The Course of Empire

Update (7 Feb): For a sketch of the Hait­ian infor­ma­tion infra­struc­ture, check out Michael Deibert’s post from Slate, Hait­ian Radio Returns to the Air.

I won­der how oth­ers feel about this newly-listed MIT Media Lab course (spring 2010). On the one hand, there’s a lot here to be admired: The course is clearly the prod­uct of agile thought. It is problem-based, socially-relevant, inter­dis­ci­pli­nary teach­ing with­out a net. Laudable.

MAS963 | KrikKrak
A project-based class to develop new tech­nolo­gies and edu­ca­tional tools to help rev­o­lu­tion­ize Hait­ian soci­ety. We will explore viable con­texts for pro­mot­ing self-expression, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, lit­er­acy and numer­acy, and dig­i­tal governance, given the chal­lenges within the soci­ety. Top­ics will include sensors, language, music, com­pu­ta­tional meth­ods of teach­ing and learn­ing, civic engage­ment and social media.  “

But then there’s that phrase: “tools to help rev­o­lu­tion­ize Hait­ian soci­ety.” What does that mean, pre­cisely? Rev­o­lu­tion­ize? For whom? At whose behest? I am no expert on Hait­ian his­tory, but I imag­ine that out­siders with a rev­o­lu­tion­ary agenda have always played a big role in Haiti.

Par­tic­i­pants will choose a soci­etal prob­lem, devise a solu­tion, then spend the last week of April in Haiti field test­ing and doc­u­ment­ing their solution.

So maybe Haiti is doomed to have us help. Still, half a semester’s worth of earnest grad school con­ver­sa­tion about Haiti does not an expert make. I’ve no doubt that there will be all sorts of IRB over­sight and so forth, and yet: Maybe we should hold off on exper­i­men­tal tools for dig­i­tal gov­er­nance until we staunch the flow of slaves, intro­duce clean water, and oth­er­wise ease the direst poverty in the West­ern hemi­sphere. So far, we’ve been spec­tac­u­larly unsuc­cess­ful in rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing Haiti.

NB: The course is part of a larger ini­tia­tive within the MIT Media Lab called Krik Krak.

As the world responds to this dis­as­ter, we pause to think about applic­a­ble roles of energy and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies in the long nation re-building efforts to come. What began as an IAP work­shop at the Media Lab focus­ing on the Jan­u­ary 12th cri­sis in Haiti will con­tinue as a lec­ture series, a string of projects and con­tin­ued dis­cus­sions on the his­tory, re-construction and nation-building of Haiti.