So I left Zuckerman’s presentation quite annoyed. I had a bunch of questions for him that I thought might add to the public dialogue that he’d initiated, but, regrettably, there was no time or space allotted for public Q & A. Now, my questions themselves stem not so much from minor quibbles with isolated claims of his, but from deep misgivings about the fundamental presumptions underlying, and broader implications of, his presentation. And it seems to me that Zuckerman’s presentation and (I hope) the questions to which I’m going to try to point here are worth thinking about for any of us interested in enacting (or, indeed, currently engaged in) attempts to address the violence and severe inequality in the world from our standpoint as information professionals.
(For those who couldn’t make it, Zuckerman’s central project is a humanitarian one: he feels that if more of us (and he’s truly speaking globally) are connected to, and freely dialoguing through, the internet, sharing and respectfully enjoying the differences that seem, currently, to be sites of strife — if we could only overcome the digital divide in this manner, then we could go a long way towards creating the conditions for a more peaceful, humane, and just world. Zuckerman’s projects include Geekcorps and Global Voices Online — both initiatives dedicated, at base, to getting all of us in the world listening to one another through the powerful tool that is the Internet.)
Now, clearly Zuckerman has the best of intentions. He seems to genuinely care about the current state of the world, and seems, perhaps more importantly, to be committed to backing that up with research and action. That’s important. So is his recognition that dialogue — true, respectful dialogue on equal footing, founded on earnest practices of listening — plays a crucial role in change, at whatever level.
But advocating for listening is fairly meaningless if one does not oneself listen to history — and it seems to me that this is where Zuckerman’s project runs into trouble. In particular, Zuckerman seems to have ignored the very long history of what’s been called “international development work,” a history in which, time and again, the plight of communities in the so-called “Third World” (hereafter referred to as the “majority world“) has been made markedly worse (in very real terms — access to clean water, sustainable, meaningful food, etc.) by the forced replacement of local indigenous technologies, communication systems, education systems, philosophies, and so on, with so-called “modern” Western technologies. This history has tended to be marked by two interconnected presumptions:
(a) that problems faced by the majority world are attributable to the absence of technology, monetary wealth, “modern” ideas, material resources, democracy, and “connectivity”
and
(b) that Western-style “modernization” — what’s often called “the privileges we enjoy” — is the answer
I would have liked to see Zuckerman at least acknowledge this history as the crucial backdrop to the work that he’s undertaking as someone concerned with bettering the world. Projects like “One Laptop Per Child” and, it would seem, Zuckerman’s efforts seem to turn on an assumption that effective systems for communication and “connectivity” and education didn’t exist in the majority world prior to Western “civilizing” efforts. And this sort of assumption is one of the cornerstones of paternalism.
But the fundamental question that all of us who wish to be actively involved in efforts to address the world’s probelms need to ask is, “Why is the violence happening?” What particular historical and economic forces are driving the violence in the world? It’s all too easy for the so-called “West” to draw on familiar colonial explanations that populations are simply inherently poor, backward, violent and/or hung up on “tribal differences” — indeed, “underdeveloped” rather than “developed.” Looking at the historical causes and present day details of strife takes time and patience, but it’s the only way that international work can effectively be more than just about the transfer of material wealth, that it can be about global justice.
In the end, I’m not convinced that we as information professionals can best contribute to the world by supporting the spread of $100 laptops (which divert resources from teacher salaries, chalk, etc.) or putting our main efforts behind making sure everyone’s “connected” to the internet. Perhaps we’d better start with our research skills in understanding, and making folks aware of, the more fundamental issues facing the majority world — access to clean water, to sustainable and culturally meaningful food production systems, and to community participation and production not controlled by foreign governments, multinational corporations, and the dollars of rich “Westerners.” Indeed, where clean water is concerned, our fervent culture of upgrade and sense of technological superiority has had it’s own consequences for the majority world.
Now, it might be argued that his desire to see the world hooked up to the Internet does not preclude work in other areas, nor even the prioritizing of work towards more fundamental matters of global justice (clean water, the right not to be bombed, etc.). I think I would have been less annoyed had he acknowledged this rather than suggesting that the world would be a better place if we could all just listen to each other and be as cosmopolitan as possible.
I’m aware that some might see irony in using a blog to critique the usefulness of notions of “Western” technological advancement. It’s worth pointing out, though, that critique is not the same as dismissal: clearly, folks have made use of the internet as a powerful tool in global education and transformation. Just look at Indymedia.org, Rabble.ca, Democracy Now!, Z Communications, and so on. Just today, even at a personal level, I got a great Vandana Shiva article through an online database, found an inspiring Sunera Thobani speech, which I listened to on the way to meet a pal for breakfast, and chatted with far away friends.
But it’s still worth noting the difference between, on the one hand, recognizing the usefulness of a tool at a particular historical moment and in particular contexts, and on the other, positioning the so-called “digital divide” as the central problem of our age and championing the Internet as the solution by which the “dark continent” (!) can be made “less dark” (Zuckerman’s metaphor).
Anyway, all annoyance aside, I do think it would do us well to pause in our efforts, as info professionals, towards global justice and examine the presumptions we are making — very basic presumptions about what constitutes progress, what constitutes education, what constitutes literacy, what constitutes poverty, what constitutes technology, and indeed, whether “development” is best defined in terms of material and monetary accumulation. Asking ourselves these fundamental questions — that is, holding out that the wealth and technological “advancement” of the so-called “West” may be part of the problem rather than the be-all-and-end-all solution — would make all our of efforts that much more humble and that much more genuine. It’s really win-win.
*Sigh*
Anyway, I’m probably missing something and I’ve been yammering on for a while, so I’ll post now and hope that some discussion comes out of this …
Thoughts?
Best,
Dave Hudson