Abstract
Almost 5 billion people—two thirds of the global population—now go online. The Internet has changed how we work, learn, govern, and fall in love. Yet despite its digital turn, geography has failed to grapple with the patterns and significance of Internet connection for rural people and places, particularly in the Global South. This article brings together agrarian studies and digital geography to situate emergent online practices within longer trajectories of agrarian change. To do so, I advance the concept of the digital village, a networked social space in which online practices emerge from existing agrarian relations to reconfigure the strategies of economic survival, the landscapes of home, and the tactics of politics. Drawing on ethnographic research in Myanmar, I show how agrarian relations shape patterns of digital connection and how farmers, migrants, and grassroots activists incorporate Facebook into daily efforts to secure livelihoods, support communities, and mobilize in struggles over land. This analysis yields two key insights: first, digital geographies are embedded in rural relations; second, agrarian questions increasingly play out online.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2096-2110 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Annals of the American Association of Geographers |
| Volume | 112 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2022 |
Funding
Research was supported by an International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council, a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and Cornell University. Writing was supported by a Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellowship from the University of California, Berkeley. I am deeply indebted to friends, research assistants and research participants in Myanmar who welcomed and taught me. Maggie Jack and Jenny Goldstein got me interested in studying digital connection. Wendy Wolford, Kendra Kintzi, Andrew Ofstehage, Ryan Nehring, Delilah Griswold, Mike Cary, Ewan Robinson, Karla Pena, Fernando Galeana Rodriguez, Shae Frydenlund, Kendra Strauss, and two anonymous reviewers provided thoughtful and constructive feedback. Nancy Peluso and Desiree Fields provided encouragement and advice on writing theory from their respective kitchen tables.
| Funders |
|---|
| Social Science Research Council |
| University of California at Berkeley |
| Cornell University |
Keywords
- Myanmar
- agrarian studies
- critical data studies
- digital geography
- social media