Dirty Fingerprints All Over Wikipedia

I use Wikipedia pretty regularly for all sorts of things, and despite all the criticism about its open-source nature (which I whole-heartedly agree has some drawbacks), I think that it generally can be a good source of information.

But especially interesting is the transparency of the site. You can look up discussions about edits, and apparently also locate the sources of edits. Of course, as this article points out, this doesn't mean we know exactly who is responsible for the changes. I'm sure too that organizations such as the CIA and the Vatican will be more discreet with their edits, or at least more explicit with their Internet AUPs. But it's nice to know that the Internet is still a relatively transparent place.

UPDATE: Hilarious. Apparently BBC is not above its own criticisms, although it is above reporting about them. At least they've come out and admitted their mistake. But leave it up to bloggers to leave no stone unturned.

Busy busy busy

Wow, time flies. I've been spending much of my free time re-introducting myself to webpage development. I just finished a page about my impending trip around the world and in Africa. It's simple, but I'm happy with it.

I've also been reading Lewis Mumford's Myth of the Machine. While I've been praising to no end the rewards and promise of technology in the developing world, I've forgotten to take into account the intense criticism it has garnished from truly insightful people like Lewis. I think studying such criticism from both Western and non-Western perspectives is key to fully comprehend the dangers of religious adherence to technology. Here is a quote I found interesting from Myth of the Machine:

In the working out of this parallel and in the tracing of the archetypal machine through later Western history, I found that many obscure irrational manifestations in our own highly mechanized and supposedly rational culture became strangely clarified. For in both cases, immense gains in valuable knowledge and usable productivity were cancelled out by equally great increases in ostentatious waste, paranoid hostility, insensate destructiveness, hideous random extermination.

Perfect analysis of the complementary way technology has worked with our consumer culture, where advances in ease and access come hand-in-hand with increased expectation and the creation of "necessity."

Entrepreneurism vs. Aid in Africa

"You're going to give starving kids in Africa computers? What are they going to do with it, eat it? Maybe you can give them some CD players too." This was the response from my brother about my idea of bringing over a number of computer laptops to Africa with me in the fall. It was a typically zippy remark from him, bringing to light the utter idiocy of what I had previously considered an clever plan. All of a sudden all I could say was, "Uh, yeah."

My brother's comments cut to the heart of a larger debate over what is really needed to bring the African continent out of its abject poverty and closer to the type of affluence that we are used to here in the US (although perhaps some might cringe at the prospect of having the world act with the same extravagantly wasteful abandon we do here). It is the same debate that has received some amount of media and blogopshere attention with the occurance of the TEDGlobal conference in Arusha, Tanzania earlier this month. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. TED is an organization that conducts conferences to bring together entrepreneurial spirits from these three industries in the hope of sharing ideas and resources. TEDGlobal is apparently working to spread this culture of entrepreneurism to help less developed countries. Many African bloggers discussed, covered or attended the conference themselves this past month. Global Voices Online has provided a spread of some of the discussion surrounding the conference, which was altogether positive. I thought a few comments were especially interesting:

Rafiq Philips, from South Africa, summed up the entrepreneurial capitalist spirit the conference seemed to embody with these words: "Screw the handouts to Africa, give us the tools that allow us to solve our own problems."

Soyapi Mumba, a blogger from Malawi, echoed this sentiment:

Before going to TED Global, I kept hearing voices blaming governments for not doing this and that plus several other reasons why African countries cannot prosper unless some one from outside Africa does something.... At TED however, everyone I met was determined to solve Africa’s problems without waiting for governments or donors. So I’ve come back energised and connected to the right community that will hopefully keep me motivated.


The idea of a focus on economic self-improvement is something that Jason Pontin of the New York Times wrote about in his article concerning the TEDGlobal conference in Arusha. He is a bit more ambivalent about what is needed in Africa, noting that there are still many basic needs that can be met much more efficiently and directly through charitable aid than through indirect economic incentives. He even touches a little on what my brother was getting at in questioning whether or not it is ethical to focus on technology and capitalist enterprise when people are starving.

Ultimately Pontin comes to the conclusion that both economic/technological investment and more basic aid will be needed to help Africa. I personally think I am drawn to the technological side because it seems to provide a sense of normalicy to a place that is in many ways quite different (I imagine) from anything I have experienced. It could be that I think it is more decent, less degrading, less pitying to help people understand and utilize a technology, rather than simply provide a service or give them money or aid. The relationship seems more symmetric, the pay-offs greater for everyone. Perhaps I am just convincing myself of my own righteousness, but I believe that the attempt to facilitate the use of technology in Africa is not futile. In fact, I see the potential as much more helpful and hopeful than the altogether mixed success US aid has had in Africa thus far.

