a detour into ABC, and then JKL [this being "background", although I had my doubts of the necessity of the detour], now we'll talk about XYZ [talks about it for a bit], oh, let's talk about MNO now."
Just look at the start of Chapter 2, titled "Digital Stories from the Developing World". We start chapter 2 with a recap of Chapter 1, then link to Chapter 2 ("This chapter discusses the potential of rethinking technology from the perspective of storytelling, linked to the sharing of voices within and across users and communities."), goes to a discussion of what storytelling is and cites various authors talking about storytelling in the digital context (e.g. Eric Michaels and the Australian Warlpiri's encounters with satellite television), and then goes:
Before diving into the power of digital storytelling in supporting community development visions across the world, it is important to recognise that mere access to technology reproduces rather than combats inequality.
Seriously? What did you just spend the previous pages talking about? You were basically leading up to this point! Can you signpost things better?
If I were (re)writing this book, I would start with the ethnographies at the beginning of each chapter. Those are the interesting points; and then go into the theory. Show how the theories apply.
I also had the sense that a lot of his "theory" is just repeating what other scholars have said. So the original part is the ethnography, and you should put the good stuff first.
Anyway, on to the actual substance.
Content-wise: ok, he doesn't feel like he's saying anything novel, or arguing anything. A lot of the book talks about how:
Digital technologies are not neutral. They are socially constructed - created by people within organisations, who in turn approach the design process based on a set of values and presumptions.
He brings up the example of the One Laptop Per Child project, which describes those without Internet and mobile phone access as the "last billion". He observes:
Perniciously, it implies that the indigenous peoples of the Andes or the herdspeople of the Kalahari desert simply cannot wait to receive the blessings of Western technology. Why should we be so presumptuous about who these people are and what they need?
So technology can promote inequality - economic inequality, provide a form of "soft power" imperialism by spreading specific values, and widen the gap between the haves and the have nots.
Despite this, different cultures interact with technology differently. They can appropriate it (e.g. in One Laptop Per Child, the laptop was used as a light source), they can use it for self-actualisation and to start a conversation. His main point is that the introduction must be done through a grassroots approach, rather than a top-down approach as the latter may not only empower economic inequality, but may also impose particular cultural values worldwide. In contrast, by shifting perspectives to empowering the marginalised community, the conversation shifts from what the community needs to the assets that community has.
A lot of this book doesn't feel "novel" - and it doesn't function as a primer to the field, either. I felt the strongest parts were the ethnographies, but those are buried towards the end of each chapter. This makes it a solid 1.5 star, rounded to 1 because of the poor structure.
Lastly, I liked his observation that while "citizens across the world may celebrate the innovative uses of Facebook by liberal youth activists in Egypt's Tahrir Square", the "filtered narrative also ignores that what causes many people to protest are the dire conditions they face and the social networks that bind them which often have no relation to technology. Neighborhood councils, labor unions, mosques, and other rallying points are often forgotten in a technologized narrative of social change". (To be fair, though - this could be because narratives get simplified.)
June 4, 2020
A critical, yet constructive and forward-looking book which bridges ‘post’colonial theory, science and technology studies and design. A lot of recent books focused on bias, big data and surveillance. This all plays a role here, too, but it also discusses the connection of technological fixes, capitalism and western philosophical assumptions and ontologies. A recurring theme is how we can support diverse ways of knowing which are supported by technologies and how these knowledges can meet rather than existing separately.
The language is very accessible; aside of some sociological vocabulary (which is often explained or clear in context) there are few things that are ‘hard’ to understand. Thus I think this is a great book for designers, programmers and academic researchers alike.
The language is very accessible; aside of some sociological vocabulary (which is often explained or clear in context) there are few things that are ‘hard’ to understand. Thus I think this is a great book for designers, programmers and academic researchers alike.
June 3, 2018
“Inequality is a major part of the story of today’s Internet” – this is arguably one of the most important lines in the book.
Srinivasan’s “Whose Global Village?" is a timely work that reminds us that the internet is far from being a monoculture– there is no one representation that can cover everyone or everything in the large scope of technology and the internet. The message the book is trying to convey new views and ideas on questions that have been asked time and time again– how do we, at least, represent more people and give increased cultural diversity a spotlight on the internet. Srinivasan’s ideas focus more on technology serving humans as best can be instead of the reinforcement of dependence on our gadgets and apps. Additionally, he emphasizes the need for cultural understand, diversity, and community investment to create a more conducive Global Village, and I love this idea. With the current trend of rising populism, this book is a breath of fresh air.
Though I must add a little bit of critique, I think a few more case studies or examples would've been better for a better illustration of the situations, ideas, and stories from the book.
Srinivasan’s “Whose Global Village?" is a timely work that reminds us that the internet is far from being a monoculture– there is no one representation that can cover everyone or everything in the large scope of technology and the internet. The message the book is trying to convey new views and ideas on questions that have been asked time and time again– how do we, at least, represent more people and give increased cultural diversity a spotlight on the internet. Srinivasan’s ideas focus more on technology serving humans as best can be instead of the reinforcement of dependence on our gadgets and apps. Additionally, he emphasizes the need for cultural understand, diversity, and community investment to create a more conducive Global Village, and I love this idea. With the current trend of rising populism, this book is a breath of fresh air.
