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Paper short abstract:

This paper applies the analytical notion of infrastructural power to empirical background research in Spain to critically explore the production of new forms of dissonant governance, where public necessities are outsourced to private corporations.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years, Big Tech companies have massively invested in the creation of data centres in Spain, turning the country into their Southern European digital hub. The key factors orienting this choice are the country’s favourable geographic position, “a bridge between continents”, easy reach by submarine cables, and the possibility of benefiting from some tax reductions on consumables such as water and electricity. In an increasingly digital society, data centres are an essential part of the concealed infrastructure people use to perform everyday activities, providing essential services (hosting, software, hardware etc.) to thousands of private companies and public institutions. The fact that such privately owned infrastructure serves as the backbone of public services makes a case for the dissonance between the essential importance of digital services and the private property and management of the infrastructure necessary to provide them. This paper applies the analytical notion of infrastructural power (Mann 1984) to empirical background research in Spain to critically explore the production of new forms of dissonant governance, where public necessities are outsourced to private corporations. Big Tech infrastructural power situates them in a governing position to manage essential services (both physical and digital) provided by the state. This power delineates an ongoing reconfiguration of the relation between the realms of political power and that of the market actors. How can the government ensure appropriate legislation without conflict of interest?

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Paper short abstract:

Motivated by the desire to secure "Digital Sovereignty", Germany and the European Union plan not only to expand 5G mobile networks, but also to develop future 6G networks My contribution explores the imaginaries of 6G networks, of what they do, who they serve and what (geo-)politics they enable.

Paper long abstract:

The EU's "Digital Decade" entails not only the expansion of fifth-generation mobile networks ("5G"), but also the development of sixth generation ("6G") networks. EU and German-Funded 6G Networks are expected to further increase bandwidth, lower latency, and make Networks "smarter". Crucially, they are also expected to secure "technological Sovereignty" (EC 2023) in the face of geo-economic conflicts, throwing the (geo-)politics of infrastructure into sharp relief (Glasze et al 2022, Musiani 2022).

Attending to the development and deployment of mobile communication networks reveals a complex arrangement of state and supra-state actors, scientific institutions, network operators, hardware manufacturers and standardization bodies. Which visions of what these networks do, whom they serve and what politics they enable prevail in this context? Based on an interests in the regimes of difference that underly discourses and practices of sovereignty (Bonilla 2017, cf. Balibar 2004), my contribution to this panel will draw on fieldwork at Research and Development meetings, interviews with expert and practitoiners as well as document analyses to explore these questions. Investigating these "Infrastructural imaginaries" (Mattern 2017) of next-generation mobile networks might illuminate if and how statecraft is reconfigured when sovereignty becomes a question of digital infrastructure development.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the digitization of the electric grid system. Digital aggregation of decentralized production units provides forms of controlling the electric grid – a natural monopoly – through programmes and algorithms, intertwining with the existing power infrastructure while reshaping it.

Paper long abstract:

Energy systems are said to be subject to a twin transition of decarbonisation and digitisation (Sareen and Müller 2023) or to three Ds: decarbonisation, decentralisation and digitalisation (di Silvestre et al. 2018). The trend to mega wind and solar parks makes decentralisation subject to debate and to global investment, yet volatile and smaller units of power generation require a digital control in order to keep the electricity grid stable and secure. We hence see the digitisation of electricity infrastructures (e.g. through the installation of boxes aggregating several small units of power generation into a Virtual Power Plant) and at the same time the establishment of a digital infrastructure, i.e. of programmes and algorithms that tend to determine and steer energy production, transmission and sale. Through examining the way Virtual Power Plants find way into and function within the European electricity grid, I disentangle technical and economic frameworks that shape the grid we all have come to take for granted. I will show how established forms of controlling the grid – a natural monopoly characterized through increasing electricity consumption – differ from and overlap with control through applications and programmes.

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Paper short abstract:

Trust is becoming a key term in the expansion of digital infrastructures. Through a multi-sited ethnographic lens, this paper explores how trust is operationalised and envisioned on various levels of digital infrastructures, reflecting on its connections to state sovereignty and self-sovereignty.

