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缺陷的灵丹妙药。它超越空间的能力，可以立即将生产者与消费者联系起来，有可能减少中间环节，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，在泰国丝绸行业发展计划的背景下，互联网的承诺是否正在实现。探讨了下列问题：(a)在生产链的哪些节点正在使用信息和通信技术？(b)信通技术的引进如何改变了泰国丝绸工业的生产链和资本流动？(c)这些变化如何改变重新配置生产链的行动者的社会经济条件？(d)当代关于非中间化商品链的经济利益的论述与非中间化商品链的实际影响之间的关系如何？(e)当生产者通过互联网与遥远的消费者互动时，古老的当地制丝传统是否正在被取代？本计画将以贩售泰国丝绸网站的文字分析，检视有关网际网路影响的论述。对生产商和商人的调查和访谈将提供有关互联网对泰国丝绸生产链产生变化的数据。调查人员希望发现，信息通信技术更频繁地被用于加强现有商品链中强大参与者的地位，而不是让小规模的丝绸生产商直接向遥远的消费者销售他们的产品。这项研究的结果将扩大我们对信息通信技术的社会和经济影响的理解。本项目比较了关于脱媒作为一种经济发展战略的利益和风险的各种政治上强有力的论述，以及脱媒实践所产生的一些实质性影响。这样做将允许对涉及信息和通信技术的非中介效应的经济发展目标进行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与泰国丝绸行业经济发展之间的交集，该项目将对东南亚发展、技术和经济变革的文献做出重大贡献。这项研究将突出信息和通信技术采用的复杂性，而不是简单地断言信息和通信技术的非中介化潜力是解决贫困的灵丹妙药，这样做将为试图增加地方收入的决策者提供有用的指导。在这种背景下，这项研究变得更加有用，因为到目前为止，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.