The Politics of Thin Circuitries
The Politics of Thin Circuitries
Chapter 3 focuses on the electrification of Jaffa, the first practical step in Rutenberg’s countrywide electrification scheme. For the Palestinians, electrification helped constitute Palestine, conceptually and materially, as an object of national politics. The tactics that the nationalist movement adopted began from a technological fact, namely the young electric grid’s vulnerability to sabotage, which the Palestinians used to gain purchase for their political demands. Rutenberg countered with boundary work. He denied the political quality of his work, endeavored to align his project with a free-market rationale, and emphasized the technological exigency that supposedly governed the grid’s development. In so doing, he managed to characterize Palestinian opposition as politically motivated, in contrast to his own scientific posture.
Keywords: boundary work, politics of non-politics, nationalism
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