How does a Canadian anthropologist first end up in Bandung, and then in Twente?
'I spent some time in Indonesia for my PhD research. The country is a multi-cultural and multi-religious archipelago, really fascinating. Back in New York I heard that the UT was looking for a researcher to represent the Twente group in Bandung. I was there for two and a half years, and have been back for two weeks now.'
Barker explains that the Institut Teknologi Bandung in Indonesia and the University of Twente have already been working together for almost three years on the programme 'Social Construction of Technology (SCoT) in the Indonesian Context'. The Royal Dutch Acadamy of Sciences (KNAW) finances the research that results on 15 June in an international conference on campus. The researchers will put their preliminary conclusions before the public for discussion, and they will compare the results with other studies in China, Trinidad, and Venezuela.
The research of the UT and the ITB is called 'SCoT in the Indonesian Context'. What exactly is SCoT?
'SCoT shows how society permeates technology, not just the other way around. The way society is organised influences the technological evolution. This project aims to enrich the ScoT-theory with knowledge from developing countries. The focus is almost always on Europe and America.'
What is so different about developing countries?
'We analysed two technological developments. The arrival of the satellite and the emergence of internet. Indonesia had its first satellite in 1976. The reason for that was simple. Suharto with his New Order wanted to make sure that all Indonesians saw the same images to foster a national identity, one shared culture. An imposed technology therefore. The internet, on the other hand, was a bottom-up development. Many more actors played a role. At first they were almost only students, who took care of spreading it further. For them it was a unique way of finding out what went on in therest of the world, and on the other islands of Indonesia. In the last few years internet has penetrated the whole country. Because the majority of the population does not have a phone connection, people go on the world wide web in numerous internet cafes.'
What can we do with this information?
'It is important to know who and what to deploy to implement and change technology. How do you bring a technological invention to the market? Which actors should be worked on? This is also true for business. Take the internet cafes. People share a computer, they do not control it. For businesses it is very lucrative to advertise on the starting pages of those cafÚs. This is less useful here, because everybody has a computer at home and sets a starting page themselves. Or take imported technologies. Who decides? And how do you influence that?'
At the conference findings from other researchers on other cuntries will be presented. What do you expect from that?
'I expect similarities between China, Indonesia, and Venezuela, three multi-cultural societies with periods of authoritarian regime. However, China has a protectionist economy that indicates more local innovation. Local actors will play a larger role than in Indonesia and Venezuela where almost everything is being imported from the Western world. I am very curious which comparisons we can draw. '
For more information: www.sms.utwente.nl/tdg/scotconference
