Indian Ocean networks: Cable-laying companies and the contingency of empires

This long book chapter was published in Indian Ocean Imaginings: People, Time, and Space; edited by Joshua Esler and Mark Fielding (2022). My chapter explores the histories of corporate-state alliances represented by four companies that have laid international submarine cables in the Indian Ocean region in the last decade. The four companies are Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), SubCom, Nippon Electric Company (NEC) and Huawei Marine Network (HMN) Technologies. This chapter provides insights about network sovereignty in the Indian Ocean region and competing visions of globalization.

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