Communicating Colonialism?

My current PhD uses an ANT (Actor-Network Theory) approach to explore the development of telegraph, submarine cable, and wireless communication in Africa.

It takes three colonial 'dreams' as case studies: The Cape to Cairo route; the All-red Line; and the Imperial Wireless Scheme. It then follows the traces left by these 'dreams' in the archaeological and documentary record with the intention of creating new and interesting understandings of the intersection between colonialism and technology.

This ANT-archaeology tackles the notion of 'colonialism' head on and gives industrial archaeology a good revamp. It also raises some major questions about archaeological method and problematises concepts of context, agency, the social, and the technical.