Though I must add a little bit of critique, I think a few more case studies or examples would've been better for a better illustration of the situations, ideas, and stories from the book.
May 5, 2020
A scholastic text always hiding behind what somebody else said. To make things worse, just because THAT person said it is proof enough to be true so the author pushes forward. And the argument? Some deity, hopefully a strong government, will come and fix things, as the author is here for the state pension plan.
February 18, 2017
This is a scholarly look at providing tech and communications around the world, involving research from many projects. The author first tells us that in Tahrir Square in Cairo, he saw a t-shirt for sale bearing social media logos. He bought it and went around asking the people who had just rebelled against their leader, if they knew the icons. They did and gave some of the media credit for helping them rebel. Yet many of these people had had no access to the internet ever.
Continuing a round-world look, we are shown some interesting figures. In one, we see that Uber, Alibaba, facebook and airbnb have scaled the ladder to the top of their trading category without owning cars, inventory, content or hotel rooms. Credited to Tom Goodwin. Others are maps, in which the lights represent internet connections or scientific collaboration, or fibreoptics. The globe is bright on Northern Europe and North America, East Asia, after which major cities break the almost-darkness of continents.
The question is put, why is the world so uneven in internet access distribution? Seems pretty obvious that the people who have been working to create and paying for the net should be the ones to use it. If you live in a mud hut beside a river and catch fish for a living, you might like to access the price of fish, but the web won't be the most important part of your life - and as we are told, the bankers still get a say in where the fish money goes. Also seems obvious that city living and education allowed people to specialise. The author finds it necessary to go back to ancient philosophy and the age of Enlightenment to develop his point. But mainly, those who created organised systems, collected and rewarded knowledge and science, got the internet out of it. Among many other marvels of good and bad.
We're shown positive outreach like providing a hole in the wall screen and keyboard, or a basic laptop per child in developing countries. This doesn't necessarily enable education, as children may have other pressing needs, like fetching water and food. We also are asked to consider how little workers are paid if laptops can be given away, while the children may be then tied into farming to benefit a giant corporation rather than their families. But I really like the image of a laptop powered by a wind-up battery providing the main source of light in a basic hut in Cambodia. This is in a discussion on colonialism versus post-colonialism, but I don't see neo-colonialism mentioned (in which developed countries sell people in developing countries goods and services, or provide their infrastructure at a profit, like water and broadband.)
The author continually refers to other writers, industry speakers and projects, such as women's studies scholar Kavita Philip or Ken Keniston, human development scholar from MIT, who argue that there are still divides in IT access within nations, between rich and poor, between speakers of a nation's first language and others, and between rich nations and less wealthy ones. The author describes himself as an engineer and socially minded technologist, and recounts his experience trying to set up a computer system to provide information in an isolated Indian village, to people who didn't want to do it his way and didn't seem to want their government's information.
I find it strange that readers need to be told that mobile phone access is spreading fast and has many ingenious applications, but is limited to those who are near cell masts and phone shops, while people still have to pay bills to giant profitable providers. Don't we all realise this? And hasn't it always been the case with every communication tech? Everything has a cost and has to be paid for, and phone companies are not going to hand out phones and time for free. Thus we are told of croc hunters in New Guinea using prepay phones as torches, and calling someone but ringing off (the author still says hanging up) so the other person calls them back if they have credit. Sounds like students in Dublin.
I am also annoyed that so many worthy people tell us of engaging local cultures and involving locals as designers of their own communications, when the sad truth is that much of Africa would have had landlines and electricity if some locals didn't keep stealing wires as fast as they were constructed. Civil and international wars have also been rife in many nations. No communication provider is going to go into a situation filled with corruption, instability and danger. Cell masts have a much smaller footprint and can be built in cities securely. White collar fraud is mentioned in a piece on India, proving that corruption is potentially at every level. Communication tech, says the author, while not the only means, has been instrumental in providing Indian people with improved work and wealth standards.
I very much enjoyed Terrence Turner's anthropology story of the Kayapo Amazonian people of Brazil who used video cameras when questioning officials about a dam project, finding that they gained greater legitimacy and responses had to be provided. The author gives us the benefit of his experiences in rural India, when a video camera was helpful to record a focus group, regardless of literacy, but found that IT schemes were unable to break caste barriers. Some people only spoke freely when no people from other castes or economic groups were present. I have found that students are able to dump caste labels on entering other countries, so I expect IT chatrooms will gradually dissolve the barrier.
Native American culture and Aboriginal culture are next considered. One interesting project is internet-linking fragmented tribal reservations. This is on the same ecology principle as wildlife corridors of trees linking fragmented animal habitats. Challenging terrain and impoverished tribal members were some of the reasons holding back net provision. The author describes months of fieldwork among Zuni Native Americans, listening more than he spoke. Eventually he was given a chance to address the topic of a digital village, also allowing the Zuni to see Zuni objects in far-flung museums, and had to sign a statement that he was not intending to profit other than for his thesis. He makes it clear that nobody can just rush in and expect instant cooperation. Digital providers may do a great deal of good, including preserving oral and pictorial tradition, but it won't occur overnight.
