This review of Chapter 8, "Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: Indigenous Internet Infrastructure" by Christian Sandvig is part of "crowd-sourced book review" project organized by Humanities, Arts, Science Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC)

Fiona Barnett

Iskandar Zulkarnain

Humanities Commons

SIGN IN JOIN HELP CONTACTHome ∠ Groups ∠ Scholars∠ Ch. 8: Christian Sandvig, "Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: Indigenous Internet Infrastructure"About Explore Initiatives Events & OpportunitiesIskandarZulkarnainPhD Student in Visualand Cultural StudiesUniversity ofRochesterTopicSocial & PoliticalIssuesSub TopicsRace & EthnicityPage Views: 188 " 96BLOG POSTCh. 8: Christian Sandvig,"Connection at EwiiaapaaypMountain: Indigenous InternetInfrastructure"By Iskandar Zulkarnainon March 15, 2012# $ + & +Part of the Distributed Book Review of Race After the Internet, ed.by Lisa Nakamura and Peter Chow-White Review of Chapter 8, "Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain:Indigenous Internet Infrastructure" by Christian Sandvig  What does technology infrastructure tell us about race/ethnicity? Well,according to Christian Sandvig, it could say a lot. In his chapter“Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain,” Sandvig describes how the' SEARCHCh. 8: Christian Sandvig, "Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: In... https://www.hastac.org/blogs/zhoel13/2012/03/15/ch-8-christian-san...1 of 6 5/16/18, 6:37 PMTagsrace after theinternetacademiaGroupsScholarsScholar Class 2012Reviews of'Race After theInternet'Welcome to ourCrowdsourcedBook Review on"Race After TheInternet"Introduction:Nakamura andChow-White, "Raceand DigitalTechnology: Code,the Color Line andthe InformationSocietyCh. 1: TaraMcPherson, "U.S.Operating Systemsat Mid-Century"Ch. 2: Wendy HuiKyong Chun, "RaceAnd/as Technology,Or How To DoThings To Race."history and politics of racial/ethnic inequality play a substantial role inthe formation/construction of Internet infrastructure. Looking at TribalDigital Village (hereafter, TDV)—a multimillion dollars developmentalproject to build a wireless Internet network for Native Americanreservation lands in Southern California—as his case study, Sandvigargues that providing wireless Internet infrastructure on such a placeas Native American reservations is different from providing aconnection in the affluent suburbs of San Diego. The difference, headds, is not necessarily a matter of different methods of constructionper se. It also reflects issues such as identity politics and technologicalappropriation as well as innovation. Combining communication theory with ethnographic approach,Sandvig reveals the problematic status of TDV as a developmentalproject. Proposed by Hans-Werner Braun—a German-born engineerwith a long and distinguished career in computer networking—theTDV’s rationales emphasize technology transfer, poverty, and culturalpatrimony, elements that expertly cater to the instrumentalist demandof public policy and philanthropic subsidy. These rationales overlookthe history of Native Americans’ forced migration, which has unfairlyrelocated their homes to an “offline-by-design” environment, i.e.inhospitable lands with extreme conditions (172-74, 183). The result ofthese rationales is a moral burden for the indigenous people who areusing this subsidized infrastructure. They have to justify their use of theInternet as educational while for the most part what they want (andwhat they actually do) is to be able to use the Internet just likeeveryone else, such as opening up MySpace account (a case that willbe discussed further in the next chapter by Danah Boyd) or playingonline games. Moreover, Sandvig also describes that because of this naturallyinhospitable environment, the TDV project had to design theirinfrastructure in a different way than what the commercial wirelessinfrastructures—such as AT&T—would do. The TDV producers had to“appropriate” the intended uses of such things and devices asantennas, wireless towers, and car batteries in order to build asuccessful wireless Internet distribution network. While thisCh. 8: Christian Sandvig, "Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: In... https://www.hastac.org/blogs/zhoel13/2012/03/15/ch-8-christian-san...2 of 6 5/16/18, 6:37 PMCh. 3: RayvonFouché, "FromBlack Inventors toOne Laptop PerChild: Exporting aRacial Politics ofTechnology"Ch. 4: CurtisMarez, "CesarChavez, the UnitedFarm Workers, andthe History of StarWars,"Ch. 5: AlexanderGalloway, "Doesthe WhateverSpeak?"Ch. 7: AnnaEverett, "Have WeBecome PostracialYet? Race andMedia Technologyin the Age ofPresident Obama"Ch. 8: ChristianSandvig,"Connection atEwiiaapaaypMountain:Indigenous InternetInfrastructure"Ch. 9: danah boyd,"White Flight inNetworked Publics:How Race & ClassShaped AmericanTeen Engagementwith MySpace &FacebookCh. 