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Abstract
Recent studies in STS and anthropology have elucidated that the travel of science has been entangled with various forms of travel, including indigenous modes. While the Western style of travel often entails comparative imaginations about the difference between places and people focusing on culture, some anthropologists argue that the indigenous conceptualization of difference and travel can be radically different from Western notions. This article explores the intricate relationship between travel of technology and imaginations about difference by focusing on two modes of comparisons found in engineering practices in two significantly different contexts in Thailand: in a technology-transfer project sponsored by the Japanese government and in small factories in the informal sector, which is the supposed target of the project. In both contexts, comparisons between engineering practices are almost inevitable as the Japanese engineers and Thai mechanics make sense of the relationships between the two countries as iterated in their practices. Embedded in the structure of the Japanese transfer project is an interest in the social contexts of technology; following that impulse, this article juxtaposes two largely different modes of travel and comparative imaginations and sheds light on the unnoticed presumptions of the modern comparative imagination.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the National Research Council of Thailand for supporting my fieldwork in Thailand. Earlier versions of this article were presented at a symposium titled “Traveling Comparisons: Ethnographic Reflections on Science and Technology,” held in 2009 at Osaka University at the 2010 annual meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science in Tokyo, and at workshops at IT University of Copenhagen and the University of Copenhagen. I am grateful to Annelise Riles, Kasuga Naoki, Marianne de Laet, Casper Bruun Jensen, Christopher Gad, Brit Roth Winthereik, Anders Blok, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments. I also gained an important insight from Helene Ratner's PhD project. I would also thank members of Osaka University's Global Center of Excellence program “A Research Base for Conflict Studies in the Humanities” for their support of the symposium at Osaka University.
Notes
1 For an overview of the notion of spatial practice—a variety of ways, technologies, and imaginations geared toward mapping and thus getting a grip on the space—see CitationRoberts 2012.
2 In the case of Japanese genomics, for instance, Joan H. CitationFujimura (2003) shows that imagination about cultural difference plays a significant role in the context of the globalizing technoscience wherein scientists with various national and cultural backgrounds jostle and collaborate with each other.
3 This technical character, which requires order-made or small-lot production, makes the industry unique in its organization. In contrast to mass-production industries in which engineers' roles in planning and mechanics' roles in operation are clearly separated, the boundary between engineers and skilled workers in supporting industry is significantly blurred (CitationMori 1979; CitationPiore and Sabel 1984; CitationFriedman 1988). Following this fact, the Japanese experts involved in the supporting-industry project consisted of retired skilled workers and engineers from Japanese SMEs, as well as retired engineers in large companies who had experience in collaborating with SMEs.
4 Thaksin Shinawatra, who won the election and led the Thai government from 2001 to 2006, subsequently placed SME promotion at the heart of his administration's economic policy.
5 The well-known case is a popular television program broadcast by the national television, NHK, and titled Project X. It focuses on the struggle of engineers and mechanics to make innovations during a high-growth period of Japanese economy.
6 One can also view this assumed equivalence as a part of a translation process argued by actor-network theory. Translation denotes scientists' effort to make experimental arrangements in different laboratories equivalent, so that the scientific discovery can travel to one laboratory from another and thus be verified, as well as scientists' struggle to gain support from competing scientists, collaborators, and funding bodies by making their interests equivalent to the scientists' own interests (CitationLatour 1987).
7 ILO's research classifies metalworking and repairing as one of the high-productivity sectors and recommends them as a potential target for further development intervention. These activities exactly constituted the local engineering industry targeted by the supporting-industry project.
8 The Japanese supporting industry takes the shape of an extensive and hierarchical network of firms that stretches from high-tech, medium-sized enterprises to microenterprises and family firms deeply rooted in traditional craftsmanship (CitationMori 1979). By taking this model for granted, the Japanese engineers regarded both small factories in the informal economy and SMEs already working with Japanese companies as belonging to the same target category. This inclusiveness of target definition was actually one of the important political appeals of the project because it ensured an overarching trickle-down effect on regional economies (CitationJapan International Cooperation Agency 1999).