I like the ethos of the book and emphasis on respecting local people rather than just seeing them as sources of profit. We also get some nice photos of people and projects in developing areas. This speaks to the title Global Village. However you are faced with regular use of terms like meta-ontological and asymmetric diffusion so it's not an easy read for the general public. Anyone studying sociology, anthropology, distribution of IT services to less developed areas, or perhaps international aid groups, will benefit by reading Whose Global Village. Other interested people might be journalists, students of political affairs and international affairs.
I see only brief mention of policing media providers and big data firms; the new users don't know about data privacy and don't have options anyway. I see little mention of reconciling the industrial machine needed to provide all the bottom billion people with phones and laptops, with increasing climate change, and the need to prevent manufacturers' pollution and deforestation from killing the oceans and destroying wildlife habitats. There are photos of the assembly lines of workers making gadgets and the rough mining of minerals in the Congo. I don't see a mention of the Oxfam report Wealth: Having It All And Wanting More, which shows the world's resources and wealth moving into the ownership of a handful of people; I have to wonder who exactly would hand out a billion phones and what they would expect to get in return.
The references occupy pages 235 - 257 and notes 259 - 270 in my ARC; there are also some footnotes. While I had noted several female scholars' names in the text, I was unable to ascertain how many references were from female authors, as all were listed by just surnames or surnames plus initials.
You may also be interested in:
The Price of Thirst by Karen Piper
Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions by Paul Mason
The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information by Frank Pasquale
The New Censorship: Inside the Global Battle for Media Freedom by Joel Simon
Common Ground on Hostile Turf: Stories from an Environmental Mediator by Lucy Moore
Hoping to Help: The Promises and Pitfalls of Global Health Volunteering by Judith Lasker
Disaster Capitalism by Antony Loewenstein
The Disaster Profiteers: How Natural Disasters Make the Rich Richer and the Poor Even Poorer by John C Mutter
This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein.
I downloaded a ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.
Continuing a round-world look, we are shown some interesting figures. In one, we see that Uber, Alibaba, facebook and airbnb have scaled the ladder to the top of their trading category without owning cars, inventory, content or hotel rooms. Credited to Tom Goodwin. Others are maps, in which the lights represent internet connections or scientific collaboration, or fibreoptics. The globe is bright on Northern Europe and North America, East Asia, after which major cities break the almost-darkness of continents.
The question is put, why is the world so uneven in internet access distribution? Seems pretty obvious that the people who have been working to create and paying for the net should be the ones to use it. If you live in a mud hut beside a river and catch fish for a living, you might like to access the price of fish, but the web won't be the most important part of your life - and as we are told, the bankers still get a say in where the fish money goes. Also seems obvious that city living and education allowed people to specialise. The author finds it necessary to go back to ancient philosophy and the age of Enlightenment to develop his point. But mainly, those who created organised systems, collected and rewarded knowledge and science, got the internet out of it. Among many other marvels of good and bad.
We're shown positive outreach like providing a hole in the wall screen and keyboard, or a basic laptop per child in developing countries. This doesn't necessarily enable education, as children may have other pressing needs, like fetching water and food. We also are asked to consider how little workers are paid if laptops can be given away, while the children may be then tied into farming to benefit a giant corporation rather than their families. But I really like the image of a laptop powered by a wind-up battery providing the main source of light in a basic hut in Cambodia. This is in a discussion on colonialism versus post-colonialism, but I don't see neo-colonialism mentioned (in which developed countries sell people in developing countries goods and services, or provide their infrastructure at a profit, like water and broadband.)
The author continually refers to other writers, industry speakers and projects, such as women's studies scholar Kavita Philip or Ken Keniston, human development scholar from MIT, who argue that there are still divides in IT access within nations, between rich and poor, between speakers of a nation's first language and others, and between rich nations and less wealthy ones. The author describes himself as an engineer and socially minded technologist, and recounts his experience trying to set up a computer system to provide information in an isolated Indian village, to people who didn't want to do it his way and didn't seem to want their government's information.
I find it strange that readers need to be told that mobile phone access is spreading fast and has many ingenious applications, but is limited to those who are near cell masts and phone shops, while people still have to pay bills to giant profitable providers. Don't we all realise this? And hasn't it always been the case with every communication tech? Everything has a cost and has to be paid for, and phone companies are not going to hand out phones and time for free. Thus we are told of croc hunters in New Guinea using prepay phones as torches, and calling someone but ringing off (the author still says hanging up) so the other person calls them back if they have credit. Sounds like students in Dublin.
I am also annoyed that so many worthy people tell us of engaging local cultures and involving locals as designers of their own communications, when the sad truth is that much of Africa would have had landlines and electricity if some locals didn't keep stealing wires as fast as they were constructed. Civil and international wars have also been rife in many nations. No communication provider is going to go into a situation filled with corruption, instability and danger. Cell masts have a much smaller footprint and can be built in cities securely. White collar fraud is mentioned in a piece on India, proving that corruption is potentially at every level. Communication tech, says the author, while not the only means, has been instrumental in providing Indian people with improved work and wealth standards.
