Ephemeral Tokens and Ubiquitous Antennae: Reconfiguring Sovereignty through Digital Infrastructures
Mit: Tobias Boos, Ia Eradze, Alex Harder, Juan Grigera, Tahani Nadim, Bernd Kasparek
Digital infrastructures have traditionally been considered the hidden framework facilitating daily communication and exchange. However, more recently, they have emerged as crucial elements for both national and international sovereignty. Notably, digital payment systems like SWIFT, semiconductor manufacturing by companies such as TSMC and Nvidia, and the development of 5G telecommunication components have all gained significance in geopolitical and geo-economic contexts.
This heightened focus on the political aspects of infrastructure highlights the deep entanglement of our digital lives with global interdependencies and conflicts. It also sheds light on an emerging landscape of power, where influence is wielded through the control of data flows, the production of microchips or the establishment of communication standards. The questions arise: How does sovereignty evolve when exercised through and over digital technology? How can we explore this dynamic across various conceptual scales, ranging from the geopolitical to the everyday?
This roundtable aims to address these inquiries by delving into two areas where debates on sovereignty and digital infrastructure intersect: 1) the proliferation of cryptocurrencies and the related promises of an alternative financial infrastructure and technological modernization and 2) the advancement and expansion of fifth and sixth-generation mobile telecommunication networks (known as “5G” and “6G”) as initiatives aimed at achieving the European Union’s vision of “Digital Sovereignty.” In conversation with discussants, the roundtable explores if sovereignty is indeed reconfigured, and what it would mean to investigate such a transformation anthropologically.