Send message to Author

Short abstract:

Exploring the material and institutional nexus of electricity and the internet, revealing their historic trajectories and socio-political implications in post-colonial India.

Long abstract:

This ongoing research delves into the coevolution of the electric grid and the internet within post-colonial landscapes. Infrastructures are viewed as relational and co-produced, reflecting broader social, institutional, and political networks (Bowker et al., 2009; Edwards, 2010; Star & Ruhleder, 1996). The study examines the material, temporal, and ideological dimensions of infrastructural development, analysing how technological networks reflect and reproduce broader socio-political dynamics. I aim to recouple electricity and the internet beyond notions of demand and supply of energy and/or data.

Media scholars like Starosielski (2015) uncover colonial histories embedded in undersea cable networks, revealing how imperial legacies persist in contemporary infrastructures. Research in urban contexts illustrates how ICT infrastructures intersect with basic services, perpetuating socio-economic disparities (Broto & Sudhira, 2019; Lim, 2018; Guma, 2019). This research further explores the nexus between the internet and electricity in India, paying attention to how they are materially and ideologically symbiotic.

Drawing on Hughes' notion of large technical systems (1982) and Edwards' (2010) infrastructural inversion, the temporal, infrastructural, and ideological dimensions of the electric grid and the internet are compared and analysed. The notion of "infrastructural imaginaries" further illustrates how the internet becomes interwoven with national development narratives, perpetuating colonial trajectories of control (Mukherjee, 2019). This study aims to provide insights into the dynamics of technology, power, ownership, and colonial legacies in shaping contemporary infrastructures. Through historical and document analysis, it extends to post-colonial contexts, where infrastructures are shaped by colonial legacies.