Technical territories : data, subjects, and spaces in infrastructural Asia / Luke Munn

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Munn, Luke, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Information superhighway--Political aspects--Asia.

Information superhighway.

Information superhighway--Social aspects--Asia.

Sociotechnical systems--Asia.

Sociotechnical systems.

Information networks--Political aspects--Asia.

Information networks.

Information networks--Social aspects--Asia.

Information technology--Political aspects--Asia.

Information technology.

Information technology--Social aspects--Asia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2023.

Summary:

Territory is shifting. No longer defined by the dotted line of the border or the national footprint of soil, today's territories are enacted through data infrastructures. From subsea cables to server halls, these infrastructures underpin new forms of governance, shaping subjects and their everyday lives. Technical Territories moves from masked protestors in Hong Kong to asylum-seekers in Christmas Island and sand miners in Singapore, exploring how these territories are both political and visceral, altering the experience of their inhabitants. Infrastructures have now become geopolitical, strategic investments that advance national visions, extend influence, and trigger trade wars. Yet at the same time, these technologies also challenge sovereignty as a bounded container, enacting a more distributed and decoupled form of governance. Such "technical territories" construct new zones where subjects are assembled, rights are undermined, labor is coordinated, and capital is extracted. The stable line of the border is replaced by more fluid configurations of power. Luke Munn stages an interdisciplinary intervention over six chapters, drawing upon a wide range of literature from technical documents and activist accounts, and bringing insights from media studies, migration studies, political theory, and cultural and social studies to bear on these new sociotechnical conditions.

Contents:

Part I: technical territory

Introduction

Assembling technical territory

Part II: how to do things with territory

Countering the protestor in Hong Kong

Filtering the migrant on Christmas Island

Constructing the nation in Singapore

Part III: the future of territory

From the cloud to the edge

Unmaking and remaking territory.

Notes:

Title from eBook information screen..

Includes bibliographical references (pages 153-179) and index.

CC BY-NC-ND

Description based on information from the publisher.

ISBN:

9780472903375

0472903373

OCLC:

1376516024

Publisher Number:

10.3998/mpub.12584902

Access Restriction:

Open Access Unrestricted online access