UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Networks at their Limits: Software, Similarity, and Continuity in Vietnam A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Information Studies by Lilly Uyen Nguyen 2013 © Copyright by Lilly Uyen Nguyen 2013 Some Rights Reserved (See: Appendix) ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Networks at their Limits: Software, Similarity, and Continuity in Vietnam by Lilly Uyen Nguyen Doctor of Philosophy in Information Studies University of California, Los Angeles, 2013 Professor Leah Lievrouw, Chair This dissertation explores the social worlds of pirated software discs and free/open source software in Vietnam to describe the practices of copying, evangelizing, and translation. This dissertation also reveals the cultural logics of similarity and continuity that sustain these social worlds. Taken together, this dissertation argues that the logics of similarity and continuity are expressions of Vietnam’s distance from global networks. Vietnam is currently in a period of rapid economic transition and growing uncertainty.
As the country continues to integrate into the global economy, information technologies like software take on new importance as icons of modern industry and economic development. Information technologies like software demonstrate connection to global networks and legitimize Vietnam’s place among the global community. However, situated along the edge of global networks, Vietnamese feel the burdens of distance in ii part with their desires for membership to the global community. This dissertation identifies ideals of difference that affiliate pirated software and free/open source software in the global North with an activist ethos, replete with ideals of transgression and rupture.
Such ideals however, are incongruent with the experience of life in the global South, along global edges. Instead, this dissertation argues that through logics of similarity and continuity in the social worlds of pirated software discs and free/open source software, Vietnamese make sense of their place along the edges of global networks. At the place of edges, difference is a burden to overcome not a value to realize and logics of similarity and continuity serve to recuperate distance and disconnection. Analogously, this dissertation identifies similar commitments to difference in networks theories that emphasize hybrid forms.
This dissertation proposes the concept of limits to challenge the prism of difference in these theories. By introducing the language of limits, this dissertation reveals the struggles of integrating into global networks and challenges connectivity as an already accomplished fact. The language of limits brings into relief the forms of breakdown—material and cultural—that serve as barriers amid desires for connection and legitimation. iii The dissertation of Lilly Uyen Nguyen is approved.
Jean-François Blanchette Christopher Kelty Sharon Traweek Thu-Huong Nguyen-Vo Leah Lievrouw, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2013 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments.vii Vita/Bio Sketch. x Chapter 1: Introduction Software through the prism of global circulation.4 Setting and background.9 Chapter 2: Literature Review Cultural politics of global techno-entrepreneurialism. 15 The place of networks in science and technology studies. 16 Software and the question of place.
19 Piracy as entrepreneurialism in the global South. 21 Vietnam as a place to think freedom. 24 Chapter 3: Research Design and Methods Site selection. 27 Access and language preparation.
31 Diaspora as method. 37 Chapter 4: The Social World of Copying and Cultural Logics of Similarity Introduction. 41 Histories of craft and commerce: Computer Street in entrepreneurial context. 42 Software Shop on Computer Street: The work and networks of copying.
46 Copying as tending to and mending error. 52 Copying as entrepreneurial logic. 58 Chapter 5: Evangelism and Translation in Free/Open Source Software: A Nation in Continuity Building a national community. 69 A culture of masculinity and the aesthetics of leadership.72 Freedom and the boundaries of the political.
75 Evangelism and the rhetorical authority of leaders.78 Translating a nation and global invisibility. 83 A national community in continuity with the world. 87 v Chapter 6: Similarity and Continuity at the Edge of Global Networks Unraveling the moral dyad of free and freedom. 89 Similarity and continuity in a time of disconnection and difference.
95 At the limits of networks.98 Similarity, difference, universality, and particularity: Some theoretical propositions. 110 Appendix: Creative Commons License. 123 vi Acknowledgments This dissertation is the expression of journeys and connections across the Pacific Ocean, between California and Vietnam. I came up with the idea for this dissertation in Los Angeles and in the community of Little Saigon in Westminster, California.
I conducted fieldwork in Vietnam, in the cities of Hanoi, Saigon, and Can Tho. I completed the writing of the dissertation in San Francisco, California. I want to convey my most heartfelt gratitude to all those who helped me during these crossings and connections. In Los Angeles, Leah Lievrouw has been a steadfast pillar of support throughout my entire doctoral career, providing me with the freedom to forge my own intellectual path as well as helping me carve out my own space between the wedges of Information Studies and Media and Communication Studies.
As the alpha geek of software studies, Chris Kelty has been a wonderful sounding board, pointing me towards more interesting questions in moments of muddied confusion. Jean-François Blanchette’s patience and careful attention were especially helpful during the early stages of designing this project. Sharon Traweek’s experience navigating the murky waters of technoscience across the Pacific Rim helped pave the way for my own eventual crossings. Thu-Huong Nguyen-Vo encouragement and insights of the inner workings of governance and globalization in Vietnam have been invaluable to my thinking.
I especially want to thank Thầy Quyên Di, my Vietnamese teacher at UCLA. In his classes I learned about the importance of poetry and narrative in the saddled history of Vietnam. I hope to have brought this sensitivity to how I view contemporary Vietnam and to the writing of this dissertation. vii In Vietnam, Hoang Dan Lieu at the College of Education at the Vietnam National University in Hanoi helped me with the bureaucratic logistics of getting to Vietnam.
Her cheery demeanor made the paperwork process a breeze, allowing me to jump headlong into my research with minimal difficulty. The “Researchers in Vietnam Group” was an amazing network of colleagues who remain vital interlocutors. I am especially grateful for the conversations shared with Martha Lincoln, Jason Morris-Jung, Sarah Grant, Trang Cao, and Jim Delaney. I also want to express my most sincere thanks to all the geeks, shopowners, developers, designers, CEOs, educators, and budding entrepreneurs I met during my time in Vietnam who remain unnamed in the dissertation.
