olpc peru - cultural and educational consequences of global media - 2012
TRANSCRIPT
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Cultural and Educational Implications of Global Media.The One Laptop per Child Initiative in Rural Peruvian Schools.
Wissenschaftliche Hausarbeit
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
eines Magister Artium der Universitt Hamburg
Vorgelegt von
Antje Breitkopfaus Berlin
Hamburg 2012
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Abstract
This thesis investigates the impact of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project on local Peruvian
elementary schools. Since 2007 the Peruvian Ministry of Education has been implementing laptop
computers for schools and children in remote villages as part of a national OLPC initiative. OLPC
represents an approach to address various educational challenges worldwide with the help of
technology, referring for example to Information Technology for Development (ICT4D) programs
and other contemporary global discourses on education that often emphasize the importance of
incorporating technology into educational development initiatives. The project promotes the use of
the so-called XO laptop, a portable computer that was designed by members of the MIT media lab
under the chairmanship of Nicholas Negroponte, to meet the educational needs of children. This
technology-led approach has been criticized from various perspectives and can be understood as a
technologically deterministic solution, which underestimates social, political, economic and cultural
circumstances and challenges.
At first, the author identifies her own point of view as a culturally sensitive one, which was guiding
especially the field research, and thereby provided the basis for the here presented arguments. The
main topics of this first chapter concern different models of understanding and researching cultural
phenomena, especially material culture, introduce the theory of the cultural production of the
educated person (Levison and Holland, 1996), education as an act of modern citizen building and
technology as a cultural environment.
After a short description of the fieldwork process, the thesis briefly discusses the main principles
and assumptions of OLPC, mainly referring to critical perspectives. It then proceeds to show how,
in the case of Peru, these assumptions were transferred unquestioned to the rhetoric of policy
makers and promoters of the project. Peru has undertaken a tremendous financial effort to provide
all elementary and secondary schools with the above-mentioned technology. The thesis shows that
the question of how to meaningfully use these machines in schools all around the country remains
mostly unsolved, and there are rather few concrete examples of how to actually use the laptops in
classes in accordance with the national curriculum. Financial means, appropriate materials and
content, as well as adequately trained personnel and technical support are scarce, so that teachers
and children are left alone with the seemingly marvelous technology.
A main starting point for the following discussion of the OLPC project in a particular local
environment is the supposition, based on Debray (1996), that with the introduction of a new
medium into the school, the meanings that are being negotiated, transformed and transmitted by this
social institution will be altered. According to C.A. Bowers (2005), knowledge gains its
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significance and with it a high or low status through cultural processes and these same processes
were of major interest for the here presented research. The thesis explores the processes of
knowledge transmission and the contextual appropriation of the particular technology in the local
context. Therefor an open-ended field study was conducted in 2010, during which several
elementary schools in more or less isolated rural areas of Peru were visited. The thesis refers mainly
to observations that were made during the field study and presents statements of teachers and other
local informants, based on the central question of what kind of education the children need in the
countryside (summary of the answers as video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=XIqMpwoGaBA). Thereby, the main approach of the field research phase was to assess the
particular educational needs of the local people and then compare it with what OLPC promotes as
general solutions. Emphasis was also placed on understanding the role of the school as an institution
of knowledge in the local communities. The results of the field research show that the PeruvianOLPC project does not meet the local educational necessities, it does not relate to most prior efforts
to improve rural education, and does not take into account the local customs and actual needs of
students, teachers or the local community.
The implementation strategies of the Peruvian OLPC project were examined emphasizing the
limitations experienced by teachers, especially concerning teacher training, pedagogical and
technical assistance. Furthermore, the appropriateness of the available teaching and learning
material, and the teachers' use of these materials as well as the available software in classrooms,were analyzed. The research results reveal that the lack of appropriate materials and educational
software causes great problems for teachers and limits their possibilities and motivation to use the
laptops frequently during classes. They often perceived their own lack of specialized computer
knowledge as another limiting factor. As the importance of computer-skills is continually
emphasized, it implies a low social status of people that lack these skills. Consequently, the
acquisition of computer-skills is regarded as necessary to gain a higher social and economic status.
The thesis analyses these mechanisms in the local context and reveals that OLPC contributes to the
enforcement of technologically deterministic perceptions, which change the significance of certain
knowledge and skills. The project rather promotes a view on education and knowledge that further
downgrades local knowledge and produces a new definition of the educated person (Levison and
Holland, 1996) as a computer-literate person. When the educated Peruvian was formerly evaluated
by his ability to read, write and speak Spanish to be able to participate in the greater national
society, he is now re-evaluated in his ability to use modern technology and to participate in an
imaginary global society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIqMpwoGaBAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIqMpwoGaBAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIqMpwoGaBAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIqMpwoGaBA -
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Contact:
Antje Breitkopf
www.antje-breitkopf.com
eMail: [email protected]
http://www.antje-breitkopf.com/mailto:[email protected]://www.antje-breitkopf.com/mailto:[email protected] -
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Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................1
My personal interest in studying the XO laptop....................................................4
Structure of the thesis............................................................................................5
Chapter 1: Culture, Education, and Global Media........................................8
A culturally sensitive perspective..........................................................................8
The cultural biography of artifacts......................................................................10
The cultural production of the educated person..................................................13
Modern citizen building...........................................................................17
Cultural appropriation..............................................................................18
Technology as a cultural environment.................................................................19
The mediological approach..................................................................................21
The globalization of technology...............................................................25
Chapter 2: Fieldwork in Search of Education and Digital Media...............27
First encounter with the XO Laptop....................................................................27
Methodology........................................................................................................28
Arriving in the field.............................................................................................29
Changing the research plan......................................................................30Research phase.........................................................................................30
Difficulties and obstacles.....................................................................................33
The role of the researcher.........................................................................35
The quantity and loss of data...................................................................37
Data analysis........................................................................................................38
Chapter 3: Laptops to All Children.............................................................40
The idea of a children's laptop.............................................................................40
Constructionist learning.......................................................................................42
The XO Laptop....................................................................................................45
Representation of the OLPC initiative.................................................................46
OLPC and human development...............................................................49
The OLPC Principles...............................................................................53
OLPC and the Open Source community..................................................56
OLPC's project evaluation.......................................................................58
Chapter 4: Una Laptop por Nio in Peru....................................................60
The Peruvian OLPC deployment.........................................................................60
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Project evaluations...................................................................................62
ICT use in Peru........................................................................................65
The state of the Peruvian education system.........................................................66
The national curriculum...........................................................................68
Reasons to purchase laptops for schools..................................................69Peru is advancing.................................................................................................71
Identification of laptop users...................................................................73
Chapter 5: The XO in a Local Context........................................................75
Puno and Madre de Dios......................................................................................75
Local educational needs.......................................................................................77
A basic education.....................................................................................78
An individualized education in a diverse environment............................82
A contextualized and intercultural education...........................................84
An practical education for work and for life............................................90
A modern education.................................................................................93
Appropriation strategies: teachers dealing with the XO....................................102
Conclusion: The educated Peruvian must be computer-literate........................107
References.................................................................................................114
Figures.......................................................................................................123
Appendices................................................................................................124
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Abbreviations and Acronyms:
CODESI: Comisin Multisectorial para el desarollo de la Sociedad de la
Informacin (Multisectorial Commission for the Development of theInformation Society)
CRT: Centros de Recursos Tecnolgicos (Technology Resource Centers)
DCN: Diseo Curricular Nacional de Educacin Bsica Regular (National
Curricular Design for Basic Regular Education)
DIGETE: Direccin General de Tecnologas Educativas (General Department for
Educational Technologies)
DRE: Direccin Regional de Educacin (Regional Educational Board)
EIB: Educacin Intercultural Bilinge (Intercultural and Bilingual Education)
ICT: Information and Communication TechnologiesICT4D: Information and Communication Technologies for Education
IDB: Inter-American Development Bank
INEI: Instituto Nacional de Estadstica e Informtica (National Institute for
Statistics and Information, Peru)
MIT: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
NGO: non-governmental organization
OLE: Open Learning Exchange
OLPC: One Laptop Per Child
OLPCF: One Laptop Per Child Foundation
PCR: Proyecto Curricular Regional (Regional Curricular Projects)
PEAR: Projecto Educativo para Areas Rurales (Educational Project for Rural
Areas)
PELA: Programa Estrategico de Logros de Aprendizaje (Strategic Program for
Reaching the Learning Goals)
PEN: Proyecto Educativo Nacional al 2021 (National Education Plan until
2021)
PER: Proyecto Educativo Regional (Regional Educational Project)ULPN: Una Laptop Por Nio (One Laptop Per Child, Peru)
UN: United Nations
UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNICEF: United Nations Children's Fund
UNAP: Universidad Nacional del Altiplano, Puno (National University of the
Altiplano, Puno)
XO: the XO laptop
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Introduction
Schools have always been places where modernity and tradition meet each other.