I very much enjoyed Terrence Turner's anthropology story of the Kayapo Amazonian people of Brazil who used video cameras when questioning officials about a dam project, finding that they gained greater legitimacy and responses had to be provided. The author gives us the benefit of his experiences in rural India, when a video camera was helpful to record a focus group, regardless of literacy, but found that IT schemes were unable to break caste barriers. Some people only spoke freely when no people from other castes or economic groups were present. I have found that students are able to dump caste labels on entering other countries, so I expect IT chatrooms will gradually dissolve the barrier.
Native American culture and Aboriginal culture are next considered. One interesting project is internet-linking fragmented tribal reservations. This is on the same ecology principle as wildlife corridors of trees linking fragmented animal habitats. Challenging terrain and impoverished tribal members were some of the reasons holding back net provision. The author describes months of fieldwork among Zuni Native Americans, listening more than he spoke. Eventually he was given a chance to address the topic of a digital village, also allowing the Zuni to see Zuni objects in far-flung museums, and had to sign a statement that he was not intending to profit other than for his thesis. He makes it clear that nobody can just rush in and expect instant cooperation. Digital providers may do a great deal of good, including preserving oral and pictorial tradition, but it won't occur overnight.
I like the ethos of the book and emphasis on respecting local people rather than just seeing them as sources of profit. We also get some nice photos of people and projects in developing areas. This speaks to the title Global Village. However you are faced with regular use of terms like meta-ontological and asymmetric diffusion so it's not an easy read for the general public. Anyone studying sociology, anthropology, distribution of IT services to less developed areas, or perhaps international aid groups, will benefit by reading Whose Global Village. Other interested people might be journalists, students of political affairs and international affairs.
I see only brief mention of policing media providers and big data firms; the new users don't know about data privacy and don't have options anyway. I see little mention of reconciling the industrial machine needed to provide all the bottom billion people with phones and laptops, with increasing climate change, and the need to prevent manufacturers' pollution and deforestation from killing the oceans and destroying wildlife habitats. There are photos of the assembly lines of workers making gadgets and the rough mining of minerals in the Congo. I don't see a mention of the Oxfam report Wealth: Having It All And Wanting More, which shows the world's resources and wealth moving into the ownership of a handful of people; I have to wonder who exactly would hand out a billion phones and what they would expect to get in return.
The references occupy pages 235 - 257 and notes 259 - 270 in my ARC; there are also some footnotes. While I had noted several female scholars' names in the text, I was unable to ascertain how many references were from female authors, as all were listed by just surnames or surnames plus initials.
You may also be interested in:
The Price of Thirst by Karen Piper
Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions by Paul Mason
The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information by Frank Pasquale
The New Censorship: Inside the Global Battle for Media Freedom by Joel Simon
Common Ground on Hostile Turf: Stories from an Environmental Mediator by Lucy Moore
Hoping to Help: The Promises and Pitfalls of Global Health Volunteering by Judith Lasker
Disaster Capitalism by Antony Loewenstein
The Disaster Profiteers: How Natural Disasters Make the Rich Richer and the Poor Even Poorer by John C Mutter
This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein.
I downloaded a ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.
May 6, 2017
Ramesh Srinivasan, Associate Professor at the Department of Information Studies & Design at UCLA and the Director of the UC-Wide Digital Cultures Lab, has just penned, under the imprint of New York University Press, an important new manuscript on the global shaping of technology and culture. Combining the sensitivity of an anthropologist, the clear prose of a design engineer, and the sophistication of a cultural theorist, his work makes a fundamental appeal for more global analysis that respects the cultural and community diversity of technology.
The book asks, in effect, Whose global village is the current digital age? The answer: not ours, not yours, and not theirs. I am reminded of that old chestnut about the Holy Roman Empire being neither holy, Roman, nor an empire; so too is the digital global village neither digital, global, nor a village.
Let’s begin with a hypothetical. Suppose, for a moment, that you (the reader) were tasked with formulating the intellectual conditions for developing a global understanding of information technologies. How would you begin? (Consider drafting a comment before reading on?)
Personally, I might begin by reaching for media forces conventionally considered to be global: namely, the reach of international communication networks (telegraphy, telephony, computers, satellites, and undersea cables). I’d also mark for study the global information flows that animate the innovation trading zones among markets, states, and other knowledge base actors; and, of course, I’d probably emphasize the historical development—some might even say progression—of information technological affordances across increasingly far reaches of space, fast intervals of time, and yawning inequalities of power. I’d probably also call for more non-western case studies literally located outside of North American, Western Europe, and the Pacific Rim. In short, tasked with specifying the major players for understanding global media, I would probably target global information technologies, the neoliberal forces that develop them, and the modern acceleration of mediated space, time, and power.
In short, I’d probably make many of the mistakes that Srinivasan’s elegant ethnographic synthesis stands ready to correct.
The study of the global technology, he points out, is profoundly local—it does not start with international networks, neoliberal forces, or teleological senses of history or space—and, at best, it balances local appreciation against those actors. This is not to say, of course, that Whose Global Village is somehow blind to the critical sensitivities of global theory and power—just the opposite! Indeed the limits of Srinivasan’s analysis are also its visible strengths: his insights into the global spread of information technologies come with an ethnographic chronicling of local difference—a sensitivity sometimes blurred in the broad swipes of theory-making sans specific case studies.
