Digital Universalism and Culture

Chan's article thoroughly discusses the engaging conflict of culture and business. The natives of Chulucanas, a small town in Peru, were wonderful ceramics, each drenched in their culture and traditions. Their ceramics plays a large role in their society, and Chan looks into the introduction of what is essentially consumerism. One has to wonder how something as sacred as a tradition and culture can be marketed to be sold. A commodity rather than a part of a town's identity. The article shows the consequences of the newly added business model of consumerism. What had started off as the intention to encourage the artisans to create new, higher-quality, and better creations, had turned sour in the end.

What had come to be was the native artisans began focusing on profitability, where they were encouraged to sell their hard-worked products for cheap in the market. Something that was once part of their culture became shared to the world as goods for people who may just have an affinity for souvenirs from their trips. With consumerism, comes competition. Local artisans began to pit against each other to make the better profit, and their creativity ultimately backfired.

This new technology of communication and connection to the rest of the world brought cheapness to their culture. Many people will end up purchasing these long-held traditional ceramics at a cheap price, with possibly no in-depth regard to the people of the town themselves. However, I do know that Native American artists have remixed their traditional garb to newly inspired designs for fashion and accessories to purchase. However, the genuine products by Native Americans do not come cheap. This is because they are not approached by companies and people with business models on their mind. They do this because of passion and the want to use their culture for something new. Unfortunately cultures from natives or foreign countries (in regards to America) are easy targets for appropriation. Such as the "tribal" or "native" designs from popular department stores such as Forever 21 or H&M or Victoria's Secret. They held no regard to the original culture, just finding their designs aesthetically pleasing, despite the traditions held behind it.

Essentially this idea of connecting the native town of Chulucana to the rest of the world was approached incorrectly. The idea is enticing and sounds fair, however, it was not thought through. To truly connect a town with lesser technology, the person would have to talk to the people first, and understand how their community lives. The ceramics to the Chulucanas is important to their social identity, so it is best to understand that they know themselves what it is best for them.

On that thought, is it possible now to have technological imperialism (or a different word is more appropriate?) nowadays, where we, such as One Laptop Per Child is an example of, take what we believe is a "unfortunate" town with no technology and dump what we are used to, on them?

Chan's article raises many concerns on this idea of technology bringing a more negative side to places when incorporated with no thought to the natives of the place. The Chulucana artisans have been used by the consumerist tendencies of today's society. Unfortunately, they are but one of many countries being exploited.