These people shared their time, their concerns, and their passions with me. I could not have done this research without their help. I hope I have relayed their experience and stories in a manner that befits their trust. My fieldwork in Vietnam was assisted by several grants and fellowships including: a Fulbright-IIE Fellowship from the United States Department of State, a Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship from the United States Department of Education, and a National Science Foundation Dissertation Research Improvement Grant.
I received support for the writing of this dissertation through a UCLA Graduate Division Dissertation Writing Year Fellowship. Back in San Francisco, I received invaluable feedback from the “Dissertation Ladies Group.” Morgan Ames, Lilly Irani, Daniela Rosner, and ShinJoung Yeo read early versions of the chapters and provided their time and helpful feedback. During this time, Luis Felipe Rosado Murillo and Alexandra Lippmann organized a panel titled “Cultural Production and Circulation as Border-Crossings: Piracy, Property, and Possession” for the American Anthropological Association. Chapter Two benefited from their initiative in organizing this panel.
viii I will always be grateful for conversations with Patrick Keilty and Rebecca Dean. Aimee Fountain and Jacob Glenn-Levin made my return to the Bay Area that much sweeter. Shannon O’Neill and Diana Martinez offered friendship through cat photos and video chat. Thanks, high-fives, and gi-normous hugs are due to them all.
I want to extend my most profound gratitude to the home I’ve come from and the home I’ve created. My mom and dad, Nguyen Thi Bich Thuy and Nguyen Kim Giang, protested my “return” to Vietnam. Their own turbulent journey from Vietnam to California presaged my own travels between these two places. These scant words will never fully convey my appreciation for their sacrifice and without their support, none of this would have been possible.
Lastly, this dissertation would not have been possible without the love of Ryan Chittick. His willingness to join me in the adventure of fieldwork is testimony to his unreserved encouragement. His care underwrites every word of this dissertation. ix VITA/BIO SKETCH Lilly U.
Nguyen Department of Information Studies, UCLA | GSEIS Building, Box 951520 | Los Angeles, CA 90095-1520, USA EDUCATION 2002 London School of Economics and Political Science, Media and Communications, M. 2001 University of California, Berkeley, Political Economy of Industrial Societies and French, B. SELECTED PUBLICATIONS 2011 Fish, A. Birds of the Internet: Towards a field guide to the organization and governance of participation.
Journal of Cultural Economy, (4)2, 157 - 187. Polyphony in social classification: Exploring hybrid forms of speech, practice, and text in digital settings. Interactions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 6(2). Open education resources: Inquiring into author use and reuse.
International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning, 1(1/2), 98 – 117. Tools for Humanists.), A Survey of Digital Humanities Centers in the United States.: Council on Library and Information Resources. “Knowledge Management Trends: Challenges and opportunities for educational institutions.) Knowledge Management in Higher Education: A Critical Analysis. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing.
SELECTED PRESENTATIONS AND WORKSHOPS Refereed Presentations and Workshop 2012 Same-same but Different: Software and its Entrepreneurial Others. Annual Conference of the American Anthropological Association. San Francisco, CA. 2012 The Social World of Copying: Entrepreneurialism in Genealogical Networks.
Society for the History of Technology - Special Interest Group for Computers, Internet, and Society Workshop, “Information Identities: Historical Perspectives on Technological and Social Change. 2011 Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory (SECT) – ReWired: Asian+Technoscience+Area Studies. University of California Humanities Research Institute. 2009 Dynamics of Polyphony in Social Classification: An Exploration of an Anatomy of Digital Linguistic Practice.
iConference: Annual Meeting of the iSchools Caucus. Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 2009 Open Imaginaries: Technologies in Global Migration and Translation. iConference: Annual Meeting of the iSchools Caucus.
Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 2007 Dialectics of Memory and Forgetting in the Digital Capture and Surveillance of Sex Offenders. Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science. 2006 Social Software Symposium.
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. x Invited Presentations and Workshops 2013 “Copying as Everyday Entrepreneurial Practice: The Social Worlds of Software Discs in Hanoi.” Center for New Media, UC Berkeley. 2012 “Dark Matter,” Machine Project Room, Los Angeles. 2010 Values in Design Workshop.
Institute of Public Knowledge and Humanities, New York University. 2010 Reflections on Visualization. Transliteracies Research-Oriented Social Environment Design Charrette. UC Santa Barbara.
SELECTED AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND GRANTS 2012 – 13 UCLA Graduate Division Dissertation Year Fellowship (university merit award) 2011 – 12 Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship (national competition) 2010 – 11 Fulbright IIE Fellowship (national competition) 2010 – 11 National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant (national competition) 2009 UCLA Graduate Division Summer Research Mentorship Award (university merit award) 2008 UCLA Graduate Division Summer Research Mentorship Award (university merit award) 2006 UC Diversity Initiative for Graduate Study in the Social Sciences Fellowship (university merit award) 2006 – 10 Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship (university merit award) PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES AND SERVICE Selected Conference and Panel Organization 2013 14th International Free Software Workshop. Porto Alegre, Brazil. Program committee member.
2009 Towards a Postcolonial Information Studies. iConference: Annual Meeting of the iSchools Caucus. Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 2009 Navigating Multi-disciplinary Spaces: Reporting on the UC iSchools PhD Workshop.
iConference: Annual Meeting of the iSchools Caucus. Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 2009 UC Information Studies Graduate Student Workshop. Program committee member.
2007 Technologies of Forgetting and Exclusion: Case Studies in the Social Benefits of Forgetting. Annual Conference of the Society for the Social Studies of Science. Department and University Service 2008 - 09 Student representative to the Doctoral Program Committee, Dept.