For example, global tech diversity may be nearer than we may think. His chapter case studies take up network digital technologies in the Egyptian Arab Spring and Southern India (conventional non-western case studies) as well as the revealing experiences in the Native American reservations and museums occupying Zuni Native American people and Zapatista lands in the southwest of the US. For many, mobile devices function first as flashlights, not phones. The variety of global technological cultures is far closer to home.
And home for the globe-trotting ethnographer (perhaps “home” is an inescapable space that one learns to accommodate for over time) is their own mobile first-person viewpoint: while also informed by a broad, sometimes patchwork reading of the western philosophy and critical anthropology theory, his manuscript, delivered in admirably readable, sometimes zigzag prose, regularly returns to narrative description of his own personal experiences with his subjects, the difficulties he experiences as a researcher, and the laying bear of his own fluid methods—or what he calls, in this book’s signal theoretical contribution, the notion of “fluid ontology.”
I understand “fluid ontology” to basically articulate a call for researchers to continuously avail themselves to the emerging reflection and consensus-building practices of the community they study. A fluid ontology practitioner embraces messiness and seeks partial, emerging, adaptive, and unstable insights in the interactions between technologies and communities, whose meanings remain in Srinivasan’s hands robustly and resolutely local.
So much so good, although, of course, quibbling scholars will quibble: I, for one, am not yet convinced that the (appealingly unsexy) noun “ontology” is the right word for the job. In his own admission, the term freights in the work of the cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky and the computer science lexicon for specifying the underlying assumptions by which knowledge may be formally and logically mapped in a system. And yet it is precisely this kind of locally rigid prior taxonomies that Minsky and his ilk assume to be at work in the shaping of technology and culture that Srinivasan’s fluid methods and collaborative practices promise to work around. A curious intellectual debt, this!
Srinivasan’s work is openly committed to helping the reader understand the specific, the local, and community-based meaning of technology. It situates itself in open contrast to how one might, with legible ontologies in hand and a nod to James C. Scott, “see like a state.” But perhaps my own sense of the inconsistency here—that privileging a formalist term is less than optimal for describing the messy, vibrant world of actual meaning of technology in culture—stems from a stiffness in my own preference for words. Among other critical questions one might ask, perhaps fluid practice also means co-opting troublesome terms from the state and system builders—and if so, at what cost? (Under what conditions, I wonder, will a fluid freeze solid?) What, if any, work does “ontology” do in Srinivasan’s argument that cannot be undone by the privileging of fluid research practices in Srinivasan’s book?
My grousing aside, there is much more to learn along the way from case studies that detail how museum exhibits, even as they build public memory, can also silence diversity; how one can often learn more from community disagreement than consensus; how world-listening is preferable to world-building; how instead of vaulting the internet as the network of networks, scholars might instead follow the local activists he chronicles in adapting to the “splinternet” for precisely the incompatible community standards and conflicting commitments one encounters online.
In short, the world surely does not want or need one single universal standard to “fix” the internet or its many problems. Perhaps there was never one world, but many subworlds whose stories deserve sharing. May this local world of digital media users–Goodreads readers–benefit from a fuller appreciation, with this book in hand, of the diverse cultural networks that staff and attend the globe’s many ongoing villages dramas.
The book asks, in effect, Whose global village is the current digital age? The answer: not ours, not yours, and not theirs. I am reminded of that old chestnut about the Holy Roman Empire being neither holy, Roman, nor an empire; so too is the digital global village neither digital, global, nor a village.
Let’s begin with a hypothetical. Suppose, for a moment, that you (the reader) were tasked with formulating the intellectual conditions for developing a global understanding of information technologies. How would you begin? (Consider drafting a comment before reading on?)
Personally, I might begin by reaching for media forces conventionally considered to be global: namely, the reach of international communication networks (telegraphy, telephony, computers, satellites, and undersea cables). I’d also mark for study the global information flows that animate the innovation trading zones among markets, states, and other knowledge base actors; and, of course, I’d probably emphasize the historical development—some might even say progression—of information technological affordances across increasingly far reaches of space, fast intervals of time, and yawning inequalities of power. I’d probably also call for more non-western case studies literally located outside of North American, Western Europe, and the Pacific Rim. In short, tasked with specifying the major players for understanding global media, I would probably target global information technologies, the neoliberal forces that develop them, and the modern acceleration of mediated space, time, and power.
In short, I’d probably make many of the mistakes that Srinivasan’s elegant ethnographic synthesis stands ready to correct.
The study of the global technology, he points out, is profoundly local—it does not start with international networks, neoliberal forces, or teleological senses of history or space—and, at best, it balances local appreciation against those actors. This is not to say, of course, that Whose Global Village is somehow blind to the critical sensitivities of global theory and power—just the opposite! Indeed the limits of Srinivasan’s analysis are also its visible strengths: his insights into the global spread of information technologies come with an ethnographic chronicling of local difference—a sensitivity sometimes blurred in the broad swipes of theory-making sans specific case studies.
