OLPC Peru - Cultural and Educational Consequences of Global Media - 2012

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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:

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OLPC Peru - Cultural and Educational Consequences of Global Media - 2012

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