[STS-Africa] Call for abstracts - Global South Perspectives

[Clare Stevens]

Repair Under Fire: The Politics of Maintaining Digital Infrastructures in Adversarial Contexts Special Issue for Theory, Culture & Society
Guest Editors: Fabio Cristiano (Utrecht University), Clare Stevens (Cardiff University), Giovanni Navarria (Cardiff University)
We are seeking additional contributions to this forthcoming special issue, and are particularly interested in hearing from scholars whose work engages with digital infrastructure maintenance in and from the Global South.
The special issue investigates what adversarial conditions do to repair and maintenance as political practices, and what difference infrastructural scale makes. We have received strong proposals from scholars working on cybersecurity governance, submarine cables, intelligence infrastructure, and platform politics, but the current contributor pool is predominantly based in and focused on the Global North. This matters intellectually, not only for reasons of inclusion: the politics of digital infrastructure maintenance look fundamentally different from the Global South, and the special issue's argument is incomplete without these perspectives.
In many Global South contexts, the adversarial conditions shaping infrastructure maintenance are not primarily state-sponsored cyber operations or geopolitical confrontation, but also structural neglect, extractive design, postcolonial dependency, and the imposition of technological systems built without local communities in mind. Repair and maintenance in these contexts involve improvisation, workaround, and creative adaptation that challenge the assumptions of Western repair scholarship. Questions about who builds infrastructure, who maintains it, and on whose terms take on different political valence when the infrastructure is Chinese-built, externally owned, or designed for extraction rather than service. And the 2024 submarine cable cuts across Africa, which disrupted connectivity for millions, demonstrated that the global distribution of repair capacity is itself a political question with profound consequences for the Global South.
We welcome abstracts that engage with themes including, but not limited to:

  *   The politics of digital infrastructure repair, maintenance, and neglect in African, Asian, Latin American, or other Global South contexts
  *   Informal and community-based practices of keeping digital systems going, and their relationship to formal governance and policy frameworks
  *   The maintenance dimensions of digital sovereignty, data colonialism, and externally built infrastructure (including but not limited to Chinese-built ICT systems)
  *   How the geography of repair capacity (repair ships, technical expertise, spare parts, specialist knowledge) shapes who can restore connectivity and on what terms
  *   Environmental and labour dimensions of digital infrastructure maintenance in the Global South
  *   Whether and how concepts from the repair and maintenance literature (care, invisible labour, breakdown, persistence) travel to Global South contexts, or need rethinking

We are particularly keen to hear from scholars based in the Global South, and from early career researchers. Travel bursaries are available for the manuscript-development workshop at Cardiff University in early 2027.
Submission details
Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words, accompanied by a short biographical note (100 words) and institutional affiliation, to stevensc15 at cardiff.ac.uk by 6 August 2026. Abstracts should indicate the empirical or theoretical focus of the proposed contribution and how it speaks to the special issue's themes.
The full call for abstracts and further details on the special issue can be found here<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fURwZPC-sudjTztUXReWs2QdEGs-uqOCd_P_TyUWKhE/edit?usp=sharing>.
We are happy to discuss potential contributions informally before submission.
Best wishes,
Clare, Fabio, and Giovanni


Dr Clare Stevens

Lecturer in International Relations

​​Room 0.07 Law Building | School of Law & Politics

Cardiff University

Law Building

Museum Avenue

Cardiff CF10 3AX



Phone: +44 (0)29 22 510082


 https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/stevensc15


The University welcomes correspondence in Welsh or English. Corresponding in Welsh will not lead to any delay.



Cardiff University is a registered charity. No 1136855

Dr Clare Stevens

Darlithydd mewn Cysylltiadau Rhyngwladol

Ystafell ​0.07 Adeilad y Gyfraith | Ysgol y Gyfraith a Gwleidyddiaeth

Prifysgol Caerdydd

Adeilad y Gyfraith

Rhodfa'r Amgueddfa

Caerdydd CF10 3AX



Ffôn : +44 (0)29 22 510082


https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/stevensc15


Mae'r Brifysgol yn croesawu gohebiaeth yn Gymraeg neu'n Saesneg. Ni fydd gohebu yn Gymraeg yn creu unrhyw oedi.



Mae Prifysgol Caerdydd yn elusen gofrestredig. Rhif 1136855






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