Nowadays, they are also committed to bridging the global and local spheres, which
shape the lives of people around the globe. Teachers represent the force in between this
struggle for recognition of the old and the new. The question that guided the here
presented inquiry into the processes of knowledge transmission concerns the meaning of
emerging global media in this context. The 'new' media and technologies of information
and communication are modern by definition. Reference point for the present inquiry is
the crack between these globally promoted media and the local social reality, where
schools define what is significant knowledge and how it should be acquired.
This paper is the outcome of an open-ended field research, in an attempt to document
the impact of a global project, namely the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative,
which fosters the implementation of laptop computers in education systems worldwide,
on rural Peruvian schools. This 'anthropological voyage' (Greverus, 2003) was driven by
the aim to understand the implications of this digital artifact for a local context, where it
was introduced by outsiders. Thereby, it approached the processes of knowledge
transmission and the contextual appropriation of technology. What happens when a
modern technology is placed in a context, which is considered by the makers of thistechnology as 'not completely developed'? How will this technology integrate into an
educational system that is itself regarded as obsolete?
The here presented research does not only reflect on the theoretical and ideological
implications of the OLPC project, but also focuses on the social appropriation of the
'XO children's laptop', which was first introduced in 2005. Thereby, this study attempts
to reveal the 'cultural meaning' of this object. The search for 'meaning', as one of the key
concepts, has especially guided the inquiry of researchers in the field of cultural studies.
They understand all social practices as constituted by culture, because they are all
meaningful: "The production of social meanings is therefore a necessary precondition
for the functioning of all social practices" (Du Gay and Hall et al., 1997, p.2). The
production and circulation of meaning in society involves educational institutions like
the school, which attempts to transmit a certain knowledge and supports the
development of specific skills. Media also foster particular skills and privilege certain
knowledge and information. Debray (2000) states that any transport of a message goes
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together with a remodeling, refiguring and metabolizing of its meaning. At the same
time the act of receiving involves selection, reactivation and recasting. In short:
Transport by is transformation of[emphases in original] (Debray, 2000, p.27). This is
one of the main arguments of Debray, continually explores how the modes of grasping,
archiving and putting into circulation different meanings as 'traces', at the same timealter and influence those very meanings. Consequently, with the introduction of a new
medium into the school, the meanings that are being negotiated, transformed and
transmitted by this social institution will be altered. Furthermore, for Debray, culture
can be understood as the imprint of a mediasphere's mechanics1 (Debray, 1996,
p.117), which means that with the emergence of a 'new medium', the 'old culture' will be
severely modified. In this perspective, which closely binds culture to the available
media, the impact of the laptop that was especially designed for children, will beidentifiable in the diversified meaning and altered significance of certain knowledge.
Bowers (2005) writes that knowledge gains its significance and with it a high or low
status through cultural processes, and points out the dichotomy between 'cultural
knowledge systems' (Bowers, 2005) and the modern, scientific knowledge that is often
understood as universal. He describes how "traditional cultures have taken different
pathways of development, and demonstrated the capacity to live in a long-term
sustainable relationship with the environment" (Bowers, 2001, p.12). This qualitative
adaptation to environmental conditions is ignored in most education systems that strive
to educate students "for citizenship and employment in the emerging Information Age"
(ibid.) and ignore the importance of maintaining cultural diversity. McGovern (1999)
sees the production, legitimisation, and circulation of knowledge as a political process,
which has effects of excluding or marginalizing other forms of knowledge
(McGovern, 1999, p.22). Education is a conflicting field, where definitions of the
'educated person' are "produced and negotiated between state discourses and local
practices" (Levison and Holland, 1996, p.18), and where the school gains a prominent
position in its function of transmitting relevant knowledge. Levison and Holland
describe how the globalization and standardization of Western forms of mass schooling,
have generated powerful, and to some extend convergent or 'global' constructions of
the 'educated person' (ibid, p.15).
1 Throughout his work, Debray constructs successive 'mediaspheres', as 'megasystems of transmission',which he divides into three principal historical time periods, namely logo-, grapho-, and videosphere
(Debray, 1996, p.176, glossary). Furthermore, Schwalbe (2010) points out the importance ofcomprehensively analyzing the currently emerging 'digital mediosphrere'.
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Contemporary global discourses on education often emphasize the importance of
incorporating technology into educational projects. Frequently, technology is introduced
as a key element of development aid initiatives in an attempt to "help poor and
marginalized people and communities make a difference to their lives" (Unwin, 2009,
p.1). These initiatives can be summarized under the label 'Information andCommunication Technologies for Development' (ICT4D) and often refer to an emerging
global 'Information Society' that justifies these efforts. The OLPC project situated itself
in this field with its attempt to provide an affordable laptop computer to children in
'developing countries' worldwide. Several critical perspectives question the
philanthropic goals of the OLPC initiative and will be referred to in the course of this
study. OLPC presents a 'one-size-fits-all' solution that shall empower children
worldwide, arguing that the XO laptop is so sophisticated, technically mature and wellthought out that no research of local necessities and conditions is needed. This study
will attempt to show how misleading this assumption is, and will therefore especially
focus on the local living conditions and educational necessities of children in the
Peruvian rural areas, where the project has been implemented since 2008. It will be
analyzed how local teachers struggle with the divergence between national education
plans and the constraints of the local context. The implementation of the XO laptop in
this context represents a 'modernizing' strategy of the Peruvian government that attempts
to assimilate global education agendas. The goal of the Peruvian employment of laptops,
which were first introduced in the most marginalized and remote areas of the country,
aims to enhance the quality and equity of education. Many countries in the region
recently started to implement similar projects that can be seen as efforts to catch up with
global developments and become internationally competitive. The implications of such
projects for the receiving communities, and especially for schools, depend on a variety
of local conditions, such as the existing living conditions of the local population, the
available resources, and the motivation and individual characteristics of teachers. In the
Peruvian rural areas, where this field study was conducted, these local conditions often
constrict the positive impacts of the OLPC project. The project will be examined in
comparison with other state efforts to enhance the quality and equity of education and it
will be demonstrated that the OLPC project represents an isolated and limited effort,
which is not adequately based on previous experiences. The views and experiences of
teachers, as the main local actors within the project will be of special concern.