Nonetheless, it is refreshing to have someone like my brother putting things into perspective... at least every once in a while.

Science, Technology and Socio-Cultural Perspective

Reflecting on some of the topics I nearly wrote my undergrad thesis on, I recently recalled that one of the things that initially interested me most about Africa was the interesting consequences of convoluting modern technology and science with Euro-American cultural bias in the context of colonial/postcolonial Africa. What so often has passed for "science" introduced in Africa by Europeans (and Americans) has also had implicit or overt socio-political meanings as well. In some cases this has created an ambivalence towards medicine and science (perhaps less so technology, although often this goes together with the other two). There is an incredible advantage for Africa in adopting new technologies and scientific and medical methods. However, the socio-cultural aspect of these adoptions play a somewhat complicated yet influential role in the benefit provided.

By coincidence, I just picked up on a GVO link to a blogger who attended a recent social activist conference in Nairobi dealing with the use of mobile phone technology. This blogger pointed out the lack of African involvement on the technology side:


The issue of how to deal with the ownership of technology and technological expertise was also discussed. All the technologists where white and tended to be white males. Why are African technologists not involved in development technology? And technology in general. These questions remain to be answered but definitely something that crops up repeatedly in any discussion on technology in Africa whether mobile phones or the internet.


Hmmm... how to address this...

Wild Frontiers

A conversation with an old acquaintance earlier this week sparked a series of meditations on some strangely connected topics. We were talking about the “lawlessness” of the internet, with its disjointed structure and relative lack of overriding governance. Hackers, thieves, and disreputable people roam the web, making it a modern day wild (wild) west. The two features that truly popularized the internet, porn and ripped music, reveal how lawlessness has characterized the internet phenomenon since its popular beginnings.

Yet, how long will this last? Is the wild wild web, just like its 19th century predecessor, an ephemeral phenomenon? Even now issues of government oversight and internet neutrality seem to hint at the solidifying trajectory of the web. Governments such as China, Iran and Singapore seek authoritarian control over how the internet is used, and by whom. At the same time in the US and other capitalist countries regional and national internet service providers are lobbying for more control over access and marketability of the web. While these two efforts might have divergent goals and motives, they essentially signal the effort to control and manipulate this heretofore relatively open space (notwithstanding the obvious inherent private, elitest nature of access that cannot escape noting). I believe that there is still amazing potential for the internet to evolve into a tool that continues to help inform, educate, and facilitate socio-political equality. However, I fear that there is also the very real threat that this wild frontier will be destroyed by an overbearing urge to control.

* * *

On a seemingly divergent note- but one that shares a similar theme- I recently finished Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, a revisionist historian’s (Dee Brown) look at the taming of the wild west from a Native American (or Native Indian, or just plain Indian, depending on who you are talking to) perspective. This book, first published in the 1970s, covers the American government’s conquest over the native peoples who originally inhabited this land. Proceeding both in chronological order and (roughly) by tribe, it is in essence the same story of greed-induced deceit, unimaginable cruelty, and devastating tragedy told in more than a dozen different contexts.



Putting aside the remarkably saddening picture the book paints of the interaction between whites and natives, an important lesson gleaned is the role socio-cultural perspective plays on interaction between different groups. In this story the idea of ownership and productivity play an incredibly important part in the conflict. These two pinnacles of capitalist idealogy serve as the backbone of misunderstanding between inhabitant and invader. From the native perspective, land was something that could not be bought or sold at any price. It did not belong to anyone in the sense that it could be bartered with or commodified. Inhabitants had a responsibility to the land, to ensure that it continued to sustain those who depended on it. This turned out to be a much more ecologically forward-looking perspective than that of the white settlers and government officials who came to dispossess these native inhabitants. What US government and white prospectors, farmers and merchants saw was the misuse of valuable natural resources by an ignorant group of people. Progress, the watchword of the 19th century industrialization era, dictated that land that wasn’t maximized for humans’ short-term benefits was ipso facto a waste. From the perspective of these Anglo invaders, the land’s bountiful resources were there to be exploited, and the land itself destined to be possessed, bought and sold.

Whites’ perspective on land and land use, along with their own greed for wealth, informed their opinions of the native tribes, who they saw as lazy, ignorant and undeserving of the land. The pressure to attain this land and properly utilize it necessitated the formulation of a doctrine, embodied in the 19th cenury idea of Manifest Destiny, which lent justification to the dispossession of Indian land by Anglos. The psychology needed to accompany these devastating and inhumane acts sprang from the differences in understanding of the relationship between civilization and nature. Hence, at the same time during which the worst of these atrocities were being committed by the US government, the development of the stereotype of Indian savagery also came into focus. This perspective can best be summed up in the words, later popularized, by US Army General Philip Sheriden to his Comanche prisoners: “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead” (Brown, 170. Interestingly, the idea of the “noble savage” only came about after this period when native tribes no longer posed any real threat and the memory of the “wild west” began to be romanticized by nostalgic whites).

