The Cultural Operations of Undersea Networks

Over 99% of transoceanic data traffic is carried across the oceans by
undersea cables—these technologies comprise the backbone of the
global internet. This talk focuses on the maintenance of the cable
system, detailing the unseen labor and technopolitical formations
that sustain everyday internet connections. Through a discussion of
case studies spanning the Pacific, it reveals how the experience of
mediated wirelessness is accompanied by an increasing investment in
wires; intercontinental connections paradoxically require numerous
forms of disconnection; and our experience of global fluidity is made
possible by the relative stability of cable networks. Drawing from
field research on the maintenance and repair of undersea cables, the
talk offers a new imagination of digital infrastructure: as a durable
system that is shaped by the cultural practices of its operators.