TY - JOUR
T1 - Digitalising the State
T2 - Data Centres and the Power of Exchange
AU - Maguire, James
AU - Winthereik, Brit Ross
PY - 2019/9/6
Y1 - 2019/9/6
N2 - Big-Tech’s data centres have recently emerged as important socio-political figures in the ongoing digitalisation of the Danish state. Locating vast swathes of data in a country renowned for its renewable energy has prompted a series of questions about the nature of the relationship between these two actors. Our ethnographic interest resides in analysing how, and why, Denmark is rapidly becoming Europe’s primary US data centre location, and in exploring the transformative processes through which the Danish state is being reconfigured as digital. In doing so, we emphasise the role of infrastructures in digital state-making and draw upon a particular reading of anthropological exchange theory to conceptualise how the state is being reconstituted through exchange practices with data centre actors. We argue that as Big-Tech territorialises state land and resources, the state in turn reterritorializes the promising digital futures that come with Big-Tech, making visible its new digital frontier.
AB - Big-Tech’s data centres have recently emerged as important socio-political figures in the ongoing digitalisation of the Danish state. Locating vast swathes of data in a country renowned for its renewable energy has prompted a series of questions about the nature of the relationship between these two actors. Our ethnographic interest resides in analysing how, and why, Denmark is rapidly becoming Europe’s primary US data centre location, and in exploring the transformative processes through which the Danish state is being reconfigured as digital. In doing so, we emphasise the role of infrastructures in digital state-making and draw upon a particular reading of anthropological exchange theory to conceptualise how the state is being reconstituted through exchange practices with data centre actors. We argue that as Big-Tech territorialises state land and resources, the state in turn reterritorializes the promising digital futures that come with Big-Tech, making visible its new digital frontier.
KW - data centres, digitalisation, Big-Tech, the state, energy, infrastructure
U2 - 10.1080/00141844.2019.1660391
DO - 10.1080/00141844.2019.1660391
M3 - Journal article
SN - 0014-1844
JO - Ethnos
JF - Ethnos
ER -