Paper long abstract:

Trust is becoming a key term in the expansion and development of digital infrastructures. In the still early planning of 6G, overlapping with the 5G network, initiatives like the European flagship project Hexa-X, envision in-built trustworthiness as a key value in the future network technology. Claiming to embodying so-called a “human-centric value”, embracing privacy, integrity, security, trustworthy systems will protect both state-to-citizen and interstate relations against untrustworthy actors and criminal intrusion. In-built trust systems are also essential in the development of state and intrastate administrational digital infrastructures, digital identity being an example. One of the technologies proposed for in-built trust is distributed ledger technologies (DLT), blockchain being the one that has gained the most attention. Although appearing in various forms, this is also a technology used in anti-state alternative financial crypto currency circles to purportedly protect individuals’ privacy and integrity from state interference, promoting self-sovereignty over state sovereignty. Through a multi-sited ethnographic lens, this paper explores how trust is operationalised and envisioned on various levels of digital infrastructures. Following trust and distrust, this paper reflects on technologies of trust and their connection to state sovereignty and self-sovereignty.

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Paper short abstract:

Moving from current literature and an ethnographic study on a cryptocurrency community, this study explores the conflicting values surrounding blockchain as a technology and how they are solved by enthusiasts. What is noted is the general return of irrational, violent factors

Paper long abstract:

Drawing from ethnographic research I conducted on a cryptocurrency community and engaging with contemporary literature, this study scrutinizes the intricate conflicts and moral dilemmas inherent in blockchain technology. It explores the re-emergence of irrational and violent factors characterizing both the financial sphere and blockchain technology, challenging the Weberian notion of modernity as a disenchanted world.

Central to this investigation is the concept of techno-feudalism, a term employed here to describe the current shift in capitalistic societies marked by the lack of dialogue, the return of mysticism, and the growth of unproductive activities. This research highlights how cryptocurrencies fit into this new phase of capitalism, examining the continuity rather than the rupture they are supposed to represent. It will be presented how, despite their rhetoric on decentralization, crypto-communities present internal inequalities and conflicts, silencing discontents through moralistic sentences. In this sense, the material and technical development is coupled with and supports the resurgence of pre-modern, feudal traits and the intensification of capitalism's violent characteristics.

To show how they participate in the suppression of any form of contemporary politics, it will be analyzed how these communities react when hit by a crisis, that is when funds are stolen or a coin loses its value. What emerges is circular reasoning and the consequential defense of conflicting crypto ethics and principles, that are identical to markets' ones. The technology itself is never questioned; it's always fault of the single user, leading us to use Marcel Mauss' theory of magic to understand these communities

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Paper short abstract:

Automation in logistics and cloud computing leads to a proliferation of time protocols and standards, which spawn new labour subjectivities in the warehouse, defined through their relation to industrial temporality.

Paper long abstract:

The problem of temporality is a key logistical conundrum for automation. Concerned with the transfer of packets of data, network protocols and new standards for AI and IoT produce a multitude of concepts and practices of time, such as hard and soft real time, time-sensitive networking, Amazon Time Sync Service and Amazon CloudWatch that straddle the contradiction between universality and infrastructural enclosures. The paper explores the contradictory production of time on the network and the fractured and uneven temporalities that emerge on the shop floor as a result of these drives for standardisation. Rather than a homogenised rapid pace, the logic of temporal control fragments the pace of work and relies on the emergence of labour subjects who exist outside of the push for fast productivity.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the impact of digital infrastructures on the (re)production of a complex set of data practices intertwined with social, economic, and political power dynamics, exploring the way migrant activism in Scandinavian countries resists the impact of strengthened digital borders.

Paper long abstract:

Over the last few years, the already restrictive migration regimes have been reinforced by integrating digital infrastructures such as surveillance systems, data extraction mechanisms, and automated decision-making processes. The present paper examines the impact of digital infrastructures on the (re)production of a complex set of data practices intertwined with social, economic, and political power dynamics. The research explores specifically the way migrant activism in Scandinavian countries resists the effects of strengthened digital borders.