For example, global tech diversity may be nearer than we may think. His chapter case studies take up network digital technologies in the Egyptian Arab Spring and Southern India (conventional non-western case studies) as well as the revealing experiences in the Native American reservations and museums occupying Zuni Native American people and Zapatista lands in the southwest of the US. For many, mobile devices function first as flashlights, not phones. The variety of global technological cultures is far closer to home.
And home for the globe-trotting ethnographer (perhaps “home” is an inescapable space that one learns to accommodate for over time) is their own mobile first-person viewpoint: while also informed by a broad, sometimes patchwork reading of the western philosophy and critical anthropology theory, his manuscript, delivered in admirably readable, sometimes zigzag prose, regularly returns to narrative description of his own personal experiences with his subjects, the difficulties he experiences as a researcher, and the laying bear of his own fluid methods—or what he calls, in this book’s signal theoretical contribution, the notion of “fluid ontology.”
I understand “fluid ontology” to basically articulate a call for researchers to continuously avail themselves to the emerging reflection and consensus-building practices of the community they study. A fluid ontology practitioner embraces messiness and seeks partial, emerging, adaptive, and unstable insights in the interactions between technologies and communities, whose meanings remain in Srinivasan’s hands robustly and resolutely local.
So much so good, although, of course, quibbling scholars will quibble: I, for one, am not yet convinced that the (appealingly unsexy) noun “ontology” is the right word for the job. In his own admission, the term freights in the work of the cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky and the computer science lexicon for specifying the underlying assumptions by which knowledge may be formally and logically mapped in a system. And yet it is precisely this kind of locally rigid prior taxonomies that Minsky and his ilk assume to be at work in the shaping of technology and culture that Srinivasan’s fluid methods and collaborative practices promise to work around. A curious intellectual debt, this!
Srinivasan’s work is openly committed to helping the reader understand the specific, the local, and community-based meaning of technology. It situates itself in open contrast to how one might, with legible ontologies in hand and a nod to James C. Scott, “see like a state.” But perhaps my own sense of the inconsistency here—that privileging a formalist term is less than optimal for describing the messy, vibrant world of actual meaning of technology in culture—stems from a stiffness in my own preference for words. Among other critical questions one might ask, perhaps fluid practice also means co-opting troublesome terms from the state and system builders—and if so, at what cost? (Under what conditions, I wonder, will a fluid freeze solid?) What, if any, work does “ontology” do in Srinivasan’s argument that cannot be undone by the privileging of fluid research practices in Srinivasan’s book?
My grousing aside, there is much more to learn along the way from case studies that detail how museum exhibits, even as they build public memory, can also silence diversity; how one can often learn more from community disagreement than consensus; how world-listening is preferable to world-building; how instead of vaulting the internet as the network of networks, scholars might instead follow the local activists he chronicles in adapting to the “splinternet” for precisely the incompatible community standards and conflicting commitments one encounters online.
In short, the world surely does not want or need one single universal standard to “fix” the internet or its many problems. Perhaps there was never one world, but many subworlds whose stories deserve sharing. May this local world of digital media users–Goodreads readers–benefit from a fuller appreciation, with this book in hand, of the diverse cultural networks that staff and attend the globe’s many ongoing villages dramas.
May 15, 2017
I would like to thank NetGalley, the Publisher and Author fot this copy.
Whose Global Village?
I usually don't read non-fiction unless i have to, but i was caught by the title. Having been living in an international community for the past 18 months, this kind of topics was always present for discussion, although in a very, very small scale.
So i decided to read it, and it was really interesting in so many levels.
Throughout the book, the author gives an interesting insight on how technology affects different communities, in different places around the world; and how it can be possible when used wisely, that it can give a voice for the forgotton communities.
So again, Whose Gloabal village?
The term "village" is troubling as it collapses the experiences of billions into the agendas of the few who have power and voice.
The book was structures in an interesting way, at least as far as my rather simple understanding goes. A first part explained technology today, how it is shaped and seen throuh the western countries, and the different theories, conversations and experiment on how to advantage the developing and rural communities by this technology, to make them connected to the rest of the world.
I liked how the author pointed to the fact that all this is done from the point of view of the rich and powerful countries, without real connection or understanding to these "other" users, without knowledge about their priorities and struggles.
One experiment in particular caught me, it was called "One Laptop Per Child", it was in a village in Mongolia, to connect the children to the outside world. What happened in reality was that the laptop was used mainly at night as it was the strongest source of light in these Mongolian huts that do not have electricity.
It is rather disturbing how these scholars or powerful people became detached from reality as not to see the different priorities of the different communities.
The other part of the book was an account of the author's experiences with different marginalized communities in different parts of the world, rural India, villages of the Native Americans in US...
Through all these projects, the main concern was to introduce a version of technology that benefit the community, responds to certain of its needs, supports their own knowledge and cultural diversity, and helps sharing their stories among each other.
It was a very interesting part indeed.
I also liked the fact that the author pointed out a new problem caused by technology; the desire to collect knowledge, creating databases, storing imaging and objects, all of this outside of their actual context, without the stories that goes with this kind of knowledge, and all this has become a threat to the cultural diversity in the world.
