New Silk Roads: Promises and Perils of the Internet in the Thai Silk Industry

互联网经常被吹捧为解决经济发展中明显不足的灵丹妙药。 它的空间超越能力可以立即将生产者与消费者联系起来，有可能削减中间商，并以更公平的方式重新分配经济盈余。 这篇博士论文研究的问题是，互联网的承诺是否正在泰国丝绸业发展计划的背景下实现。 探讨了以下问题：（a）信息和通信技术在生产链的哪些节点得到使用？(b)信息和通信技术的引进如何改变了泰国丝绸业的生产链和资本流动？(c)这些变化如何改变参与重新配置的生产链的行为者的社会经济条件？(d)当代关于非中介化商品链的经济利益的论述与非中介化商品链的实际影响之间有什么关系？以及（e）随着生产者通过互联网与遥远的消费者互动，古老的当地丝绸制作传统是否正在被取代？ 这个项目将通过对泰国丝绸销售网站的文本分析，来研究关于互联网影响的话语。 对生产商和商人的调查和访谈将提供关于互联网对泰国丝绸生产链的影响的数据。 研究人员希望发现，信息和通信技术不再允许小规模丝绸生产商直接向遥远的消费者销售产品，而是更频繁地被用于加强现有商品链中强大参与者的地位。 这项研究的结果将扩大我们对信息和通信技术的社会和经济影响的理解。 该项目比较了各种关于非中介化作为经济发展战略的好处和风险的政治上强大的话语，以及非中介化实践所产生的一些物质影响。 这样做将使人们能够对涉及信通技术的非中介效应的经济发展目标提出有经验依据的理论批评。 通过关注信息通信技术、非中介化和全球化商品链以及泰国丝绸业经济发展之间的交叉点，该项目将为东南亚发展、技术和经济变革方面的文献做出重大贡献。 这项研究将突出采用信息和通信技术的复杂性，而不是简单地断言信息和通信技术的非中介化潜力是消除贫困的灵丹妙药，这样做将为试图增加当地收入的决策者提供有益的指导。 这项研究在这种情况下变得更加有用，因为迄今为止，由于互联网技术的广泛使用，关于这一主题的出版物很少。

The Internet is often touted as a panacea for perceived deficiencies in economic development. Its space-transcending abilities, which can instantly connect producers with consumers, have the potential to cut out intermediaries and to redistribute economic surplus in a more equitable manner. This doctoral dissertation research asks whether the promises of the Internet are being realized in the context of development programs in the Thai silk industry. The following questions are explored: (a) At which nodes in the production chain are information and communication technologies (ICTs) being used?; (b) How have the introduction of ICTs altered production chains and the flows of capital in the Thai silk industry?; (c) How are these changes altering the socio-economic conditions of actors who are involved in reconfigured production chains?; (d) What are the relationships between contemporary discourses about the economic benefits of disintermediated commodity chains and the actual effects of disintermediated commodity chains?; and (e) Are older local silk making traditions being replaced as producers interact with distant consumers through the Internet? This project will use a textual analysis of websites selling Thai silk to examine discourses being put forth about the effects of the Internet. Surveys and interviews with producers and merchants will provide data on changes that the Internet is having on the production chains of Thai silk. The investigators expect to find that instead of allowing small scale producers of silk to directly sell their products to distant consumers, ICTs are more frequently being used to strengthen the position of powerful actors in existing commodity chains. The results of this study will expand our understanding of the social and economic impacts of ICTs. This project compares a variety of politically powerful discourses about the benefits and risks of disintermediation as an economic development strategy against some of the material effects that practices of disintermediation are having. Doing so will allow empirically informed theoretical critiques to be made of economic development objectives which involve the disintermediating effects of ICTs. By focusing on the intersections between ICTs, disintermediated and globalized commodity chains, and economic development in the Thai silk industry, this project will significantly contribute to literatures on development, technology, and economic change in Southeast Asia. The study will highlight the complexities of ICT adoption, in contrast to simplistic assertions of the disintermediating potentials of ICTs being a panacea for poverty, and in doing so will provide useful guidance to policy makers attempting to increase local incomes. This research becomes even more useful in such contexts because little has been published to date on this topic due to the contemporaneity of widespread access to Internet technologies.