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人们眼中的经济发展不足的灵丹妙药。它的超越空间的能力可以立即将生产者和消费者联系起来，有可能省去中介机构，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使用信息和通信技术？(B)采用信息和通信技术如何改变泰国丝绸行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生产链的行为者的社会经济条件？(D)关于非中介化商品链的经济利益的当代论述与非中介化商品链的实际影响之间有何关系？(E)随着生产者通过互联网与遥远的消费者互动，当地较老的丝绸制造传统是否正在被取代？这个项目将使用销售泰国丝绸的网站的文本分析来检查关于互联网影响的论述。对生产商和商人的调查和采访将提供有关互联网对泰国丝绸生产链产生的变化的数据。调查人员预计会发现，信息和通信技术不再允许小规模的丝绸生产商直接将其产品出售给遥远的消费者，而是更多地被用来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通技术的社会和经济影响的理解。这个项目比较了关于脱媒作为一种经济发展战略的好处和风险的各种政治上强有力的论述与脱媒做法正在产生的一些物质影响。这样做将使人们能够根据经验对涉及信息和通信技术非中介化影响的经济发展目标进行理论批评。通过关注信息和通信技术、非中介化和全球化的商品链与泰国丝绸行业的经济发展之间的交叉，该项目将对东南亚发展、技术和经济变化的文献做出重大贡献。这项研究将强调采用信通技术的复杂性，而不是简单地断言信通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。在这种情况下，这项研究变得更加有用，因为由于互联网技术的广泛使用，迄今为止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.