The 2005 World Summit not only marked the beginning of UN support for the One Laptop Child project (OLPC), but it also marked the beginning of Thailand’s interest in technological education reform through introducing computers into classrooms. Forged at the MIT Lab, the project promised a low cost and durable laptop for developing countries. Like other developing countries, this project gave Thailand hope to catch up with other developed countries while closing the gap in socio-cultural, economic, and technological aspects. Technology thus was seen as a viable solution.
This presentation will look at the development discourse about techno-solutionism from a Science and technology perspective. Since the early 2000s, OLPC has been at the center of debates among scholars. Christo Sims (2017), Roderic Crooks (2018), Anita Say Chan (2014), and Morgan Ames (2019) conducted rich ethnographic research looking at the disruptiveness of computer technology in classrooms, the encounter between OLPC engineers and the local, and the mismatch between the engineer and philanthropists’ technological design and the local. However, they have paid less attention to the development discourse as a dominant site of knowledge production. Furthermore, the shift in the Thai government interest from OLPC technology to Chinese made technology provide an interesting case in their perspective of development.
Building on critiques of development Ferguson (1994) Li (2007), I will examine the narrative of Thailand’s educational technology policies focusing on one laptop per child project through analyzing media and official documents.
Day 3 – (May 29, Sat HK/SG time)
Panel 7: Developmental Urbanisms
9:30-11am HK/SG time / 2:30-4am British Summer Time (BST) / 3:30-5am Central European Summer Time (CEST) / 9:30-11pm US Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) / 6:30-8pm US Pacific Daylight Time (PDT)