The Digital sub-Divide

NPR’s recent story entitled Looking at the Future of E-Politics points out the need for nationwide broadband access in the United States. Listen closely to the story and they sometimes conflate the “need for Internet access” with the “need for high speed Internet access”.

What I’m referring to as “the digital sub-divide” is the conflation of a current {2008} desire for all Americans to be able to have broadband access and an older concern of a few years ago about any sort of internet access being yet another class marker of the haves vs. have nots in the United States.

Wikipedia states that “the term digital divide refers to the gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it”. As recently as five years ago, there was a real class divide between Americans who surfed the net and those who didn’t. That is no longer the case, particularly in light of the fact that some mobile phones are faster than some internet connections. The organization internetforeveryone.org clearly understands this as illustrated in their first objective: “Every home and business in American must have high-speed internet access”. With the advent of “cloud computing” high speed access is quickly becoming an important determining factor in connectivity in the United States. Robin Bloor’s recent post entitled, “Everything as a service: The the growth of cloud computing” clearly illustrates this change.

The US is the fourth most wired place on the planet. There are rural pockets that have no access to broadband but this should not be confused with what is now being referred to as “The Global Digital Divide” (see the map below that I found on Wikipedia) where entire nations lag behind others in terms of any level of connectivity. Gary Chapman’s work is more illustrative of this “global digital divide”.

And this is more than just a rant! I recently participated in a rather large project (several hundred thousands of dollars) with a large service provider that conflated these very issues as NPR has done. For the service provider, it maybe some sort of strategic oversight; for NPR, its just bad reporting.

In summation: YES, it would be great and more democratic if all US citizens had broadband access, but NO, there is no longer a digital divide in the US when you can take an Iphone and watch YouTube clips most anywhere.

Link to full image

Deep Quotes: Boldness has genius

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

-Goethe

In celebration of the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education

grateful for gratefulness

Intellectual Bricolers or Trouble Makers?

The current debate about the role of technology in the classroom is a challenging one to follow.  Initially, computers were thought of as a panacea that would improve scores. Then, a backlash came when kids were found to be “screwing around”* with those very devices rather than “learning”.  Now, I’m seeing a third wave where some people are realizing that not all ”screwing around” is actually ”screwing around”.  There are many skunksworks that clearly illustrate that some forms of organized disobedience can sometimes be very productive and profitable.  But one does not need a major corporation to innovate.  Creativity can be found in “the street” as well.  William Gibson’s famous dictum “the street finds its own uses for things” (”Burning Chrome“, 1981) points to the power of human ingenuity in adverse disempowered contexts like poverty or “American adolescence”.  Lévi-Strauss’ use of the term “bricolage” is a more classical version of this observation.

What is “bricolage” you might as? Wikipedia’s correct when they say bricolage is “borrowed from the French verb ‘bricoler’ – equivalent to the English “do-it-yourself”, the core meaning in French being, however, “fiddle, tinker” and, by extension, “make creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are at hand (regardless of their original purpose)”. 

My research puts me contact with adolescents (middle school students) who “screw around” with robotics and “pre-engineers” (college students) who “fiddle, tinker and create” technology. 

What would happen if our analysis started considering those adolescent kids ‘technological innovators’?  The kids’ transformation from “trouble makers” to “intellectual bricolers” would improve our knowledge base by realizing that some very creative things come from the minds of the disempowered.  This would also improve the educational preparation of students to the degree that they would potentially realize that their ”play” is actually “work” in another context.

 

*[Use of the term "screw around" originates from Garfinkel, "Consider that once you get into line persons will not therein question that you have rightfully gotten into line unless you start screwing around. Then you get instructed" (2002: 257).  Follow this link to better understand how Garfinkel's  "screwing around" links to this discussion via a discussion of Varenne's "productive ignorance".]

Deep Quote: Trifles make perfection

Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.

-Michelangelo

Grateful to Gratefulness.org

Deep Quote: Anthropology will survive

“Anthropology will survive in a changing world by allowing itself to perish in order to be born again under a new guise.”–Claude Lévi-Strauss, quoted in Lewis (1973: 586).

Thanks to the very rad openanthropology project for the quote.

“Faeces hint at first Americans”

Let me start my tirade by pointing out that I’ve got nothing against the BBC. When I lived in Mali then Egypt, the BBC was all I listened to. I currently record their nightly TV broadcast to keep up on the world news. But look at the wording they chose to publicize this very important Anthropological finding. To say the least, it was a rather “crappy” way to describe recent findings that suggest humans were in the New World a couple thousand years longer than Anthropologists had originally assumed.

This rather cheap shot reminds me of the fat kid in grade school - even the most dimwitted could find a way to poke fun at him.  Well, I won’t stand idly by and let this one pass, Anthropology deserves better!!

Defiantly Yours,

ex-fat kid

Deep Quotes: Never be alone

Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. - Rachel Carson

grateful to grateful.org

Ethnography in Industry in Fresno

Not only was the Ethnography in Industry class designed by Hank Delcore the first Tri-College initiative on the Fresno State campus (combing students and faculty from the Colleges of Social Science, Business and Engineering) but the news story about this initiative was the most read (clicked) news article on fresnostatenews.com

Link to article: http://www.fresnostatenews.com/2008/03/TriCollege.htm

Link to more background on the Institute of Public Anthropology web site.

Archaeologists are in fact Anthropologists

Dear NPR,
Archaeologists are in fact Anthropologists

In a recent story about Stonehenge archeology, Andrea Seabrook stated that “archaeologists and anthropologists have theorized that Stonehenge has…”. It is too bad that NPR is not aware that archeology is in fact one of the sub-fields of Anthropology.

Aside for that blunder, it’s a good story @Archaeologists Seek New Clues at Stonehenge.

But like Catholics who claim they are “Catholic and not Christian”, Ms. Seabrook has become the unwitting dupe for those few archeologists who seem unwilling to refer to themselves as anthropologists.

Respectfully,
-James Mullooly
An ethnographer who is proud to be considered an anthropologist as well!

Deep Quotes: Leonardo da Vinci on Analytic Induction

Analytic Induction is the hallmark of great ethnography.

Leonardo da Vinci, the great “pre-Principia natural philosopher” (if you will allow such an figurative appellation) that he was, was well aware of this fact, many years before it existed. Here are some choice quotations I found that illustrate my point.

Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.

Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?

Tags: DeepQuotes, Analytic Induction