10: EszterHargittai, "Opendoors, closedspaces:differentiatedadoption of socialnetwork sites byuser background"" 96technological appropriation in the end leads to an innovative wirelesssystem in many ways and has transformed the Native Americansinvolved in the project from mere users to highly skilled producers ofwireless technology, Sandvig reminds us that the TDV’s appropriationspeaks for a very different perspective than the increasingly populardiscourse of countercultural and subversive technologicalappropriation in cases like hackers and phreaks. Instead, it is—inSandvig’s terms—an “appropriation toward parity,” where rather thanbeing an “engine of difference,” it aspires to become “engines ofsimilarity in the development of technological infrastructures” (191original italics). Just like the users, these Native American producerswould rather have a normal wireless system than what they have built.Yet, they had to build an unorthodox system because they had noother choice. As Sandvig aptly puts it, “[i]nnovation, in this context, isboth liberating and oppressive at the same time” (190). Overall, Sandvig is successful in unfolding the complexities oftechnological infrastructure establishment, especially in regions withspecific histories of racial and ethnic injustice. While I find his divisionof the indigenous producers and users sometimes inflexible, I believe itis strategically necessary to point out the serious disconnect betweeneveryday uses of the Internet and the rhetoric of subsidizing it. Thedivision is also useful to underscore the presence of identity politicssuch as tribal sovereignty in the establishment of technologicalinfrastructure, an activity that sometimes is taken for granted. In theend, I agree with Sandvig’s statement that learning the case of theTDV, it “provides us with a new way to think about technologicalchange and human identity” (194).2 commentsthank youCh. 8: Christian Sandvig, "Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: In... https://www.hastac.org/blogs/zhoel13/2012/03/15/ch-8-christian-san...3 of 6 5/16/18, 6:37 PMCh. 11: Wilson andCostanza-Chock,"New Voices on theNet? The DigitalJournalism Divideand the Costs ofNetwork Exclusion"Ch. 12: AlondraNelson and JeongWon Hwang:“Roots andRevelation: GeneticAncestry Testingand the YouTubeGeneration”Ch. 13: PeterChow-White,"GenomicDatabases And AnEmerging DigitalDivide InBiotechnology"Ch. 14: TroyDuster, “TheCombustibleIntersection:Genomics,Forensics, andRace.”Similar ContentWelcome to ourCrowdsourcedBook Review on"Race After TheInternet""StatisticalSignificance v.SubstantiveSignificance"Empty Spaces?:6 years ago Log in or register to post comments6 years ago Log in or register to post commentsniftycThank you for this review, Iskandar. I enjoyed reading it and I'mglad the chapter was useful to you.Christianthank youzhoel13Thank you for your comment, Christian. I do find useful insightsfrom your article that I can use for a chapter in my dissertationabout appropriation in the development of internet infrastructure inIndonesia. I'm happy I chose your article for the review.PS. Sorry for the long delay in responding to your comment, I wasout of town and only had limited internet connection." 84 |" 101 |Ch. 8: Christian Sandvig, "Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: In... https://www.hastac.org/blogs/zhoel13/2012/03/15/ch-8-christian-san...4 of 6 5/16/18, 6:37 PMBy accessing this site you agree to be bound by the Legal Agreement.We respect your privacy: Read the HASTAC privacy policy.Except where otherwise noted, all content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.IndigenousPeoples and Euro-American Maps ofthe ColonialSouthwestGeolocatingIdentity: AReconciliationProjectThe Four C's of theInternetCommonwealth-Part 3:CompletenessCh. 8: Christian Sandvig, "Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: In... https://www.hastac.org/blogs/zhoel13/2012/03/15/ch-8-christian-san...5 of 6 5/16/18, 6:37 PMCh. 8: Christian Sandvig, "Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: In... https://www.hastac.org/blogs/zhoel13/2012/03/15/ch-8-christian-san...6 of 6 5/16/18, 6:37 PM

Ch. 8: Christian Sandvig, "Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: Indigenous Internet Infrastructure"

https://hcommons.org/deposits/download/hc:19282/CONTENT/ch.-8-christian-sandvig-connection-at-ewiiaapaayp-mountain-indigenous-internet-infrastructure-hastac.pdf/

Ch. 8: Christian Sandvig, "Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: Indigenous Internet Infrastructure"

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Humanities Commons