Speculation on infrastructural ecology: Pigeons, Gaza, and internet access

Abstract

This article proposes an Internet Pigeon Network as a prototype and a critique. As a prototype, it is a speculation for a community-organized, affordable, resilient internet infrastructure for the Gaza Strip that brings together different modes of building communication networks: one draws on millennia-long history of the pigeon post and the other on contemporary local WiFi and do-it-yourself networks. As a critique, it is a commentary on the possibility of establishing an infrastructure that is equitable, adaptable, sustainable, and grounded by the collaborative effort between humans, animals, and the environment that sets it in motion. The article discusses such a prototype’s implications on mobility and the goal of an infrastructural ecology.

Infrastructural politics in the Middle East and North Africa: Pasts, presents, futures

“…Finally, Helga Tawil-Souri (2022) takes us into the realm of the speculative to find resources for hope in more-than-human emancipatory infrastructures. Taking up the question of infrastructure in Gaza, a territory that is severely restricted and constantly under threat of military destruction by Israel, Tawil-Souri argues that, “this condition inevitably forces creativity.” That same creativity provides resources for hope, rendering a different world possible.…”