Vamos a resolver: Collaboratively configuring the internet in Havana

Human-centered computing;Internet access;Cuba;Havana;CSCW;ICTD;Anthropology;Ethnography;Human infrastructure;Configuration;Collaboration

Dye, Michaelanne ; Bruckman, Amy S. Kumar, Neha Interactive Computing Grinter, Beki Best, Michael Gray, Mary L. Nemer, David ; Bruckman, Amy S.

University:Georgia Institute of Technology

Department:Interactive Computing

关键词: Human-centered computing;    Internet access;    Cuba;    Havana;    CSCW;    ICTD;    Anthropology;    Ethnography;    Human infrastructure;    Configuration;    Collaboration;   

Others  :  https://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/1853/61759/1/DYE-DISSERTATION-2019.pdf

美国|英语

来源: SMARTech Repository

【 摘 要 】

Globally, nearly four billion people do not have access to the world wide web (WWW), and efforts to expand WWW access are growing rapidly. Despite these initiatives, local and international barriers along political, economic, and social dimensions continue to limit meaningful Internet engagements for individuals in politically and resource-constrained contexts. I focus on the case of Havana, Cuba, where, until recently, WWW access was limited to 5 % of the population. Based on fieldwork and qualitative research conducted throughout 2014-2018, this dissertation provides an empirical study of how increasing access to the WWW interoperates with locally-configured information networks to form a “Cuban Internet.’’ Against the backdrop of international media narratives that frame Cuba as an “isolated” country, I investigate the emergence of grassroots information networks for knowledge-sharing through content sold on USB thumb drives (“El Paquete”) and an intranet custom-designed by citizens (“StreetNet”). I also explore the introduction of government-sponsored WWW access initiatives through select workplaces and public WiFi hotspots. In Havana, the imagined potentials of the WWW collide with the realities of scarcity and barriers to access, as people collaboratively configure an Internet sustained by a human infrastructure. Incorporating the Cuban ethos of resolver (creative problem-solving amidst scarcity), I uncover the collective enterprises and negotiations that go towards the production of the Internet in Havana, thereby challenging established notions of what an (or the) Internet “should” look like in more and less connected contexts.