Infrastructures of empire: towards a critical geopolitics of media and information studies

The Arab Uprisings of 2011 can be seen as a turning point for media and information studies scholars, many of whom newly discovered the region as a site for theories of digital media and social transformation. This work has argued that digital media technologies fuel or transform political change through new networked publics, new forms of connective action cultivating liberal democratic values. These works have, surprisingly, little to say about the United States and other Western colonial powers’ legacy of occupation, ongoing violence and strategic interests in the region. It is as if the Arab Spring was a vindication for the universal appeal of Western liberal democracy delivered through the gift of the Internet, social media as manifestation of the ‘technologies of freedom’ long promised by Cold War. We propose an alternate trajectory in terms of reorienting discussions of media and information infrastructures as embedded within the resurgence of idealized liberal democratic norms in the wake of the end of the Cold War. We look at the demise of the media and empire debates and ‘the rise of the BRICS’ (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) as modes of intra-imperial competition that complicate earlier Eurocentric narratives media and empire. We then outline the individual contributions for the special collection of essays

PANC Study (Pancreatitis: A National Cohort Study): national cohort study examining the first 30 days from presentation of acute pancreatitis in the UK

Abstract Background Acute pancreatitis is a common, yet complex, emergency surgical presentation. Multiple guidelines exist and management can vary significantly. The aim of this first UK, multicentre, prospective cohort study was to assess the variation in management of acute pancreatitis to guide resource planning and optimize treatment. Methods All patients aged greater than or equal to 18 years presenting with acute pancreatitis, as per the Atlanta criteria, from March to April 2021 were eligible for inclusion and followed up for 30 days. Anonymized data were uploaded to a secure electronic database in line with local governance approvals. Results A total of 113 hospitals contributed data on 2580 patients, with an equal sex distribution and a mean age of 57 years. The aetiology was gallstones in 50.6 per cent, with idiopathic the next most common (22.4 per cent). In addition to the 7.6 per cent with a diagnosis of chronic pancreatitis, 20.1 per cent of patients had a previous episode of acute pancreatitis. One in 20 patients were classed as having severe pancreatitis, as per the Atlanta criteria. The overall mortality rate was 2.3 per cent at 30 days, but rose to one in three in the severe group. Predictors of death included male sex, increased age, and frailty; previous acute pancreatitis and gallstones as aetiologies were protective. Smoking status and body mass index did not affect death. Conclusion Most patients presenting with acute pancreatitis have a mild, self-limiting disease. Rates of patients with idiopathic pancreatitis are high. Recurrent attacks of pancreatitis are common, but are likely to have reduced risk of death on subsequent admissions. </jats:sec

Telecom, national development and the Indian state: a postcolonial critique

This article examines how the global discourse of ‘telecom for development’ has clashed with competing discourses that critique Western modernity in the context of the postcolonial Indian state and its changing relationship to science, the market and national development. I draw from recent postcolonial theories of the nation state in order to locate a historically rooted debate on the role of technology in national development, which, I argue, lies at the heart of policy debates over telecom reform in India today. This article provides an historical examination of two distinct periods of telecom policy-making that preceded the era of globalization in the 1990s: a period of techno-nationalism between 1965 and 1980, and a period of techo-populism between 1980 and 1989. I argue that the ruptures in discourse that we trace in between these two periods, set the stage for future battles over reform. At stake in these debates, I argue, are differing claims on the postcolonial state that remain incomprehensible unless we engage with the complex questions of development and modernity

Governance Without Politics: Civil Society, Development and the Postcolonial State

In the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the G8 Summits and the World Bank, civil society organizations are often held up as the only legitimate institutional actors capable of representing and managing distributional inequities of a highly fractured information society. This paper locates the current role of civil society organizations in a longer history within the academic and policy fields of ‘development’ communications. While issues of access are clearly more central for Third World nations, this paper examines the social terrain behind the institutions of policy-making in the postcolonial contexts, specifically addressing debates between Southern and Northern perspectives in debates over the WSIS and the larger parameters of the Information Society. I argue that the dominant discourse on the digital divide—that between the North and South most generically—is rooted in assumptions about the neutrality of the category of civil society, devoid not just of history but of politics

Weak Winners of Globalization: Indian H-1B Workers in the American Information Economy

This article examines the complexity of the debate around the temporary worker visa known as the H-1B program for highly skilled foreign nationals. The debate against the H-1B visa program has been dominated by what feminist economist Naila Kabeer has argued are “coalitions of ‘powerful losers’ in the north seeking to claw back the gains made from international trade by ‘weak winners’ in the south” (Kabeer 2002). I argue that these metaphors are resonant in the debate over the H-1B visa program, where displaced American Information Technology (IT) workers conflate the role of Indian H-1B workers as both vulnerable victims of corporate greed and menacing threats to national prosperity and security, reinforcing both symbolic and institutional racism against this new category of Asian immigrant worker. Based on interviews with over 100 Indian H-1B workers, this paper challenges many of the assumptions about “indentured servitude,” and my findings suggest alternate policy alternatives to pitting the interests of “cheap Indian workers” against the interests of “Americans.