Therefore, numerous statements of teachers, which were acquired through interviews
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and conversations will be referred to. In addition, commentaries of officials, who are
involved in the project, will be presented.
At the time of writing, the Peruvian OLPC project has not yet succeeded in achieving
major positive impact on the quality or equity of education. The available evaluation
results do not indicate statistically significant effects on students' achievements in
standardized school examinations (Christia, 2012). In a study of the Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB), shortcomings in the implementation strategy of the project
were pointed out, and the narrow technological focus of the project was criticized
(Severin et al., 2011, p.1). The present study will approach the project implementation
and outcomes from an anthropological perspective. The implementation strategies will
be examined emphasizing the limitations experienced by teachers, especially concerning
teacher training, pedagogical and technical assistance. Furthermore, the appropriateness
of the available teaching and learning material, and the teachers' use of these materials
as well as the available software in classrooms, will be examined. The research results
reveal that the lack of appropriate materials and educational software causes great
problems for teachers and limits their possibilities and motivation to use the laptops
frequently during classes. They often perceived their own lack of specialized computer
knowledge as another limiting factor. As the importance of computer-skills is
continually emphasized, it implies a low social status of people that lack these skills.Consequently, the acquisition of computer-skills is regarded as necessary to gain a
higher social and economic status. These mechanisms will be analyzed in the local
context of Peruvian rural schools and communities and it will be investigated whether
the OLPC project itself contributes to the enforcement of such perceptions. In doing so,
the varying significance of certain knowledge and skills will be described and the
emergence of a new concept of the 'educated person' as a computer-literate person will
be exposed.
My personal interest in studying the XO laptop.
I remember when I first read about the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project, I was
very skeptical and I could not imagine the benefit of a high technological device for
small remote villages. The initial hype surrounding this project, to me, was rather a sign
of the obsession with technology and media in occidental culture, than a serious
approach to meaningfully improve education worldwide. My perspective was of course
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formed by my academic background in Educational Science, Cultural Anthropology, 2
and Political Science, but was also influenced by former experiences as a volunteer
English teacher in a village in Nepal, where I worked in 2003. 3 In the course of my
university studies I became interested in the cultural and educational effects of visual
media, such as photography, film, and digital media. I was familiar with the OLPCproject prior to the choice of a topic for this thesis and decided to find out myself what
was really happening in those remote villages, where magic laptops were said to
revolutionize education. I was lucky that the Peruvian General Department for
Educational Technologies (DIGETE) supported my investigation, since they were
interested in the effects of their intervention as well. Unfortunately, my insights did not
confirm the assumption that this project would lead to a revolution of education.
To begin with, I want to state that in this place it is not my goal to judge whether the
OLPC project is good or bad, whether it succeeds or fails its mission. I aim to consider
the issue in a broader sense, as illustrating progressive global developments associated
with the diffusion of technology. Accordingly I consider the investigation into this field
as a record of witness, which is fairly subjective and driven by my personal interests.
Still, I believe that the insights I acquired during the field research, together with the
voices of teachers, children, parents, and officials, which I want to present here, can
contribute to understanding the challenges, assumptions and beliefs that the project inconsideration brings about.
Structure of the thesis
The first two parts of this thesis comprise theoretical and methodological approaches to
the topic of children's laptops in rural schools.
The first chapter emphasizes the importance of a culturally sensitive perspective and
proposes a framework for this research in describing the 'biography' (Du Gay and Hallet al., 1997) of the XO laptop. Therefore, the laptop is conceptualized as a material
cultural artifact and as a medium in the sense that it provides symbolic techniques and
2 At the University of Hamburg, where I have studied, the subject of study is called "Ethnologie", andthere are many different terms being used for more or less the same field of study, such as SocialAnthropology, Cultural Studies etc. I choose the term "Cultural Anthropology", because it emphasizesthe focus on culture as a basis for understanding the human being.
3 In Nepal, I stayed for three month in a village and taught English and environmental classes tochildren of grades 7 and 8, with approximately 50 children in each class. There, I personally
experienced the limits of education, when the conditions are limiting, the school is not equipped andteachers are not well-prepared for the task.
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means for the transmission of knowledge in the broadest sense. The cultural production
of 'educated persons' (Levison, et al., 1996) and 'modern citizens' (Rival, 1996) are
discussed as processes of negotiation between state discourses and local practices. Then,
a concept of technology as a cultural environment is developed, pointing out the impact
that technology and media can have on other cultural environments. With the'mediological' approach of Debray (1996), the understanding of media as closely
connected to the transmission of knowledge and as constituting elements of culture, is
specified. A short reflection on the globalization of technology and media and the social
and political changes that this process causes, terminates the theoretical part.
The second chapter provides an overview of the field research, including the approaches
and methods of data collection and analysis. Furthermore, problems and obstacles are
described.
The third chapter examines the OLPC project and especially discusses critical
discourses that reflect upon its educational concepts and its understanding of child
development. Furthermore, the initiative is located in development discourses that foster
the global diffusion of technology. The public representation of OLPC, its goals and
recommendations for the implementation of laptops in education systems worldwide,
are analyzed. The identification of 'Third World' children as the main target group of the
project is detected as a highly problematic labeling. OLPC's summary of project
evaluations is reviewed as a part of its public marketing strategy.
The fourth chapter considers the Peruvian OLPC project with its particular
implementation strategy and points out the current state of the national employment. An
assessment overview is provided and the present availability and use of ICT throughout
the country is observed together with the current conditions of the Peruvian education
system. The role of Peruvian OLPC project as a prestigious 'modernizing' initiative that
shall provide all citizens and especially the marginalized rural population with access to
modern education is critically analyzed.
The final chapter looks at the local context and emphasizes the importance of
considering local educational needs and requirements. Through teacher interviews, these
needs are articulated and efforts of the Peruvian Ministry of Education as well as non-
governmental organizations to meet the local necessities are discussed. The OLPC
project is presented as one such effort and processes of implementation and of
appropriation by local teachers are described. The chapter concludes the discussion by
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referring back to the theory that was elaborated in the first chapter, situating the project
in the struggles about and processes of knowledge production, valuation and
transmission.
The inquiry leads from the global to the local sphere, starting the discussion with an
examination of the OLPC project in general, then describing the implementation
strategies in the Peruvian national context, followed by an analysis of regional
educational policies and strategies. Finally the local context, including single schools,
and the individual teachers are approached.
Figure 1: Impressions from field study, Peru 2010.
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Chapter 1: Culture, Education, and Global Media.
This chapter will introduce the three main concepts which have guided this research as
a theoretical fundament. Theoretical approaches and discourses that have informed my
individual view of these three concepts will be discussed and their interrelationship with
each other, as well as their significance for the field study will be described. Starting
with explaining the culturally sensitive perspective that guided this research, a
framework of how to analyze a material object as a 'cultural artifact' will be provided.
Secondly, an understanding of education as a cultural process will be elaborated,
pointing out schools as mayor sites of social, political and cultural struggle, where
'appropriation' of policies, teaching styles and teaching materials can take place.
Thirdly, media will be presented as cultural environments, having great influence in
shaping people's identity and perception of the world. With the introduction of the
'mediological' approach, as presented by Rgis Debray, several paths of analysis will be
opened up that did influence this study and give it a broader scope. Finally,
globalization processes, involving media and technology will be briefly addressed,
pointing out critical aspects of these processes.
A culturally sensitive perspective.
