Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Caohai Nature Reserve, in Guizhou, China has been the scene of both dramatic landscape transformations and equally radical changes in resource management philosophies. When Caohai Nature Reserve was established in 1985 practices that sustained local livelihoods, such as fishing and hunting, were criminalized, leading to violent conflicts between reserve managers and local people. In the early 1990s, the introduction of NGO-sponsored community development programs changed the way the reserve was perceived by local farmers as the reserve became the most important provider of funding for community infrastructure development in the area. In spite of the China’s much touted Western Development Project, most reserve residents do not believe that they benefit from the central government’s infrastructure improvement programs. They believe that these large-scale road and railway extension projects have done little to change their poor rural livelihoods. However, they believe that the nature reserve’s smaller-scale community development programs have been a much more effective source of locally-needed infrastructure development. Many Caohai farmers now see the reserve, instead of other government agencies, as their main partner for the promotion of economic development.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Information technology has occupied increasing scholarly and public attention in past decades, in parallel to its continuous diffusion to a wide range of social actions and practices. However, the theoretical connection between social action and information technology has remained obscure. Based on an examination of three contemporary theories of social action—symbolic interactionism, communicative action, and structuration theory—this paper attempts to make first strides towards the construction of an analytical bridge between information technology and theories of social action. This bridge is supported by three pillars: infrastructure, information, and interaction.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: As recent studies in economic and financial sociology have underscored, calculation is central to economic practices. The paper, first, outlines how these practices of economic calculation can be studied empirically and from a cultural sociology perspective. In this part, the paper refers to the notion of “operative writing” with which the performative effects of equations and formulae can be taken into account. Second, the paper analyses practices of negotiation in risk management departments of big international banks. It is argued that this remote communication between subsidiaries and the headquarters of international banks is structured by written documents which serve as social prostheses and which are the outcome of calculation tools.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper presents a theoretical framework and preliminary analytical results for the case study of telecommunications in the Pearl River Delta, a rapidly urbanizing region along China’s south coast. The author takes the Communication Infrastructure approach towards telecommunications, i.e. an ecological conceptualization of communication technologies as embedded in a storytelling system consisting of telecom providers, government entities, local residents, and mass media, all situated in a communication action context. A historical overview from 1978 to 2002 is provided. Then, drawn from intensive multi-method fieldwork, components of the regional telecommunications infrastructure are identified; and their interactions contextualized. Four generic types of disconnections (temporal-spatial breaks, stratificational gaps, institutional blockades, and social psychological dismissals) are proposed, leading to a more full-fledged discussion of (dis)connectedness dynamics, in which the system of telecom technologies is construed as a prism for the examination of the regional social ecology at large.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The history of telecommunications development has often been thought as a force that dilutes the notion of geographical space and boundaries in contemporary society. This paper attempts to give an understanding of the interactive mechanism between the spatial characteristics of a city and the patterns of changes brought by the diffusion of technology. This paper includes a case study of Seoul, the capital city of Korea, which is regarded as displaying a remarkable speed and scope in the diffusion of new information and communication technologies. Through observing the pattern of interaction grounded upon actual physical space and the regional efforts to reconstruct spaces of the city, it is assessed that the notion of geographical space is still crucial for understanding the technological landscape in the midst of digital technologies driving people toward virtual space and virtual reality. From a multi-level perspective, it is examined that the spatial infrastructure of city influences the pattern of technological development, consequently transforming spatial interaction including the pattern of individual lifestyle and the interaction among people based on urban space. Micro-, meso-, and macro-level forces interact with each other and subsequently influence the spatial infrastructure of a city. A case analysis on the background spatial characteristics of Seoul and the recent trend of major transformations is given to help understand this interactive mechanism.