9 The subproject focused on a variety of technologies and practices. For instance, one of the central projects aimed to introduce modern design methods of die and mold design to the local toolmakers. Another project hired engineers retired from Japanese automakers to instruct local auto-parts suppliers about Japanese quality-management practice. The project even contained a subproject to modernize management of SMEs by introducing a Japanese management system developed particularly for SMEs. This heterogeneity well represents the project's overarching goal of developing all aspects of the industry.
10 Madeline CitationAkrich (1992) questions this dominant view among engineers and policy makers and calls for the examination of what she calls “geography of responsibilities,” often-implicit negotiations and struggles to allocate responsibilities for the problem of technology transfer to various human and nonhuman actors.
11 Besides the uncertainty mentioned above, there was another clear difference between Japan and Thailand that significantly challenged the assumption of equivalence. In contrast to the blurred distinction between engineers and skilled mechanics in the Japanese supporting industry (see note 3), there is an institutionalized distinction between the two in the Thai system: in Thailand, engineers are tied down by the licensing system with higher education, and only those who receive university education in engineering can be called engineers. This led some Japanese experts to focus more on developing the capacity of mechanics, who actually work in the production sites.
12 After extensive experience in machine design in Honda at its very early stage, Sakai turned to a university career. His experience in the early stages of Honda, which itself developed out of a craft SME, made Sakai an expert in technology transfer to SMEs in developing countries.
13 The comparison between Japanese and Thai village structures found in the Japanese engineers' account was, in fact, the central concern of Euro-American scholars in Thai studies until 1980s. This comparative imagination originated in the paper of American anthropologist John CitationEmbree (1950), who did fieldwork both in Japan and in Thailand. He contrasted the Japanese “tight” social structure with the “loose” Thai structure.
14 In her aforementioned article, CitationFujimura (2003) also delineates incorporation of the Japanese civilization theory into the imaginary of Japanese genomics.
15 Marilyn CitationStrathern (1987) argues that modern ethnography initiated by Bronisław Malinowski employs a textual strategy that makes the perplexing behaviors of “natives” understandable by adding further “context” for them.
16 Asian intraregional trade before the nineteenth century was centered on China and organized along the politico-ritual relationship between tributaries and the Chinese emperor. While the tributes themselves took on a trade character, informal and private trades also proliferated along the formal lines of state-regulated trade relations (CitationHamashita 1997).
17 From my interview with his son in 2004.
18 For a view that similarly emphasizes the traditional tribute system's capacity to adapt to the “Western impact” and the continuity between the modern and premodern Asian intraregional network, see CitationHamashita 1997.
19 As is elsewhere observed, the world of mechanics is heavily gendered, and almost all the workers in those machine factories are male.
20 Khorat, or Nakhon Ratchasima, is also the name of the province whose capital is the city of Khorat. The province is the largest and the second-most populous province in the country, with extensive rural areas.
21 This sort of reflexivity has become more and more common in various subfields of international development (see CitationJensen and Winthereik 2012).
22 For further reflection on this peculiar mode of comparison and its relationship with ethnography and anthropological comparison, see CitationMorita forthcoming.
23 On actor-network theory's view on scientists' efforts to establish equivalence and related notion of “translation,” see note 6.
24 Christine CitationHine (2007) argues that multisited ethnography is a method for engaging with widely varying audiences and thus weaving their various interests into one's project rather than simply doing fieldwork in many places. While this article mostly concerns the encounters in a particular field, Hine's theory also applies to the present argument.
25 In this regard, the analytical strategy of this article is located among recent analytical attempts to build a lateral relationship between the analytical device and the practice under study rather than explaining the practice away by external analytical categories (CitationMaurer 2005).