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Introduction: What’s Culture Got to Do with It? 15

English. But there is almost no readily available vernacular soft-
ware in India.
Keniston identifies a number of fundamental obstacles to local-
ization, including local cultural factors that weigh against localiza-
tion—factors resulting from both an indigenous religious tradition
and British colonialism. On the one hand, the Brahmanic emphasis on
higher levels of spirituality, thought, and action, in contrast with the
earthly and material, means that writing localized software programs
“for the masses” seems less important than other pursuits. On the
other hand, the success of British colonialism has meant precisely that
English is the prestige language in India. Hence, to program in En-
glish (e.g., for export) is laudable, while programming in an indige-
nous language is to run contrary to the cosmopolitan trajectory
affiliated with English, and to run the risk of seeming the ally of “fun-
damentalism” and the tribal (Jihad in Barber’s sense). And since lo-
calized software would provide access to computer technologies—and
thereby, to the power, wealth, and prestige such technologies are affil-
iated with—for those traditionally excluded from elite status (out-
castes, tribals, etc.), such software may be seen as a direct threat to
the privileges enjoyed by those who would write the localized code.
Despite such obstacles, Keniston closes with a series of sugges-
tions intended to encourage the localization of software needed if the
new technologies are to help close, rather than widen, the gap be-
tween the haves and the have-nots—and if the new technologies are
to help enhance cultural diversity rather than eliminate it. As Kenis-
ton notes, these difficulties are especially acute in South Asia be-
cause of its distinctive fusion of power and language. At the same
time, however, successful solutions to the localization problem in
South Asia are likely to serve as models for preserving democracy
and cultural diversity on a more global scale as well.
How we avoid Manichean choices is the lesson suggested by
Soraj Hongladarom, in his “Global Culture, Local Cultures, and the
Internet: The Thai Example.” Hongladarom examines two threads of
discussion developed in a Thai Usenet newsgroup, one dealing with
critiques of the Thai political system and the other with the question
of whether Thai should be a language, perhaps the only language,
used on the newsgroup. In contrast with concerns that CMC tech-
nologies will erase local cultures and issue in a monolithic global cul-
ture, Hongladarom argues that the Internet facilitates two different
kinds of communication: (1) communication that helps reinforce
local cultural identity and community (in part, as this communica-
tion fulfills what Carey calls the “ritual function”, i.e. strengthening