Radical Infrastructures: Building Possibilities for a People's Internet
While it is common to think of the Internet as a static entity, it is not. Internet infrastructure has developed protocol-by-protocol over the last fifty years, guided by technical, social, political, environmental, and economic imperatives. Economic strife, decaying government apparatuses, health and environmental crises continue to shape how the Internet infrastructure is bound in physical and material requirements and situated in political and economic projects. Those interested in further conceptualization, regulation, and construction increasingly call upon Internet infrastructure to be reimagined, resulting in several proposals to rebuild parts of it, rehashed visions of the future from the past that subvert the political economic realities of Internet infrastructure, and hype around various dubious projects.
To critically examine and contextualize the promises, utility, and obstacles to these types of projects, this book project and related work focuses on discourse and practice around imagining and building a new Internet infrastructure from a number of sites. This works draws from 8 years of interviews, site visits, and document and policy analysis around alternative Internet infrastructure projects—from U.S.-based rural and indigenous Internet cooperatives, and community-run projects, rooted in different imaginaries, to broad-based tech and social justice organizing that includes mobilizing around aspects of Internet infrastructure in urban areas. The book contrasts these with hybrid venture capitalist, and academic interventions in Internet infrastructure that are hyped in rhetoric of radical solutions but that are ultimately market-driven solutions that fall short of any of any sort of radical, people-centered outcomes. The goal of this work is to encourage active reflection in the scholarly, policy, and activist communities surrounding the pitfalls and opportunities of existing Internet infrastructure by outlining approaches, positions, practices, and mobilizing activities, and through comparative case analysis, reveal more grounded imaginaries, tactics, and opportunities to develop and maintain a people-centered Internet infrastructure.
This book project is under contract with University of California Press, tentative expected publication release in Spring 2025.
To critically examine and contextualize the promises, utility, and obstacles to these types of projects, this book project and related work focuses on discourse and practice around imagining and building a new Internet infrastructure from a number of sites. This works draws from 8 years of interviews, site visits, and document and policy analysis around alternative Internet infrastructure projects—from U.S.-based rural and indigenous Internet cooperatives, and community-run projects, rooted in different imaginaries, to broad-based tech and social justice organizing that includes mobilizing around aspects of Internet infrastructure in urban areas. The book contrasts these with hybrid venture capitalist, and academic interventions in Internet infrastructure that are hyped in rhetoric of radical solutions but that are ultimately market-driven solutions that fall short of any of any sort of radical, people-centered outcomes. The goal of this work is to encourage active reflection in the scholarly, policy, and activist communities surrounding the pitfalls and opportunities of existing Internet infrastructure by outlining approaches, positions, practices, and mobilizing activities, and through comparative case analysis, reveal more grounded imaginaries, tactics, and opportunities to develop and maintain a people-centered Internet infrastructure.
This book project is under contract with University of California Press, tentative expected publication release in Spring 2025.
Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), 2022 presentation
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Paris, B., Cath, C., & Myers-West, S. (2023). Radical Infrastructure: Building Beyond the Failures of Past Imaginaries for Networked Communication. New Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231152546
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