The Downside of Global Connectivity

The argument put forward in "The data revolution for sustainable development (Sachs et al 2015) is all good and well. I am, however, concerned about the overall package that this data revolution is being delivered within. As a social anthropologist I am concerned with what will happen – actually, what IS happening – at the local level of societies, and in the remote corners of the world as a consequence of this data revolution. Those promoting this, many or most of whom will have backgrounds in science and technology, take for granted that there is one truth out and down there, one value set, and one knowledge. For me, knowledge is not a singular thing, it is plural. The world actually consists of multiple knowledges, as it were (Soeftestad 2017). Each culture and society represent a unique knowledge set. The knowledge that I have (as a Norwegian) is very far from, for example, the knowledge of the herders from Mali whom I met on their annual migration into south-east Mauritania. 

The package that I referred to above can perhaps best be labeled "globalization", and the knowledge it promotes – aside from whatever else it promotes, openly or less so – is the Western worldview. 

The mode of delivering this data revolution is above all the English language. And the one key factor that contributes to destruction of cultures and their knowledges is loss of traditional languages and dialects. 

I have done a study of local indigenous terms for traditional natural resource management (agriculture, forestry, hunting and gathering) in several countries throughout Africa. These vernacular terms invariably disappear and give way to terms in colonial languages (including Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, and Portuguese). The new terms do not cover the meaning of the traditional terms, which were part and parcel of cultures that over the millennia developed sustainable natural resource management practices and regimes. These changes have, on the short-term and longer-term, had ans still have mportant implications for cultures, especially in the case of very small ones that are primarily subsistence based. 

Hence the following question: is it possible to engage this data revolution in sustainable development without at the same time contributing to destroying local, marginal cultures, and associated knowledge sets?

Lars T Soeftestad

Notes
(1) This article was written as a response to an article on Project Syndicate (Sachs 2015). It is adapted from an article I wrote on LinkedIn Pulse (Soeftestad 2015).
(2) The use of the word "knowledges" is important because if points to the existence and relevance of not one (universal) knowledge or knowledge set, but of several (Soeftestad 2017).
(3) Image credit: Lars Soeftestad, Supras Ltd. Mali pastoralists, Ayoun el Atrous, Hodh El Gharbi, Mauritania, May 2004.
(4) Permalink. URL: http://devblog.no/en/article/downside-global-connectivity
(5) This article was published 8 June 2016. It was revised 7 September 2018.

Sources
Sachs, Jeffrey D. et al. 2015. "The data revolution for sustainable development." Project Syndicate, 18 September 2015. URL: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sdgs-data-collection-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-et-al-2015-09
Soeftestad, Lars. 2015. "Data revolution for sustainable development. On the downside of global connectivity." LinkedIn Pulse, published 29 September 2015. URL: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/data-revolution-sustainable-development-downside-lars-soeftestad
Soeftestad, Lars. 2017. "Terrorism, trust, and inclusion." Devblog, 8 April 2017. URL: https://devblog.no/en/article/terrorism-trust-and-inclusion