The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child (Infrastructures)

by Morgan G. Ames

These chapters draw on data collected during seven months of ethnographic fieldwork in Paraguay: six months from mid-June to mid-December 2010 and an additional month of follow-up research in November 2013. This fieldwork was conducted in collaboration with Paraguay Educa, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that ran the local project. During this time, I observed children, their teachers, and their families in classrooms, their homes, and public spaces. I typically spent two to three days per week in schools, for a total of fifty-seven school days (or approximately 450 hours), observing classrooms and schoolyards. I conducted 144 interviews with children, parents, teachers, administrators, Paraguay Educa employees, and others involved in the project, nearly all in Spanish.60 I supplemented this ethnography with some quantitative data, which I use to triangulate results in my analysis.