"Individuals are not free to choose for themselves any view of the world, anyway of acting in class, any definition of success, or any identity. In practice,such choices are constrained by intersubjective understandings of what is
possible, appropriate, legitimate, properly radical and so forth. That is, they areconstrained by culture and the enduring social structures that culture mediates."(Eisenhart, 2001, p.215)
Starting with this statement from Margaret Eisenhart, the great impact that culture has
on the possibilities and choices of all people is being valued. When it comes to
understanding the way how people make sense of their world and make sense of the
conditions they are confronted with, culture plays an outstanding role. Culture has beendescribed in many different ways over time 4 and it seems rather difficult to find an
4 Historically transmitted thinking about culture can be found in the early examinations of 'others' inGreek antiquity. It can also be found in accounts of various travelers, such as medieval arab scholarIdn Khaldoun (1332-1406), and descriptions of missionaries between the 15 th and 18th century. Later,culture was more elaborately theorized upon during the time of Enlightenment, followed by theformation of academic disciplines for the study of culture throughout the 19 th century. In the
beginning, culture was mostly understood in terms of difference and devious or abnormal behaviorwas of great interest. With the rise of the natural sciences, culture was situated within the frameworkof evolutionary models. One of the most important shifts for the study of culture came with a concept,later labeled as 'cultural relativism', that was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by
Franz Boas during the first decades of the 20th
century. It demanded that each culture should beunderstood in its own terms and thereby responded to the Western ethnocentrism that dominated
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ultimate definition for it. Consequently, more of a framework will be provided which
guided my personal approach and derived mainly from my academic training in
Cultural Anthropology, where the 'ethnographic' method plays a very important role as
the basis for research. The methodological approach of the field research will be
explained in more detail in the next chapter.
As an introduction to the approach of this research, I refer to one of the most influential
contemporary scholars, Clifford Geertz. He introduced a semiotic and interpretive view
of culture as "webs of significance"5 (Geertz, 1973, p.7), and found the object of
ethnography to be "a stratified hierarchy of meaningful structures" (ibid.) in terms of
which meaningful actions can possibly be produced, perceived, and interpreted. In his
famous collection of essays The interpretation of Cultures (1973), Geertz points out that
'doing ethnography' is basically the procedure of 'thick description',6 meaning the
interpretative activity of the researcher, who constructs "other people's constructions of
what they and their compatriots are up to" (ibid., p.9) and thereby tries to sort out
structures of signification and determines their social ground and import. What is most
interesting about Geertz's approach is the way he looks at the production of knowledge
by the researcher. In every anthropological writing the constructions and interpretations
of the researcher are "obscured because most of what we need to comprehend a
particular event, ritual, custom, idea, or whatever is insinuated as backgroundinformation before the thing itself is directly examined" (ibid., p.9). Accordingly, the
role of the researcher in the field, the methodology that is used, and especially the
selective way in which data is analyzed and presented, need to be reflected upon. This
reflection shall form a great part of the next chapter. Geertz describes culture as a
context, within which social events, behaviors, institutions, or processes can be 'thickly'
described, rather than a power which determines them (ibid., p.14). This view of culture
as a context which then allows people a certain range of possibilities of how they can
act, what is appropriate to be said and done, or even what they can understand, think of
earlier views. Nowadays the study of cultures goes beyond exploring the 'way-of-life' of small,isolated groups, but also incorporates studies of 'sub-cultures', the corporate cultures of companies, orother institutions, and 'learning cultures' that can be analyzed in a certain context taking the greaterlocal or national culture into consideration, but not confining ones observations to those culturalmodels.
5 Geertz bases his view on Max Weber's notion that "man is an animal suspended in webs ofsignificance he himself has spun" (Geertz, 1973, p.5), and reasons that the analysis of those webstherefore could not be an experimental science in search of law, but needed to be an interpretive one insearch of meaning (ibid.).
6 Geertz borrows this term from Gilbert Ryle, who used it to interpret a certain body-movement as ameaningful, communicative gesture (Geertz, 1973, p.6).
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and imagine, is especially relevant for the present research. It means that anything that
changes the context, may it be the introduction of a material object (like a laptop), a
person (for example a foreign researcher) or a new idea, brings with it a potential of
changing the whole range of possibilities.
It is important to clarify how the term 'culture' will be used in the context of this study.
The informants that will be quoted used the term 'culture' when talking about the way-
of-life, traditions and folklore of their surroundings, namely the southern Andean and
Amazon regions of Peru. In this context, the term refers to the shared way-of-life and
world-view of a particular region, social and language group. 7 It is used to distinguish
local cultures from the national or global culture. Although these 'cultures' cannot be
seen as distinct and separated from each other, the term will be used to refer to
differences in their historical, ideological and philosophical foundation.
The cultural biography of artifacts.
The central element of this study was a material object, namely the XO laptop.
Consequently, the field of material culture offered a theoretical and methodological
approach. The study of material culture as distinct field of research incorporates a
range of scholarly inquiry into the uses and meanings of objects (Woodward, 2007,
p.3), their cultural transmission and transformation. Paul Du Gay and Stuart Hall (et al.,1997) provide a cultural study of a technological artifact, namely the 'Sony Walkman', 8
and trace back its 'meaning' as a 'story' or 'biography' of the object, passing through a
cycle of cultural processes. This approach provided a very useful framework for the
present research, as the XO laptop shares many qualities with other technological
artifacts and can likewise be explored by mapping out its 'biography'. Similarly to
Geertz, Du Gay and Hall (et al.) stress the importance of meaning as the defining
element of culture. They construct a 'circuit of culture', which determines the
framework for analysis, consisting of five major processes: "Representation, Identity,
7 Culture as a way-of-life describes the adaption to external conditions of a bounded social group that ispassed down from one generation to the next (Eisenhart, 2001, p.210), and is used in anthropologicaldiscourse side by side with more recent conceptions that do not determine culture in such rigidgeographic and social boundaries. Nowadays most social groups are less isolated and their way-of-lifeis influenced by more than just relatively stable environmental conditions. Also the transmission ofknowledge became more diversified, so that the old view of culture seems to static to fit intonowadays global discourses. Nonetheless, it remains useful for the description of local perspectives.
8 The study analyses the cultural production and circulation of meaning in a cycle of cultural processesforming around a material object, namely the Sony Walkman (Sony and Walkman are registered
trademarks of the Sony Corporation) that was invented in the late 1980s and had considerable impacton 'modern society'.
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Production, Consumption and Regulation [emphasis in original]" "through which any
analysis of a cultural text or artifact must pass if it is to be adequately studied" (Du Gay
and Hall et al., 1997, p.3). This study will not extensively apply to all of these processes
due to the lack of time and the limited scope. In the following, authors' understanding of
the production and circulation of meaning will be briefly outlined and the main focus ofeach of the processes in their 'circuit of culture' will be explained.
According to Du Gay and Hall (et al.) meaning cannot arise directly from an object, but
is inscribed into the artifact during the afore-mentioned cultural processes. Therefore,
"the process of the production and circulation of meaning needs to be studied in its own
terms [emphasis in original]" (ibid., p.12). The authors refer to new developments in the
study of these processes that emphasize the particular mechanisms by which meaning is
produced and circulated "the forms of culture, as opposed to the content" (ibid., p.12).
This focus directs "attention to the communication process itself and the medium in
which meaning is constructed i.e. language [emphasis in original]" (ibid., p.13).
Social practices can be understood as 'signifying practices', as organized around and
constantly producing meaning. Therefore they are closely related to any system of
representation, allowing to use "signs and symbols to represent or re-present whatever
exists in the world in terms of a meaningful concept, image or idea" (ibid., p.13). In this
prspective, the introduction of a new medium establishes new practices of signifyingand may bring about entirely new significations. In addition, any material object is
situated in different practices, it is used in certain ways and thus given significance,
meaning and value in cultural life. In this way it can be appropriated to an existing
culture, expanding its meaning and value (ibid., p.17).
