30358: Bick (reply) RE: 30343: Durban (comment): Cellphone Impact on Foreign Remittances (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

paulbick@msn.com


This example of a "new" light technology (ie cellular) leapfrogging a
bogged-down "heavy" infrastructure project (ie telco) is not at all uncommon
in the world these days.  If fact, it's the rule rather than the exception -
and provides a crucial object lesson for development in Haiti.  Projects
that rely upon collapsing or otherwise problematic infrastructures and old
technologies are often doomed to obsolescence and failure even before they
are fully implemented. Its an old story - people on this list could provide
countless examples...

Where capital is scarce, investment in soon-to-be obsolete "bargain"
technologies (often motivated by political considerations) is worse than
wasteful - its paralyzing - and self-perpetuating.   There is a fundamental
paradox at the center of the uneven space-time compression that drives the
spread of technology and innovation these days:  The poorest and most
"undeveloped" of countries often find themselves in the odd position of
being able to model the non-linear implementation of flexible technologies
beyond the embedded limitations of the existing matrix.

Haiti will never have the kind of steady-stream capital flows required to
develop and maintain overlapping or redundant technologies as we do in the
cash-fat North.  Real, sustained investment in the rehabilitation of Haiti's
land-line phone service is a lose-lose proposition - and its not going to
happen - nor should it.  In spite of the kleptocratic conditions that have
kept telco uselessly afloat - it will eventually find itself with no
subscribers - sooner rather than later.

As Lance's example illustrates, people on the ground are always showing us
where development energy needs to go - if we're willing to set aside our
blinding hubris long enough to see it...

The spread of cellular/satellite-based technologies ahead of wired
technology was an organic response to seemingly intractable obstacles on the
ground.  These technologies will likely be the primary mode of all
connectivity in Haiti before too long.  They are flexible, affordable,
durable, mobile, battery operated, adaptable to changing conditions on the
ground, not tied to urban centers - and their capabilities - including fast
reliable internet and a/v, in addition to telephony - have only begun to
emerge.  It has the "one-stop-shop" potential to provide a lot for a little
to the end-user on the ground.  Furthermore - as it depends on a smaller
segment of existing infrastructure - it has the capacity to sidestep a large
chunk of Haiti's nightmare bureaucracy.

Again - this is nothing new - we've all been watching it happen.  What may
be new is the model it provides for Haiti more broadly.  Unlike the
"developed" world - which likes to imagine itself as innovative rather than
just distracted by the endless retooling of its disposable veneers, Haiti
actually IS in a position to re-invent itself from the ground up.  The best
way to fix the Haitian state bureaucracy may simply be to walk around it -
to start unthinking the fantasy of a Weberian "ideal" bureaucracy - in favor
of a cellular state...



Paul Bick
Department of Anthropology
The University of Illinois at Chicago
Behavioral Science Building
1007 West Harrison Street M/C 027
Chicago, IL 60607

847-863-8725