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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 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?