Monday, March 12, 2007

Exploring the Digital Divide

While I don't typically comment on issues of technology, this article really struck me as interesting. I was amazed to see the estimate of 750 million people accessing the internet in 2007. While this number itself is not particularly interesting, when compared to the world population of six billion, it represents an extreme disparity of access to a revolutionary technology that consumes much of our daily lives in the Global North. It is hard to make the argument that the internet is democratizing public discussion when less than eleven percent of the world has accessed it in the past year. It is hard to imagine what perspectives we are missing out on and what analysis could be brought to bare that would inform world opinion in a fundamentally different way. It could be argued that those who are in the most need of having their voice heard are silenced by this extreme digital divide.

Arguably more important than having your voice heard is the access to information that the internet allows. The ability to find information and analysis on an infinite range of issues is what keeps most of us logged on as we go about our daily lives. An overwhelming majority of the world lacks access to the wealth of informational resources that the internet provides.

One promising intervention to close this gap comes from the One Laptop per Child movement. By creating a rugged laptop that costs about one hundred dollars to create, MIT and other groups are working to close this significant disparity. While one hundred dollars is prohibitively expensive for individuals all over the world (over one billion of which make less than one dollar a day), donors have been spurned into action to buy these laptops for distribution around the world. While this in no way addresses the structural and social forces that created this inequality, it can be seen as a step in the right direction.

Extreme Callousness as Foreign Policy

It is difficult to understand why Bush would choose to tour Latin America at a time when his approval rating is so low both here and abroad. He has little to no political capital to draw on for this visit. While many have cited the reason as an attempt to undermine the rise to power of Chavez, this seems ludicrous. A visit by one of the least popular presidents in history, whose administration has all but ignored Latin America except on issues of bi-lateral trade, seems like a poor public relations move. Bi-lateral trade deals place individual countries up against the U.S. These countries have little to no chance to bring measures to the table they want addressed. While the breakdown of the current trade round was celebrated by many(myself included), these bi-lateral trade regimes are an extremely negative consequence of this show of solidarity by the Global South.

Bush's claim that the U.S. is planning on helping out the poor in Latin America seem particularly hollow. He has continually demonstrated contempt for those measures instituted by Latin American countries that have actually improved the position of the poor. The Bush administration has berated countries that have implemented pro-poor policies. Steps such as nationalization of companies and redistribution of land ownership monopolies that have often been successful in raising the standard of living for the poor. While measures such as nationalization of companies are controversial, it is often forgotten that many of these industries, particularly those such as natural resources, were initially privatized without the consent of the people. The profits that used to go into budgets of Latin American countries instead began to flow out of the country through multi-national corporations that had no invested interest in sustainable development or stewardship.

It is also interesting to see how the rhetoric output by Bush doesn't match the aid that has been made available to those in Latin America. Venezuela has pledged nearly three times the amount of aid that has been given by the U.S. to the region. Also, important issues that would fundamentally increase the standard of living for Latin Americans, such as access to U.S. markets for agricultural products, have not even been addressed by Bush. The continued disconnect between the discussion of free trade and the lack implementation of policy based on it is apparent. Though fair trade is a better way of organizing the international marketplace, while free trade is hegemonic, the central players could at least learn to play by its rules.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Hard to Comprehend

In a stunning example of the dangers of insufficient health care, a boy in Maryland has recently died from what began as a rotten tooth. This situation brings to mind the unconscionable consequences of our current system of health care. It also illustrates the dangers of negative freedoms versus substantive freedoms (capabilities). Using the capability approach put forth by Amartya Sen, we can see how the current system in the U.S. could have allowed this to happen. While this boy's family experiences, in theory, many diverse negative freedoms (freedoms from things), such as freedom of speech (freedom from censure), freedom from imprisonment without due process (clearly in theory here), etc., their ability to express these freedoms is significantly limited by unfreedoms that diminish their ability to achieve desired functionings. In the capability approach these unfreedoms represent capability disabling elements that restrict what an individual can do.

In the United States there is no substantive freedom to have basic health care. Being free of preventable disease is a core functioning for Martha Nussbaum, another author who has written extensively on the capability approach. The lack of basic preventative health care for millions of Americans serves to magnify the effects of the income inequality that continues to grow in the U.S. Inequality experienced in Canada and Europe is significantly less extreme than what is experienced in the U.S. Even for cities with comparable inequality, those in the U.S. experience significantly more extreme gradients of health as there is not a basic health care system in place to mitigate some of the effects of inequality.

This particular example displays the extreme effects that deprivation can have on individuals. It brings to light larger issues that go unnoticed by media. In the article it is noted that the boy's sibling also had rotting teeth and there was an attempt to take care of his because they seemed to be more pressing. Discussion of these sorts of "personal" problems are ignored because they are often not considered interesting because they are experienced widely by the poor in the U.S. By minimizing these problems that are being suffered by millions, their collective power is diminished in an era of "individual responsibility" that has come about in the current neo-liberal era.

The article also notes the significant costs that the family now faces for the emergency care that was required to attempt to save the life of the child. While the initial extraction would have cost less than a hundred (a cost too high for many to bear for something as seemingly small as a rotten tooth) the bill has now risen to hundreds of thousands of dollars in the cost of surgeries and other emergency care that was given. It is hard to imagine how a family that could not afford a tooth extraction will deal with such an extreme form of debt. I noted in a previous post how this sort of emergency is one of the largest reasons for bankruptcy in the U.S.

This case is provocative because it points out glaring disparities in the current U.S. health system. There are many other examples of lesser problems that go unnoticed in the media but are experienced be individuals without a voice or real political power. In order for the family of this boy to get any sort of attention, a death had to be involved. Until this system is reformed in a meaningful and structural way, little improvement can be expected.

Defining Yourself

It is interesting how something as abstract as an ontology or epistemology can be used to define someone without their consent. I have come to be defined as the "quantitative guy" in my graduate cohort because I am the only one perceived to be doing statistical analysis. There is at least one other student who is using quantitative methods, though in a more mixed approach, in her thesis. Also there are other students that will be basing at least some part of their work on research that was previously carried out using quantitative methods. It is interesting because before coming here, there would have been no reason for me to think of myself as a quantitative researcher.

One difficulty I am facing in my research methods class is that many in the class clearly have not had even a basic statistics course, or if they have that it was long enough ago that it has all been forgotten. This is frustrating because the questions that are asked reflect their ignorance of even basic statistics and sampling techniques. Instead of helpful critiques, I am forced to defend ideas of approximation of the normal curve, random sampling, representativeness and inferential statistics. Many of these ideas have been sufficiently settled and the real debate is about improving methods and refining techniques. Having to defend an entire discipline to people who are completely opposed to its even existence, is tedious at best and insulting at worst. The questions that were asked were not asked to improve my project, but instead to fulfill their own prejudice against a particular method in the social sciences.

Statistics, like any other method, cannot be taken uncritically and must be examined in the context of what is being studied. Though I think that often the condemnation of statistics is misplaced and ill-informed. Statistics may be overused in the media and politics, but that does not mean that they can't be used in a more appropriate way. Through conducting research in a transparent and reflexive manner, the methods that are used come to be sufficiently problematized. By problematizing our methods we can see more clearly the limitations and ways to counter-act these limitations.

In my thesis I am attempting to use statistics in a reflexive way that I think sufficiently engages with the limitations that I face. By using statistics I am accepting that at some level they can give a probabilistic view of society. Though I also understand they they can never reflect perfectly the social reality that they attempt to investigate. By continuing to reflect and being aware of these issues, I feel that I can use statistics without falling into overstating my conclusions or misrepresenting my analysis.