This article explores the sanctifying power of technology and digital
imagery, and its use for local political action. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken
in northeastern Thailand, the author examines how a photograph of a
tree and its presentation on a laptop computer were used to save the tree
from being cut down. He shows how a unique combination of rhetorical
strategy and commodity fetishism, when coupled with the digital image,
rendered the tree sacred and therefore untouchable; this was possible due
to the cultural identity of rural villagers, who imagine themselves
simultaneously as both rural and national. |