2 options
Infrastructure of a nation : politics of connectivity in india / Revati Prasad.
- Format:
- Book
- Thesis/Dissertation
- Author/Creator:
- Prasad, Revati, author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Communication.
- Web studies.
- Computer science.
- Political science.
- Communication--Penn dissertations.
- Penn dissertations--Communication.
- Local Subjects:
- Communication.
- Web studies.
- Computer science.
- Political science.
- Communication--Penn dissertations.
- Penn dissertations--Communication.
- Genre:
- Academic theses.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (258 pages)
- Contained In:
- Dissertations Abstracts International 83-03B.
- Place of Publication:
- [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] : University of Pennsylvania ; Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2020.
- Language Note:
- English
- System Details:
- Mode of access: World Wide Web.
- text file
- Summary:
- This dissertation examines the narratives of benevolence and national progress that underlie internet connectivity efforts that promise to "connect the unconnected" in rural India. Beginning with the apparent consensus among the national and state governments, foreign and domestic corporations, as well as NGOs and social enterprises about the need for internet connectivity, I explore the specificities of various efforts in order to understand what this internet connectivity is meant to do and for whom. I ask: when we say we are "connecting the unconnected" what are we connecting them to? What are we connecting them for? The dissertation examines three different internet connectivity efforts: a national telecommunications policy debate on zero-rating plans that pitted net neutrality advocates against telecom companies and Facebook, a state-level infrastructure project in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh that provided cable TV, internet and landline services to 650,000 rural households, and several community-level deployments of Wi-Fi networks built by small ISPs. I examined the design and materiality of these efforts, the economic, social and political arrangements they are embedded within and the larger goals they purported to serve. For chapter 2 I conducted a discourse analysis of the public debate on net neutrality. For the remaining two empirical chapters, I interviewed over 60 people across five Indian states: Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. I relied on Hecht's (2009) notion of technopolitics and Jasanoff's (2015) conception of sociotechnical imaginaries to understand the work being done by these infrastructure projects and the visions that lent them coherence and legitimation. I demonstrate how discourses of connectivity employ nationalism, how connectivity efforts can center extraction, consolidate power and what little room local networks have to thrive. I close by arguing that it is important to consider the technopolitics of connectivity, especially as the Indian state increasingly exerts greater control over internet infrastructure of connectivity, claims the data of its citizens as its own and begins to articulate a new doctrine of data sovereignty.
- Notes:
- Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 83-03, Section: B.
- Advisors: Kraidy, Marwan M; Committee members: Yang, Guobin; Lingel, Jessa.
- Department: Communication.
- Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 2020.
- Local Notes:
- School code: 0175
- ISBN:
- 9798535568140
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license.
- This item is not available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
- This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.
- This item must not be added to any third party search indexes.
The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.