The article focuses on two main questions: firstly, to what extent civil society actors concerned with data extraction and privacy protection address the current state of migration governance as a sandbox for surveillance technologies (Molnar, 2021)? Secondly, how the traditional practices of support, rights advocacy, or protest of migrant solidarity activists have been affected by the current techno-borderscapes (Godin & Doná, 2021)?

The empirical contribution of the paper focuses on two specific regional phenomena: first, the way Scandinavian solidarity actors navigate the shifts in migration and surveillance policies balancing between cooperation and contentious politics (Kanellopolous et al., 2020). Second, onhow ¨postethnic¨ activism addresses migrant surveillance and anti-racism (Keskinen, 2022)?

The paper is structured as follows: first, a short literature review explores the (im)possibilities of activism in the landscape of migrant surveillance. Second, recent debates on data practices are examined from a social justice perspective, focusing on concepts like data justice (Dencik& Sanchez-Monedero, 2022) and data solidarity (Braun & Hummel, 2022). Finally, the results of the case studies of the two civil society actors mentioned above are presented.

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Paper long abstract:

This paper is based on ethnographic research with the Regensburg-based NGO Space-Eye and its associates. Space-Eye´s goal is to combine artificial intelligence and satellite images to support civil sea-rescue missions. I use the Space-Eye project as a gateway to engage with currently developing aerial, satellite, and maritime surveillance infrastructures in the Mediterranean border zone of the ‘other side’, namely Frontex´s Aerial Surveillance Services (FASS) as part of the digital infrastructure of the EU’s external border surveillance information exchange framework (EUROSUR). By utilizing both a technographic and volumetric approach, my aim is to add ‘volume and technological flesh’ to the “turbulent materialities” of the Mediterranean border zone.

I want to exemplify Frontex´s attempts to ‘secure the volume’ in air, space, and in-between the two by means of three aerial/satellite surveillance technologies: the ‘Heron 1’ drone, the ‘European Data Relay Satellite System’ (EDRS) and ‘High Altitude Pseudo-Satellites’ (HAPS). I want to show how ‘sovereignty and geopolitical power are made on top of technological objects and the algorithms that operate them’.

In a second step, I want to show how technologies such as UAVs, the EDRS, or HAPS as part of the digital infrastructure of EUROSUR are entangled with legal frameworks and imaginations of the Mediterranean on sea level. I want to exemplify the entanglement of surveillance tools on sea, air, space, and digital level with the Libyan SAR-zone, where a ‘legal fiction’ gained material life and ultimately reshaped the space of the Mediterranean for actors such as civil SAR missions.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper aims to characterise the strategies that activists against 5G implementation use to cohabitate with the 5G network in Santiago de Chile, making their homes a political statement against an enforced infrastructural change. Outside of them, nothing can be done. Or can it?

Paper long abstract:

The following paper aims to characterise the daily life practices that activists use to cohabitate with the 5G network in Santiago de Chile, focusing on technological and digital strategies. The presentation is part of doctoral research about the 5G rollout in Chile, where the fast update from 4G to 5G has been a core telecommunications policy. Mixing archival, ethnographic and digital methods, what seems to be a homogenous process in the name of development arises as a contested site for activists against implementing the infrastructure.

The preliminary results show the tension around cohabitating with a ubiquitous system that is visible in antennas, masts, cellphones and massive use, yet also invisible in its medium: non-ionising radiation. The preoccupations surrounding 5G are mainly about the biological effects of this type of radiation. Hence, activists have created several strategies to diminish non-ionising radiation in their homes, making the domestic space a political statement against an enforced infrastructural change. Outside of them, nothing can be done. Or can it? The strategies are technological, like using objects to reflect or encapsulate radiation, and digital, such as using social media to raise awareness of its effects or using apps and meters to sense the ether.

The paper ends with methodological reflections on studying mobile infrastructure. How do we deal with the different scales of the system? Both inside and outside of our homes, mobile systems can be intimate yet public, on a nightstand and in a plaza. What is the limit of ethnography in this endeavour?