The psychology of domination in the mid to late 19th century American West draws many similarities to imperial and colonial ideology exhibited by Europeans throughout much of the rest of the world at the same time. This was especially the case in Africa, where the conquest of the entire continent was taking place, and the introduction of Europeans and European culture was just beginning to impact indigenous tribes. In many ways, I believe Africa served as the European “wild west,” a vast expanse of “uninhabited” land, potentially rich in natural resources and needing only to be cleaned out and cleaned up. Religious conversion and salvation also played an important role in both conquests, and helped form the ideology of superiority needed to justify the conquest. Ultimately, the colonial psychology, much like the psychology of Manifest Destiny, eventually condoned incredible atrocity- today we would call it genocide- against native cultures, some of whom were driven to near extinction.

* * *

Looking back at the stories of 19th century imperial and colonial conquest helps bring perspective to today, where we continue to wrestle with issues of cross-cultural conflict. At the end of my diatribes I often ask myself where I fit into this picture. Am I working to deconstruct or perpetuate the present-day heirs of these ideologies, neo-imperialism and ethnocentrism? Does my well-intentioned belief in the positive power of technology and the internet merely mimic the well-intentioned beliefs of former religious and secular zealots who, through the imposition of their world views, destroyed the social and cultural fabric of many an unfortunate indigenous group? What am I doing but perpetuating Progress with a capital ‘P,’ facilitating the entry of previously unaffected people into a consumerist society, where their thoughts will be increasingly distorted by a degredated Euro/Ameri-centric capitalist frame. Do I want to perpetuate the tragedy of the American Indian, who have long exhibited the scars of forced assimilation and continue to be the foremost forgotten victims of American success? I believe there are some important differences, yet I acknowledge that there is a slippery slope when it comes to righting legacies of injustice in a modern world. Having a personal connection to the plight of the American Indian, and a significant interest in the search for post-colonial equality and justice, I find the crisscrossing of historical and sociological narratives that inform these situations distinctly interesting. Three different stories of wild frontiers- American, African and virtual- coalesce disjointedly in a disjointed world.

Among the articles I’ve read about in the past few months is one on Paris Marashi, a student at NYU who is working to promote Iranian vlogs (video weblogs). I visited one of her sites and found myself watching a number of her vlog posts from this summer. I am intrigued by this project, which was essentially an exercise in ethnographic participatory cinema. It is amazing how images serve as such a striking means of conveying information and ideas. The crossing of geographic and socio-cultural boundaries that comes through so powerfully in blogs (and specifically bridgeblogs) feels even starker with video.


Among her other projects is an attempt to promote vlogging in Iran. Her site, vloginiran.blogspot.com sets out to instruct Iranians on how to create a vlog, much as Hoder originally did with blogging. Ultimately, a project such as this might have a harder time catching on because 1) of the cost and availability of the necessary technology and 2) because of the issue government censorship. It is nonetheless an exciting prospect.


Marashi’s projects prompted me to view vlogs from a more anthropological perspective. That her summer project follows the now classic ethnographic genres of cinema verite and participatory cinema (genres blazed by the likes of Jean Rouch, John Adair and others) reminded me of the potency of these types of visual documentary study, as well as their pitfalls. The question of objectivity, one that anthropology has wrestled with for so long, is being reintroduced in the new context of globalized interactive communication. Just as the handheld video camera revolutionized visual anthroplogy during the second half of the 20th century, the internet brings a whole new level of access to the portrayal (read manipulation) of culture. What does this mean in terms of the study and interpretation of ethnic/geographic/socio-economic others? What are the implications in the fetish-ization of the image, especially in the context of Euro-American consumer culture? I don’t have the background to speak with authority on the subject, although I have studied it some and am intrigued by these questions. Take for instance this quote by Marashi from her interview with GVO’s Farid Pouya:

Vlogging immediately opened up the things I wanted to share about my life in Iran to the rest of the world. Today I do something; tonight I post it online; tomorrow someone watches it. It is fascinating how it opens up what you are doing to a global audience. Once something is uploaded on the Internet, or on your videoblog, it is at the hands of the world and available for them to see.

Susan Sontag would have a field-day.


Note to self: keep an eye on this one:
homeyra.wordpress.com