Like the 'Sony Walkman', the XO laptop can be understood as a cultural object, because
it can be constituted as 'a meaningful object'. Furthermore it "connects with a distinct
set ofsocial practices" and is "associated with certain kinds of people", as well as with
"certainplaces", as it "has been given or acquired a social profile or identity" [all
emphases in original] (ibid., p.10f). Finally, it also appears in and is 'represented' by the
"visual languages and media of communication" (ibid.) on a global scale.
Considering the five intertwined processes presented by Du Gay and Hall (et al.), the
first three processes through which the artifact obtains meaning, namely
'representation', 'identity' and 'production' are primarily concerned with the production
of meaning by producers, which, in the purpose of this study would be the OLPC
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foundation, as well as the Peruvian Ministry of Education. It can be analyzed how the
XO laptop is being represented, especially in advertisement and the global public
discourse. Chapters 3 and 4 will especially address the processes of representation in
the global and national discourses. Intertwined with these representations is a certain
identity of users9
that is also communicated and produced in public discourses. Animportant question concerning this identity is: What kind of users do designers and
policy makers produce and how does this 'pre-configuration' of the user influence the
utilization of the laptop? In other words, this study will attempt to show that there is a
disconnect between the perspective that many local teachers have on rural children, and
the view of laptop designers as well as Peruvian policy makers. The process of
production is also related to the representations and identities associated with the object
and covers insights on how the artifact is produced technically, as well as culturally byits producers. Unfortunately, these processes of production cannot be thoroughly
analyzed as part of the present study.10
Figure 2: The circuit of culture.
This study aims to emphasize the consumption and regulation of the XO laptop in
9 The role of users in design has been analyzed for example by Oudshoorn (et al., 2004), especially withview on Information and Communication Technologies, stressing concepts like 'user-centered-design'and bringing forward constrains in the development of technologies "that aim to reach users in all theirdiversity" (Oudshoorn et al., 2004, p. 30). From this analysis a perspective was obtained on how usersare being shaped or 'configurated' during the design process, and how the identity of designers plays avital role in this process.
10 An analysis of the production and representation processes has been carried out in two theses by Ya-Yin Ko (2009) and Sarah Funk (2009) that analyze the discourses, which dominated the production
and representation of the XO laptop. These two papers will be especially referred to as they providenumerous points of reference.
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schools as well as the local, regional and national context. Du Gay and Hall (et al.)
describe a cycle of commodification and appropriation that marks the process of
consumption.11It can be understood as a dialogue through which meanings are
produced. Commodification refers to modifications that producers of an object make as
a result of user's activities, while appropriation12
concerns the changes which users mayproduce in the meaning of the object. Those appropriated meanings can be different to
those that were intended by producers (ibid., p.103). It has to be taken into account,
however, that the employment of an object like the XO laptop and its introduction in a
state education system, will generally be subject to unequal power-relations. Keeping
this in mind, questions of cultural regulation can be approached as the last process in
the circuit. It is particularly relevant to examine the structures of specific 'classificatory
systems', which incorporate the object and provide it with meaning as well.Consequently, it needs to be analyzed how the object is being classified in relation to
other elements within the same system, as the meaning of objects is always relational to
other objects of the same category (ibid., p.116). To find out more about its specific
meaning, 'classificatory systems' will be outlined that classify the XO laptop in
comparison to other objects, and in turn make it a 'certain kind of thing'.13
The cultural production of the educated person.
"[...] schools provide each generation with social and symbolic sites where newrelations, new representations, and new knowledges can be formed, sometimesagainst, sometimes tangential to, sometimes coincident with, the interests ofthose holding power." (Levison et al., 1996, p.22)
"Ironically, schooled knowledges and disciplines may, while offering certainfreedoms and opportunities, at the same time further draw students intodominant projects of nationalism and capitalist labor formation, or bind themeven more tightly to systems of class, gender, and race inequality." (Levison etal., 1996, p.1)
The headline for this section is taken from the title of a book edited by Bradley A.
Levison (et al., 1996), which provides critical ethnographies on schooling and local
practice. Many of the authors of this book focus on 'non-Western' societies and their
11 This study will refer to the consumption of the laptop, in the following, using the term utilization, toemphasize its intentional use as part of a national education policy.
12 In the next part of this chapter a more profound idea of the process of 'appropriation' will beelaborated, which helps in analyzing how teachers and students utilize the XO laptop, once it hasarrived in the schools.
13 According to Appadurai (1986), commodities are objects that hold value for individuals or groups.There are many different types of value, apart from economic, or exchange value, which can beascribed to objects. The production of commodities is also a cultural and cognitive process, wherein
commodities must not only be produced materially as things, but also culturally marked as being acertain kind of thing (Appadurai, 1986, p.64).
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struggle with 'modern schooling'. The studies are based on local and ethnographic
research and point out culturally specific and relative conceptions of the 'educated
person', in order to better understand conflicts around different kinds of schooling and
education. With an emphasis on a 'local angle' the authors try to find out, for example,
how concepts of the 'educated person' are produced and negotiated between statediscourses and local practices (Levison and Holland, 1996, p.18), linking local and
comparative perspectives. This point of view is significant for the present research,
which is dealing with local state-schools in sometimes very isolated areas, which have
to follow a national curriculum and transmit a corpus of competencies and skills that
was centrally determined, and is often irrelevant for the local context. This study will
describe how local teachers struggle with the divergence between national education
models and the local conditions and needs of their students. Furthermore, it will bepointed out that a new understanding of educated and uneducated persons is being
formed under the influence and pressure of national preferences that focus on
'modernization' and push for the integration of all citizens into a global 'Information
Society'.14 This new 'educated person' must possess computer knowledge to be able to
participate not only in the national, but also in the global society and thereby achieve
'development' for the whole nation state.
Modern schooling as a fundamental aspect of contemporary state formation hasproduced a concept of the 'educated person' that challenges previous views and with the
rise of the nation state as a political form, schooling became crucial of common
cultures (ibid, p.16). As a result of these formation processes schools were promoted to
be the only sites where people could acquire relevant knowledge, and as a consequence,
other forms of knowledge have increasingly lost relevance. Throughout his work, C.A.
Bowers has pointed out how Western thinkers15 have often misvalued what he calls
'cultural ways of knowing' or 'cultural-knowledge systems' (Bowers, 2005a, p.VIII).
Bowers' deep concern with the complex ways in which culture influences values, ways
of thinking, behaviours, built environments, and human/nature relationships (ibid.,
p.VII), forms a foundation for his recommendations for educational reforms. He
14 The concept of the 'Information Society' will be referred to in more detail in Chapter 3 and 4.15 His critique focussed mainly on educational scholars like Dewey and Freire, as well as Piaget whom
Bowers accuses of reproducing a Darwinian thinking, misinterpreting the knowledge systems of othercultures in a reductionist way, placing them in a position of cultural backwardness that made itunnecessary to learn about the differences in how children learn. As Bowers especially criticizes
'constructivist' theories of learning, I will come back to his arguments, in my discussion ofpedagogical principles underlying the XO laptop, in Chapter 3.
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explains that when a person is born into a language community she/he learns to think
in terms of the assumptions and categories that have been passed down over generations
through the languaging processes of the cultureand these assumptions and categories
are the basis of the persons taken-for-granted experiences (Bowers, 2005b, p.10), and
thereby unveils the myth of language as a conduit or culturally neutral medium.16
Majoremphasis of his work is put on the 'commons', as what is commonly shared between
humans, and between humans and the non-human world, encompassing everything
that is not privately owned and that has not been turned into a commodity 17 (Bowers,
2005a p.59). For Bowers, taken for granted 'cultural patterns' can also be called
traditions and should not be put in opposition to progress and innovation, as is
frequently done, especially in association with 'modern technology' (ibid., p.41).
