Infrastructural action in Vietnam: Inverting the techno-politics of hacking in the global South

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of infrastructural action and argues that it serves as a useful analytical tool to understand hacking in the global South. Infrastructural action consists of the delicate ways in which people establish socio-technical connections when located along the margins of global modernity. In Vietnam, hacking is situated within the illicit circulations of global commodities. These circulations form pervasive infrastructures for clandestine importation of “hand-carried” goods into the country. Embedded within these circulations, hacking consists of a strategy for breaking into global techno-culture rather than breaking out of socio-technical limitations. By contextualizing hacking within the larger dilemmas of distance within global integration, this notion of infrastructural action serves as a critique of the techno-political ethos of transgression typical of hacking discourses in the global North.

“Hacking in” Wikipedia Zero in Angola

“…Indeed, their creative adaption practice can be seen as hacking the intended use and purpose of the Wikipedia media infrastructure by circulating cultural goods otherwise not available for free via mobile phones. This form of hacking is in line with Gabriella Coleman's (2014) definition of hacking as "a clever technical solution arrived at through non-obvious means" (p. 1) and with that of Lilly Nguyen (2016), who situates hacking in the Global South largely and more specifically in Vietnam, "within the illicit circulations of global commodities" (p. 638). This practice of "hacking in" the intended use of an infrastructure in the Global South can, as Nguyen (2016) argues, be connected to a form of illicit practice or piracy.…”

Beyond non-/use: The affected bystander and her escalation

“…At the same time, “more than use” emerges as a leitmotif in the study of making, hacking, repairing, and crafting—do-it-yourself (DIY) practices defiant of conventional distinctions between use and design (see, for example, Featherman, 2016; Houston et al, 2016; Kuznetsov et al, 2012; Lindtner, 2015; Nguyen, 2016; Ratto and Boler, 2014; Toombs et al, 2015; Wagenknecht and Korn, 2016). In light of this development, David Roedl et al (2015) argue that the literature on hacking, making, and related subjects introduces a discursive shift particularly in HCI research, a shift in which the once so central notion of the user loses its paradigmatic status and is increasingly accompanied, eclipsed even, by constructs such as “the maker” and “the hacker.” These constructs contrast the conventional user in that they convey a new subjectivity—“a subject that is empowered by the skills and abilities embodied in his or her material relationship to technology” (Roedl et al, 2015: 9).…”

Introduction: Computing in/from the South

“…They also elevate histories of computing outside the West as a means of creating an independent narrative around computing beyond the familiar story of geopolitical, state-driven competition (Sandoval, 2019). Finally, they turn to the work of other experts below, beyond, and yet connected to hegemonic circuits of power (Addo, 2017;Amrute, 2016;Murillo, 2019;Nguyen, 2016Prieto-Nanez, 2016Takhteyev, 2012).…”