WHY STUDY TECHNICAL NETWORKS?

Abstract

Ever-present and indispensable, silent and resounding, technical networks comprise an incredible diversity of functionally intertwined devices and objects, all of which are commanded by politics and required by productive systems, circulation, consumption, and a life of relationships. However, these are not the only factors that may be useful in answering the question posed by the title of this article. Technical networks constitute an object of study because they are symptomatic of a world that is connected and fluid but also, and above all, controlled, segregated, plundered, and growingly unhealthy. They form a special geographic plot not only by structuring territories, but also by fostering a growingly complex, intense, and fast-paced association of places, in addition to acting as vectors of control, segregation, and unprecedented plundering processes. Moreover, they have been used as elements of surveillance, manipulation, and dissemination of totalitarian policies in various parts of the world by those responsible for affecting the daily lives and garnering the attention of countless people. The answers to this article’s central question are presented in four sections. They come forth as a call for denaturalising technical networks, an attitude which may inspire us to track down their chains of command, open the map, and identify the arrangements, uses, and processes that underlie power schemes and, in countries like Brazil, a lingering backwardness.