Bowers understands traditions as the historical continuities within a culture, what hecalls 'intergenerationally connected culture', that is perpetuated by human beings,
undergoes constant change, and is especially vulnerable of being undermined by the
development of new traditions, as when it is lost, it cannot be recovered (ibid.). In the
Western view, differences in knowledge and value systems are ignored, according to
Bowers (Bowers, 2005, p.1). With the disregard of traditional knowledge systems by
the dominant Western view, the status of knowledge is constituted as high and low-
status knowledge:
"High-status knowledge, which is represented as the basis of modernization,includes the assumption that the individual is the basic social unit, the source ofintelligence and moral judgment; that literacy and other abstract forms ofrepresentation for encoding and communicating knowledge lead to a morerational and progressive mode of being; that change is the expression of
progress; that Western science and technology are both culturally neutral and atthe same time the highest expression of rational thought; that culturaldevelopment is governed by the laws of natural selection whereby the fittest(the more efficient and scientifically based) prevail over the less fit; and thatthe major challenge is to bring nature under human control and to exploit it in
ways that help to expand economic markets." (Bowers, 2005, p.2)
16 This emphasis on the role of language is very important, as this study is dealing with languageminorities, who are in danger of loosing their languages and related knowledge systems. Theinstitutionalized education in Peru is predominantly concerned with teaching Spanish as the dominantlanguage. There are numerous projects that strive for 'cultural affirmation', like PRATEC (ProyectoAndino de Tecnologas Campesinas), a Peruvian NGO that is concerned with the preservation ofAndean knowledge. Bowers has published a book together with PRATEC, where he traces language asthe source of an ongoing colonization (Bowers, 2002).
17 In addition, Bowers mentions the symbolic systems that are shared in common and are essential tothe ability of different human communities to sustain and renew themselves. Those symbolic systemsinclude a wide variety of technological systems, spoken and written language, narratives that are the
basis of the community's moral codes and the self-identity of its members, and the knowledge and
aesthetic sensitivities that influence the community's approaches to food, music, and the other arts,ceremonies, and leisure activities (Bowers, 2005a, p.59).
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Following Bowers' perspective, one of the research goals for the present study was to
encompass local forms of knowledge which have contextual relevance for local people.
These 'cultural-knowledge systems' are then to be contrasted with new 'significances'
that are produced using the XO laptop, including the different status that is given to
these two knowledge systems.
One of the analytic approaches suggested by Levison (et al., 1996), as well as Eisenhart
(2001) is the 'cultural difference theory',18and even though this theoretical approach has
been contested by scholars like Ogbu (1987), it can still be of value for educational
research. The value of this approach for the present study has been that it suggests that
all children approach school culture as a kind of 'second culture' (after the home and
neighborhood) (Eisenhart, 2001, p.211) and that this culture can be more or less alien
to the home culture, making an adaption to the new school culture more or less difficult.
The present study intents to take into account the different 'cultural frames of reference'
proposed by Ogbu (1995, p.195f), which groups develop toward schooling and which
can aid in understanding the school performance of minority groups. During the
continuous contact between two different populations, different relations between their
cultural frames of reference defined as the "correct or ideal way to behave within the
culture" (ibid., p.195) can emerge. These are either similar, different, or oppositional
to each other. Especially in situations of collective problems, where one groupexperiences subordination or other kinds of discrimination that have an impact on
individual members of this group, oppositions in the cultural frames of reference can
occur.19 Concerning this study, mismatches between school culture, representing the
dominant national culture, and local communities will be pointed out. In addition,
historical references of how these communities have worked out their relationships and
identities in relation to schools will be provided.
18 Cultural difference theory reflected a shift from social class as the central problem of reproductiontheory to ethnic difference, for educational anthropologists, especially in the United States. Most ofthe studies that were conducted as 'microethnographic studies' of classrooms and communities, wereconcerned with the problems of cultural and ethnic differences in the United States. Ogbu (1987)criticized these approaches for essentializing the cultural repertoires of minority groups and asked fora deeper structural context of cultural production and school failure, which had remained obscure andlargely unaddressed (Levison and Holland, 1996, p.8).
19 During the field research I frequently dealt with ethnic minority groups, most of which hadexperienced a long history of repression of their languages and traditions. Ogbu describes how the"cultural frame of reference of the subordinate group may include attitudes, behaviors, and speechstyles that are stigmatized by the dominant group" (Ogbu, 1995, p.196). This can be found frequentlyin Peru, where members of native language groups are being stigmatized for their accent, speech style,traditional clothing and physical features. They struggle for the survival and recognition of their
traditions. The field study focussed on the status of native languages in schools, which was consideredan indicator for the status of the native cultures. These topics will be discussed in detail in Chapter 5.
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Modern citizen building
Education tends to be associated with "the wider world, social mobility, urbanity and
modernity", but it not necessarily leads to better employment opportunities and may
create unrealistic expectations (Panelli and Punch et al., 2007, p.5). In their book
Global Perspectives on Rural Childhood and Youth (Panelli and Punch et al., 2007) theauthors describe how social changes and globalization processes make an impact on
young rural lives. For many of the rural youngsters this means a loss or adaption of
their traditional lifestyles and an "incorporation of modern behaviours" (ibid., p.5). In
her article onFormal Schooling and the Production of Modern Citizens in the
Ecuadorian Amazon (1996), Laura Rival describes the resistance of a small group of
Amazonian hunters-and-gatherers against state attempts to create 'modern citizens'
(Rival, 1996, p.153). She argues that once the school institution has transformed localsocial relations, pre-school identities can no longer exist (ibid., p.153). In her view
state schools are modernizing institutions that distribute a cultural model of what
knowledge is and how it should be acquired and determine a fixed standard of what
the school institution should offer (ibid., p.163).20Helena Norberg-Hodge (2001)
argues in an equal manner that education in remote rural areas (in her case the Ladakhi
region of India) "isolates children from their culture and from nature, training them
instead to become narrow specialists in a Westernized urban environment" (Norberg-
Hodge, 2001, p.159). She further mentions two general problems of "the process called
education [emphasis in original]" that can be observed in "every corner of the world
today" (ibid.). It is based on a Eurocentric model with its inherent assumptions and
focusses on 'universal knowledge', which Norberg-Hodge considers as a synthetic type
of knowledge that has no connection to the specific ecosystems and cultures (ibid.,
p.160). Bowers describes the passing on of intergenerational knowledge" as
comprising "holistic lessons from one generation to the next, incorporating localized
environmental knowledge, social skills, and spiritual values (Bowers, 2001, p.13).
Accordingly, Rival considers knowledge as embedded in experience and context and
states that cultural continuity requires the continuity of community practices (Rival,
1996, p.164). In her article, the school is understood as creating discontinuity for the
local community. In the modern school children learn more than literacy and numeracy
20 In the case of the Huaorani villagers, an Ecuadorian tribe of hunters-and-gatherers, Rival shows howschools remove children from subsistence activities and thereby 'de-skill' them with regard to
traditional productive activities. For Rival, the formal school is incompatible with other local 'sites ofcultural (re)production' and undermines the continuity of minority identities (Rival, 1996).
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skills; they learn to be members of a modern community (ibid., p.164), which means
finally to be members of a national society.