Most scientific and cultural archives take specific actions, events, and practices and abstract these into indexable, comparative data. In the process, they filter out that which fails to "fit" with existing classification protocols. Lost in this transaction are the voices, values and practices of communities on the ground.
Reading this book was interesting, as it offered another point of view on how technology shapes our lives, and also by offering another possibility on how to make technology a tool that makes our life better, rather than just following the practices of the more powerful and richer countries just to fit in with this notion of "Global Village" that in fact is not that global after all.
I will finish this review by an interesting quote by Phil Agre, from the book:
In a world of shallow diversity, we will prosper and we will die. We must learn to value and conserve deep diversity, and we must learn what it would even mean to resplenish what has been lost.
Whose Global Village?
I usually don't read non-fiction unless i have to, but i was caught by the title. Having been living in an international community for the past 18 months, this kind of topics was always present for discussion, although in a very, very small scale.
So i decided to read it, and it was really interesting in so many levels.
Throughout the book, the author gives an interesting insight on how technology affects different communities, in different places around the world; and how it can be possible when used wisely, that it can give a voice for the forgotton communities.
So again, Whose Gloabal village?
The term "village" is troubling as it collapses the experiences of billions into the agendas of the few who have power and voice.
The book was structures in an interesting way, at least as far as my rather simple understanding goes. A first part explained technology today, how it is shaped and seen throuh the western countries, and the different theories, conversations and experiment on how to advantage the developing and rural communities by this technology, to make them connected to the rest of the world.
I liked how the author pointed to the fact that all this is done from the point of view of the rich and powerful countries, without real connection or understanding to these "other" users, without knowledge about their priorities and struggles.
One experiment in particular caught me, it was called "One Laptop Per Child", it was in a village in Mongolia, to connect the children to the outside world. What happened in reality was that the laptop was used mainly at night as it was the strongest source of light in these Mongolian huts that do not have electricity.
It is rather disturbing how these scholars or powerful people became detached from reality as not to see the different priorities of the different communities.
The other part of the book was an account of the author's experiences with different marginalized communities in different parts of the world, rural India, villages of the Native Americans in US...
Through all these projects, the main concern was to introduce a version of technology that benefit the community, responds to certain of its needs, supports their own knowledge and cultural diversity, and helps sharing their stories among each other.
It was a very interesting part indeed.
I also liked the fact that the author pointed out a new problem caused by technology; the desire to collect knowledge, creating databases, storing imaging and objects, all of this outside of their actual context, without the stories that goes with this kind of knowledge, and all this has become a threat to the cultural diversity in the world.
Most scientific and cultural archives take specific actions, events, and practices and abstract these into indexable, comparative data. In the process, they filter out that which fails to "fit" with existing classification protocols. Lost in this transaction are the voices, values and practices of communities on the ground.
Reading this book was interesting, as it offered another point of view on how technology shapes our lives, and also by offering another possibility on how to make technology a tool that makes our life better, rather than just following the practices of the more powerful and richer countries just to fit in with this notion of "Global Village" that in fact is not that global after all.
I will finish this review by an interesting quote by Phil Agre, from the book:
In a world of shallow diversity, we will prosper and we will die. We must learn to value and conserve deep diversity, and we must learn what it would even mean to resplenish what has been lost.
March 11, 2017
According to Ramesh Srinivasan in his new book Whose global village?, “Inequality is a major part of the story of today’s Internet”, and we (especially social and cultural professionals) need to develop a more nuanced understanding of (digital) technology to make sure our stories reflect the communities we represent. I feel the book and its message are well-timed, as it gives fresh perspectives on questions that I increasingly hear being asked in organisations: how to make sure a diversity of voices is heard, and how can we use technology to be more inclusive and welcoming to people?
Ramesh Srinivasan is Director of the Digital Cultures Lab and Associate Professor of Information Studies and Design and Media at UCLA, and he has an exceptionally balanced outlook on the impact of technology on society, and vice versa. His research includes the use of technology in the Arab Spring, the development of technologies that represented the specific community needs of native American tribes, and many other topics. His argument is based on his experience, and a review of historical and popular sources.
Underlying the book is Heidegger’s idea that a technology reveals underlying ontological beliefs for how the world should be ordered. Artefacts such as the Atari 2600 or the BASIC programming language are not neutral, but represent a social and cultural view of the world. A database reflects social and cultural practice. The ontologies and networks that shape digital communication, force everyone to speak the same language. If you look at histories of digital technology, you know its frame is predominantly AngloSaxon, male, white, etc.
In the real world, every community articulates their experiences differently. The digital world does not allow for such diversity, but can and should do so in the future.
“On the whole,” Srinivasan writes, “globalization has reinforced inequality through the way new technologies have been deployed.” New technologies increasingly shape our world, but are rarely designed to reflect the perspectives of people at the fringes of the digital world. As a consequence, when we evangelize language such as “cloud”, “open”, or “Internet freedom”, we propagate one worldview at the expense of another. Ramesh: “The belief systems, values, and perspectives of source communities are threatened in the digital world, where terms such as openness or participation are evangelised without scrutiny.”
