On the whole, it is a rich piece, and the discussion is very provocative. IT also reveals your own intimate experience with these tools, i.e. a perspective from the inside. Perhaps some self-reflexivity on this aspect, your own personal trajectory with the technologies, their potentials and pitfalls in your own experience, could be added. (I’m thinking of what you experienced before going to Panama as one reflection of the contradictions).

I especially liked the comparison of Costa Rica and Panamanian use of cell phones vs. internet, with your analysis about the reasons for this difference. There are some further questions that this comparison raises for me: what is the role of the state in research, access, monitoring the use of mobile technology (the case of China, of course, reveals the dangers of state involvement). Corporate-political links also play into this question. And what does it mean that Nokia has an ethnographic researcher who is also promoting alternative uses of these tools by marginalized communities?

I find one of the most interesting tensions to be explored is how this technology can be used to promote bottom-up processes responding to local struggles while mobilizing support and gathering ideas from the global connections and immediacy (it reminds me of discussions in the IPEE class about the global as abstract…and the false dichotomy of local/global). Within the realm of global interconnectivity and the ongoing question of access (which I think you could address further), the issue of English hegemony should be more central, I think. I found it interesting that even the Panama Declaration about IT was in English. There is a danger in celebrating the potentials of the technologies without acknowledging both their limits and built-in contradictions, given broader structural and cultural inequities. (I’d like to see more critical analysis, for example, of TIG, in these terms. Not only who uses it, but who’s missing and why?).

Another question that emerged for me relates to how networks like Facebook involve a certain amount of exhibitionism, and focus on individuals personal lives and self-presentation, while they also can serve to promote dialogue and advocacy around social issues. Your reference to “Brownie-like badges” which are similar logos was interesting, how much are we branding our selves and how much are we promoting our causes?

Allen Taylor