The push towards mass education and the attempts of Third World elites to deepen the
school's effect upon children are the major topics of Bruce Fuller's bookGrowing-up
Modern (1990). He argues that "fragile states21 eagerly try to catch up, faithfully
arguing to their people that mass education is the [emphasis in original] effective
medicine for social ills and brittle economic growth" (Fuller, 1990, p.xii). Fuller
explores the forces that have historically pushed the spread of Western schooling
worldwide and explains that the expansion of mass schooling "serves a variety of state
interests: reducing the barriers among tribes that speak different languages, encouraging
economic integration and entry to the wage economy, building individual loyalty to the
nation-state rather than to tribal or religious authority, and (allegedly) boosting
economic productivity and growth" (ibid., p.3).
In Peru, the ambition for 'modern citizen building' is being imposed especially on rural
schools. It will be shown in this study what kind of knowledge is being offered at those
schools and how 'modern Peruvians' are to be formed as part of a national identity
creation. This involves the introduction of the XO laptop in recent years and thereby
amplifies certain experiences and forms of knowledge, and marginalizes others. The
introduction of laptops, as 'modernizing devices' in Peruvian rural schools will be
explored as it influences people's perception of the children's future possibilities and
creates desires and expectations that are in many cases unrealistic.
Cultural appropriation
Elsie Rockwell (1996) introduces the concept of 'appropriation' to the discussion of
schooling as a cultural process. She suggests that appropriation of cultural meanings
and practices can occur in several directions22
(Rockwell, 1996, p.302). This culturalappropriation conveys a sense of the active/transformative nature of human agency,
and the constraining/enabling character of culture. Furthermore it alludes to the sort
21 The concept of the fragile state is used by Fuller to describe a "version of the Western state" where"nationalist leaders within young polities must to advance their own legitimacy construct modern-looking institutions" (Fuller, 1990, p.xiii). He characterizes fragile states as showing a highlyconstrained credibility, because of their limited fiscal and organizational resources. One of the
problems he mentions is that popular expectations "that secular leaders will transform society,bringing modern progress [emphasis in original]" are rising (ibid., p.xiii).
22 Rockwell draws a difference to appropriation in the economic cycle of production and reproduction,
where the concept is understood as unidirectional appropriation of surplus value in capitalistproduction (Rockwell, 1996, p.302).
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of culture embedded in everyday life in objects, tools, practices, words and the like, as
they are experienced by persons (ibid., p.302). In this sense one can say that people
appropriate available cultural resources, by selecting and taking possession of them, and
by using them in multiple ways and with diverse understandings. Rockwell refers to
Chartier, who locates cultural appropriation within the social conflicts over [the]'classification, hierarchization and consecration or disqualification' of cultural goods
(Chartier cited in Rockwell, 1996, p.302). Rockwell proposes to use the concept of
appropriation in the study of schooling. She is especially concerned with the different
ways in which common cultural sets are appropriated, by transforming, reformulating,
or exceeding them within particular social situations (Rockwell, 1996, p.302). Rockwell
shows how the appropriation of teaching under local circumstances can reflect back to
federal programs
23
and may eventually change the notion of the 'educated person'.
Technology as a cultural environment.
"I think media are so powerful they swallow cultures. I think of them asinvisible environments which surround and destroy old environments.Sensitivity to problems of culture conflict and conquest becomes meaninglesshere, for media play no favorites: they conquer all cultures." (Carpenter, 1972,
p.191)
"New technologies alter the structure of our interests: the things we thinkabout. They alter the character of our symbols: the things we think with. And
they alter the nature of community: the area in which thoughts develop."(Postman, 1992, p.20)
There are many authors writing about the impact of media and technology 24 on cultures,
and especially about the 'new' Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), of
which several provide critical perspectives. In the 1970s a paradigm shift began, in that
technological determinism, which used to be the blueprint to understand socioeconomic
change in industrialized countries, was abandoned by many researchers, who started to
understand technological development as a social process (Dierkes and Hoffmann,
1992, p.17). Edmund Carpenter,25 one of the pioneers in anthropology, who was
23 In her study of rural schooling in Mexico, Rockwell examines the appropriation of teaching in termsof how teachers changed their teaching methodology, thereby adapted to local conditions and how thefederal school program drew on these experiences and molded their practice to village resources and
preferences (Rockwell, 1996, p.311).24 It might be criticized here, that media and technology, which need not be considered as two very
distinct categories, are being mixed up. A more particular understanding of the XO laptop as atechnological tool and a medium will be developed at the end of this chapter. At this point the
presentation of arguments starts with a more general examination to give an overview of how differentauthors interpret the impact that media and technological artifacts can have on culture.
25 Carpenter did not only theorize about the use of 'electronic media' like film, photography, and radio,
but also used them frequently, for example during his field studies. Together with Marshall McLuhanand Northrop Frye, he was a leading figure in the so called Toronto School, where modern
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concerned with the cultural impact of media, viewed media with great distrust, because
people perceived them as neutral tools, that just needed to be used 'humanely'
(Carpenter, 1972, p.170f). In his bookOh, What a Blow that Phantom gave me! (1972),
he warned against underestimating the trauma that any new technology produces,
especially any new communications technology (ibid., p.122). One quite impressiveexample of Carpenter's work, portraying the profound impact that media could have on
native cultures, was a participatory film project which he and his colleges produced in
the Middle Sepik (New Guinea). Carpenter writes that the film (Appendix 1: Video)
threatened to replace a ceremony hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years old,
Figure 3: Video Still, Initiation in Kandangan village.
because by watching themselves with the detachment of an observer, the villagers
came to know their ceremony, themselves, and by an extension their entire society in a
way that changed them forever (ibid., 124f). Visual media, in his point of view, first
allow one to see oneself in isolation and thereby detached from the engulfing web of
society & environment, before they proceed to bind and imprison us in new
environments, namely themselves (ibid., p.147f). Carpenter's understanding of
'technology as environment' was shared by other scholars, like Neil Postman (1992),
who warned that the uncontrolled growth of technology destroys the vital sources of
our humanity26(Postman, 1992, p.xii). In his lecture Technology and Society (1998)
communication studies were developed. As a pioneer in the field of visual anthropology, he drew fromhis experiences and observations, addressing especially visual media, and arrived at the conclusionthat media do not only preserve and present what had been recorded (on film and tape), but mainlydistract the observer and can be used for human control (Carpenter, 1972, p.168ff).
26 Postman opens up a dichotomy between technology and 'everybody else' and illustrates severalimpacts that new technologies have on culture, like adding thousands of new words to languages, andmodifying and redefining old ones, or creating new 'knowledge monopolies' and associated elitegroups. His Technopoly critique predominantly applies to the United States, but some general ideasand concerns of his approach can be transferred to other societies, especially considering the fact that
the USA bestow 'development aid' upon many countries, which includes providing technology as wellas the corresponding knowledge and belief systems.
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Postman criticizes Nicholas Negroponte27 for only being concerned with amplifying
people's adaption to the 'technological future' that he foresees, instead of reflecting on
the psychic and social meaning of such adaption (Appendix 2: Video: Postman, 1998,
min 7:30). As opposed to Negroponte, Postman is concerned with how we may become
different by using technology. It is this perspective that will be taken into account in thispaper, although I do not agree with all of Postman's arguments. 28He proposes an
'ecological' view on technological change, stating that one significant change [in a
given environment] generates total change (Postman, 1992, p.18). In the case of the
XO laptop this would mean that the rural school, conceived as a given environment,
will be completely different with the occurrence of such a significant change, like the
introduction of laptops. The quote by Postman at the beginning of this subchapter,
summarizes the intriguing ambiguity relating to the social impact of technologies suchas the XO laptop. It implies that with the laptop, children's interests, the available
symbolic systems, as well as the nature of their community changes and becomes
irretrievably different from those of their surroundings.