Fortunately, Srinivasan offers alternatives from his own practice, which include a project similar to the inspirational Video Volunteers, and a carefully designed online storytelling and knowledge sharing platform for the Zuni. Srinivasan’s work is typically based on close collaboration with the recipient communities of a technology, in which the community takes the lead in many of the important decisions. His approach is in line with contemporary best practice in social and cultural development work, which seems to mean engineers, technologists and advocates of digital media can learn a lot by taking a wider view on their work.
Whose global village? stimulated my thinking, and has reinforced my belief that in order to develop successful technology projects, you also need to invest in communities and your own social and cultural awareness. At times I would have loved the book to be more specific on how to achieve the visions it lays out, which I take as a call-to-action for my own work.
(A slightly different version of this review appeared before on themuseumofthefuture.com)
Ramesh Srinivasan is Director of the Digital Cultures Lab and Associate Professor of Information Studies and Design and Media at UCLA, and he has an exceptionally balanced outlook on the impact of technology on society, and vice versa. His research includes the use of technology in the Arab Spring, the development of technologies that represented the specific community needs of native American tribes, and many other topics. His argument is based on his experience, and a review of historical and popular sources.
Underlying the book is Heidegger’s idea that a technology reveals underlying ontological beliefs for how the world should be ordered. Artefacts such as the Atari 2600 or the BASIC programming language are not neutral, but represent a social and cultural view of the world. A database reflects social and cultural practice. The ontologies and networks that shape digital communication, force everyone to speak the same language. If you look at histories of digital technology, you know its frame is predominantly AngloSaxon, male, white, etc.
In the real world, every community articulates their experiences differently. The digital world does not allow for such diversity, but can and should do so in the future.
“On the whole,” Srinivasan writes, “globalization has reinforced inequality through the way new technologies have been deployed.” New technologies increasingly shape our world, but are rarely designed to reflect the perspectives of people at the fringes of the digital world. As a consequence, when we evangelize language such as “cloud”, “open”, or “Internet freedom”, we propagate one worldview at the expense of another. Ramesh: “The belief systems, values, and perspectives of source communities are threatened in the digital world, where terms such as openness or participation are evangelised without scrutiny.”
Fortunately, Srinivasan offers alternatives from his own practice, which include a project similar to the inspirational Video Volunteers, and a carefully designed online storytelling and knowledge sharing platform for the Zuni. Srinivasan’s work is typically based on close collaboration with the recipient communities of a technology, in which the community takes the lead in many of the important decisions. His approach is in line with contemporary best practice in social and cultural development work, which seems to mean engineers, technologists and advocates of digital media can learn a lot by taking a wider view on their work.
Whose global village? stimulated my thinking, and has reinforced my belief that in order to develop successful technology projects, you also need to invest in communities and your own social and cultural awareness. At times I would have loved the book to be more specific on how to achieve the visions it lays out, which I take as a call-to-action for my own work.
(A slightly different version of this review appeared before on themuseumofthefuture.com)
February 21, 2017
In this book, Ramesh raises very important points about technology and the history of digital media. He emphasises the importance and role of collaboration in ensuring “world listening” as opposed to “world making”.
He dispels the notion that we live in a democratic global village. He explains how today’s ease of access to the internet has actually fostered more inequality.
Rating: 3.5/5
Favourite Quote: “Designing a technology to support multiple perspectives and voices is not merely a philosophical goal. Design, like communication, is a process.”
In this book, Ramesh raises very important points about technology and the history of digital media. He emphasises the importance and role of collaboration in ensuring “world listening” as opposed to “world making”.
He dispels the notion that we live in a democratic global village. He explains how today’s ease of access to the internet has actually fostered more inequality.
Rating: 3.5/5
Favourite Quote: “Designing a technology to support multiple perspectives and voices is not merely a philosophical goal. Design, like communication, is a process.”
August 24, 2020
About the way that tech is usually implemented in a top down fashion and the implications that has on the communities and the people involved. Definitely brings up things I hadn't thought about before and learned lots. I especially enjoyed the sections about the Native Americans and the Zapatistas and their distrust of academia in general and the way technology can be viewed by people in rural peopke all over the world.
February 18, 2019
The below reviewer is absurdly heavy-handed, and actually contradicts himself/herself by being obtuse and unclear in its criticism. The book is an academic-one no doubt but it gives glimpses across the world into how technologies created in one part of the world shape the realities of others, and what is at stake when the process of design and engineering are truly democratized.
March 4, 2018
Uma discussão sobre o que fica para trás e o que não é levado em conta quando pensamos que basta conectar a humanidade à internet que tudo vai se resolver. Uma boa ideia de um ensaio estendida por muito mais páginas do que (acho) necessário.
August 10, 2019
Interesantes miradas sobre la tecnología y el impacto en diversas zonas del planeta. Se habla desde el terreno en proyectos en Asia, África y América. Me ha resultado a veces pesado y otras con apuntes y reflexiones brillantes. Me han gustado sus miradas criticas.
Want to read
June 14, 2017Interview with the author on Morning Edition:
http://www.npr.org/2017/06/14/5327728...
http://www.npr.org/2017/06/14/5327728...
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews