Abstract
This paper turns to the introduction of 5G services to the Rafik Hariri International airport in Beirut, Lebanon, in September of 2019. This came just weeks before the country’s national mobilizations protesting decades of deteriorating socioeconomic conditions and successive corrupt governments. While international headlines focused on the state’s announcement of a “Whatsapp Tax” which directly preceded the mass protests, this project is interested in the airport services for the online commentary that it provoked around national Internet speeds. It turns to a collection of Tweets in which users responded to state-owned telecommunications company, Ogero, announcing faster speeds for travelers. These Tweets articulated points of comparison between the airport speeds and the much slower speeds in homes across Lebanon. By examining these “speed test” screenshots, this paper offers an understanding of infrastructure through the analytics of “differential inclusion” (Mezzadra & Nielson 2013, Puar 2012) and “differential mobility” (Langan 2001). Turning to the points of comparison that users make, between one another and between themselves and the state, points to what is sensed and embodied, but only becomes articulated through the thresholds materialized by the introduction of 5G and other differential practices. In this way, this framework helps to unsettle dominant discourses about political mobilization which begin with essentialized conceptions of sectarianism or functionalist political process models by offering an understanding of the different capacities afforded to particular bodies. Ultimately, it offers that rather than serving as repressive or constraining measures, such policies can also materialize the very grounds from which to mount political refusal.
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