The mediological approach
"Human beings have always transmitted their beliefs, values, and doctrinesfrom place to place, generation to generation. How, by what strategies, andunder what constraints do they persist in doing so?" (Debray, 2000, p.vii)
With the concept of 'mediology', as proposed by Rgis Debray, this examination will
move beyond Postman's dichotomy of culture versus technology.29 Debray seeks to
"destroy the wall that separates technology, until now experienced in Western tradition
as anticulture, and culture, experienced as antitechnology" (Irvine, 1999, p.32). Even
though the kind of research that Debray conducts is historical and in that sense very
different from the here presented approach, which seeks to give an analysis of current
developments and uses data that was gathered during a field study, it is still possible to
transfer some of his ideas to broaden the scope of the present analysis. Debray proposes
27 Negroponte is one of the founders, chairman, and public spokes-person of the One Laptop per ChildFoundation (OLPCF).
28 Postman's assumption that a technology must always be the solution to a present problem, cannotgenerally be applied in today's world. In 1998 he questioned the usefulness of the 'information super-highway', which is nowadays known as the internet and does much more than, as highlighted byPostman, solve the problem of access to 'a thousand TV stations' (Appendix 3: Video: Postman, 1998,min 2:12). One of the important claims he makes though, is that new technologies foster "serioussocial, intellectual, and institutional crises" (Postman, 1992, p.19).
29 Other authors, like Harris and Taylor (2005) have also come to break down the border between thetechnological, or material and the social or cultural, referring for example to Latour's concept of
'techno-cultural hybrids' (Harris and Taylor, 2005, p.3). Unfortunately I will not be able to presenttheir arguments in this paper.
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two different research programs that he relates to the mediological perspective. The first
one is "asking by which networks of transmission and forms of organization a given
cultural legacy was constituted" (Debray, 1996, p.99), while the second one interrogates
"how the appearance of a new system or equipment modifies an institution, an
established theory, or precodified practice" (ibid., p.99). In general, the goal of hisresearch has been to determine correlations between "the symbolic activities of a human
group (religion, ideology, literature, art, etc.), its forms of organization, and its mode of
grasping and archiving traces and putting them into circulation" (ibid., p.11).
Transferring this approach to the present research project implies following the second
research program and find out how educational institutions in the Peruvian countryside
are being modified with the appearance of a new equipment, namely the XO laptop. In
the following, some important concepts that Debray elaborates for the study of amedium, or "system ofapparatus-support-procedure [emphasis in original]" (ibid.,
p.13) as he calls it, will be introduced.
First of all it needs to be mentioned that Debray assigns four senses to the medium in
the transmission of a message, which consist of:
1. a "general procedure of symbolizing",
2. a "social code of communication",
3. a "supporting material system or surface for receiving an inscription or
archiving", and
4. a "recording device paired with a certain distribution network" [all emphases in
original] (ibid., p.13).
Considering the XO laptop as the constitutive element of an emerging 'new medium', it
will then be asked what kind of messages are being transmitted, how they are being
encoded and decoded, and what kind of distribution network is supporting the use of
this device.
The process of transmission takes a central role in Debray's analysis, especially when it
comes to understanding the prolonging of a cultural legacy. He radically distinguishes
between transmission and communication. Transmission is described as a "violent
collective process" putting into play systems of authority and relations of domination
(ibid., p. 45), while the act of communication is interpersonal and "comes after the
battle, placing itself at the terminus of a process it grasps by its end[emphases in
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original] once the line has been installed, once the message has been formed as such
and the code agreed by convention or institution between the partners" (ibid., p.48). For
Debray there is no innocent medium and no painless transmission, because every
"transmission is a combat, against noise, against inertia, against the other transmitters,
and even especially against the addressees" (ibid., p.45). To transmit means toorganize, to hierarchize, to exclude and to subordinate, bringing with it institutional
relations of inequality. In the process of transmission institutions like the school play a
major role as "intermediate bodies and institutions of knowledge" (ibid., p.6). When
thinking about the introduction of new media, the school is in a special position,
because of its "attachment to the past" as part of its very function (Debray, 2000, p.17).
The school needs to prolong the cultural legacy of the past and at the same time prepare
students for the future, which means among other things, to normalize innovations.Here it needs to be mentioned that the tools which are used in the classroom are not
neutral nor passive, but deeply influence the contents as well as the methods of teaching
and learning, because the contents of bodies of learning are not indifferent to the
mechanisms of transmission and the methods they bring about" (Debray, 1996, p.121).
Assuming that there do emerge 'mediological revolutions' which may unsettle and
disturb the present systems of 'apparatus-support-procedure', it needs to be analyzed
what effects such a revolution can have and how it can be characterized as a revolutionto begin with. Debray states that a "mediological revolution does not fundamentally
affect the extant linguistic codes [], no more than it abolishes the other modes of
transmission", but it rather overturns "the symbolic status and social reach" of
mediological practices (Debray, 1996, p.13).30 Furthermore, he points out that
mediological revolutions seem to crystallize around a certain apparatus, which he calls
a "fetish", a sacred tool (Debray, 1996, p.30), a "miracle tool" or a "mediabolical
organ" (ibid., p.176, glossary). A 'mediological revolution' would consequently evolve
when a certain tool, together with its symbolizing procedures, social codes, support
systems, and distribution networks alters the status, meaning, and social reach of the
present modes of transmission. Moreover it can create new forms and procedures of
communication that may become dominant.
The present analysis will be concerned with how the symbolic status and social reach of
30 Debray exemplifies these processes by illustrating the effects of the invention of the printing press,
presenting it as the outstanding example of a 'mediological revolution', and draws conclusions fromobservable changes that this revolution brought with it.
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using a computer is being reappraised and uprated with the introduction of the XO
laptop which can be considered a 'miracle tool' and is destined to induce a revolution
that shall take the whole country of Peru to the 'Information Age'. 31
Another point that seems very important considering Debray's comprehension of the
influence of media, is the importance he appoints to the community in the process of
transmission:
"[...] in order to bring off transmission across time, toperpetuate [emphasis inoriginal] meaning, in my capacity as emitting Everyman I must both rendermessages material and convince others to form into a group. Only working ondual fronts to create what will be memorable by shaping those devoted to it canelaborate the milieu for transmission." (Debray, 2000, p.10)
Thus, the community chooses what will be inherited, and without a community there
cannot be any transmission. Community is again coupled with communication, 32 so that
one can say that in order to transmit a message one needs to open up ways for this
message to reach others and one needs to persuade these others to receive and decode
the message. That is where institutions, such as the school come into play as they
structure the social locus in the guise of collective organized units, devices for filtering
out the noise, and totalities that endure and transcend their members of the moment and
reproduce themselves over time under certain conditions (ibid., p.12). These
institutions do not only transmit messages, but constantly revise, censor, interpret and
diffuse them. The process of transmission refers to both, the institutional level as
illustrated above, as well as the material level. The material level is organized around
the manufacturing of consultable stores of externalized memory through available
technologies for inscribing, conserving, inventorying, and distributing the recorded
traces of cultural expression (ibid., p.11f). For this study the interaction between the
XO laptop, which can be defined as the 'consultable store of memory', and the rural
public school as the local institutional level will be explored and interpreted. A medium
that focusses especially on the young generation and is structured by schools and
educational politics, on the institutional level, brings with it a crisis for this generation.
Debray describes such crisis as follows:
31