A Decade of Internet Time in the Arab World: Or: How to Stop Worrying and Love the Internet Harris

BRESLOW Department of Mass Communication American University of Sharjah hbreslow@aus.edu Ilhem ALLAGUI Department of Mass Communication American University of Sharjah iallagui@aus.edu Contact: hbreslow@aus.edu +971 50 249 3291

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1928002

Introduction The year 2011 will be remembered, in part, as being marked by a significant shift in the history of the Internet in the Arab world. So far, Internet users in the majority of Arab countries have exhibited an apolitical attitude online due to the high degree of interception exerted by their governments, as well as the policies and regulations of constraint that have constituted impediments to Internet development in the region. One can believe that we are witnessing an important turning point in the history of the region, a point where communication technologies (the Internet and mobile phones) play a significant role. While forecasting the future is tempting, understanding the past is even more important at this moment, as is evidenced by this symposium on the decade of the Internet. The sudden use of technology and the Internet (as media) during the events of the recent uprisings for political change in the Arab world, a region where technology is known to be nearly deficient, proves that the major handicaps to Internet development during the last decade are not found in a lack of Arab knowledge or an incompatibility between culture and imported technologies (Davidson et al. 2000) or illiteracy rates, but primarily in the restrictive policies, government strategies, and regulations regarding Internet development that are at odds with the development of Arab civil society and its welfare. We begin this paper with an overview of Internet development during the last decade (2000-2010), highlighting the regulatory policies governing the Internet in this region. Observations: A Slow Decade of the Internet and its Evolution in the Arab World The majority of Arab countries have experienced a very slow rate of Internet adoption. As shown in the table below, most Arab countries were close to zero in terms of Internet penetration rate at the beginning of the decade, except the United Arab Emirates. In 1995, the UAE began its wired-country strategy by providing Internet access to different actors, such as households, schools and universities, government institutions, etc. By 2000, not only had access to the Internet among users experienced growth, the first ISP (Internet Service Provider) had also been introduced (The Emirates Internet and Multimedia) with a vision to be globally competitive, if not a pioneer, with regards to information technologies. This introduction was enabled by huge investments in Internet infrastructure and the use of state-of-the-art technologies, along with an open economy strategy that was materialized, for instance, in the 2001 launching of Dubais free zones, which attracted corporations and multinationals from around the world. With a seven billion dirham1

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Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1928002

investment, the UAE is expected to be the first nation in the world to offer 100% penetration of fiber-to-home connectivity by the end of 2011.

Country Algeria Bahrain Comoros Djibouti Egypt Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Mauritania Morocco Oman Palestine (West Bk.) Qatar Saudi Arabia Somalia Sudan Syria Tunisia United Arab Emirates Yemen

Dec-00 0.20% 5.70% 0.20% 0.20% 0.70% 0.10% 2.40% 5.80% 5.80% 0.20% 0.20% 0.30% 3.80% 1.10% 3.80% 0.90% 0% 0.10% 0.20% 1% 19.60% 0.10%

Dec-10 13.60% 88% 3% 7.80% 21.20% 1.10% 27.20% 39.40% 24.20% 5.50% 2.30% 33% 41.70% 14.20% 51.80% 38.10% 1% 10% 17.70% 34% 75.90% 1.80%

% Growth 6800% 1544% 1550% 3900% 3029% 1100% 1133% 679% 417% 2750% 1150% 11000% 1097% 1290% 1363% 4233% 10000% 8850% 3400% 387% 1800%

Figure 1: Internet Penetration Growth in the Arab countries (2000-2010)2

While the majority of Arab countries have witnessed a tremendous growth of Internet penetration rates (households and businesses), Morocco and Sudan register the highest growth rates of 11000% and 10000%, respectively. By the beginning of the decade - as shown in the table, below - the majority of Arab countries had a single ISP. The number of Internet hosts has increased by the end of the decade (an ISP computer is normally an Internet host), which corresponds to the growth of Internet connectivity in the region.

Country

Nbr. ISP (2000)

Nbr. Internet hosts (2011)

Nbr. IPs/ country (Sep. 2011) 2,625,048 407,764 8,449,327 194,516 578,139 1,602,609 467,546 308,104 34,529 3,395,201 355,175 256

First 100 Arab countries ranked among the world by IPs number 56 98 35 87 67 96

Algeria Bahrain Egypt Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Mauritania Morocco Oman Palestine Terr. Qatar Saudi Arabia Somalia Sudan Syria Tunisia UAE Yemen

2 1 50 1 5 3 22 1 5 8 1

572 53,944 187,197 9 42,412 2,485 51,451 12,432 277,793 9,144

53 100

1 42 1 1 1 1 1 1

822 488,598 3 70 8,114 490 379,309 255

657,671 4,441,880 14,597 288,404 720,607 2,729,405 2,875,992 54,220

86 51

82 55 54

Figure 2: Internet Connectivity in Arab Countries 2000-20113

Additionally, while the growth rate in Arabic Internet users is the highest in the world (2064% for the period 2000-2008 according to the Arab Knowledge Report 2009), the growth of Arabic websites and pages between 2005-2010 is estimated at 80%, and the number of web pages containing content in Arabic is estimated at 205 million, representing just 1.5% of the total web.4 However, while one might look at the tables and admire the exhibited growth, it is inescapable to note some negative patterns:

The online population by language (i.e. Arabic) in 2010, is estimated at only 4% of all world languages (it was 1% in 2000); As of 2010 the Internet penetration rate of the Internet for all countries in the region remains lower, 24.1% than the worldwide average, 29.7%; In 2008, the average level of fixed broadband penetration amongst Arab states was at a level where the world was some 6 years earlier, and where Europe had been some 10 years earlier; In 2010, the ITU estimated that the fixed broadband subscription for the Arab states was 2.3%, versus the European subscription rate of 23.9% and the subscription rate for the Americas of 15.5%; All Arab countries register an ICT index value lower than the world average, except for a few wealthy countries in the Arabian Gulf; The number of computers per person in the rest of the Arab countries is lower than the global average, with the exceptions of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait; Only 40% of ISP operators offered 3G/3.5G services in 2008, by 2009 this percentage had increased to 56%; The network readiness index5 developed by the World Economic Forum for 20102011 places the UAE and Qatar in the top 10 countries in the world. However the average for MENA countries is below the world average despite the fact that Israel, the UAE, and Qatar lift the regions numbers upwards. It is worth mentioning that Qatar ranks second in the world in terms of government readiness followed by the UAE, which is ranked third. Singapore is ranked first, worldwide.

Technology and the Regulatory Environment The dissemination of Internet access depends on government incentives and policies that facilitate Internet adoption. This hasnt been an easy task for most Arab countries; various mechanisms and strategies were put in place by domestic and non-domestic actors (private and public institutions, and to a lesser degree NGOs) in order to aid in the growth of access within the region. While these strategies and mechanisms are numerous, we will discuss here only few of them. To begin; with regards to infrastructure, the majority of Arab countries were late in investing in Internet infrastructure, not only because of their poor economic conditions but also because they were not prepared and rather forced to adapt to this technological change. We elaborate further on this, in the next section, below. ICT development was not considered ! %

a priority compared to health, education, security, or growth in other social and economic sectors. This is a rationale most Arab countries adopted regarding cultural industries, and cultural industry products, in general. Thus, except for a few of the wealthy GCC countries that invested in infrastructure as early as the mid-late nineties (namely the UAE, which benefited from its pioneering position, and gained a competitive position amongst mid-higher income countries), the rest of the Arab countries were very late in such investment, as the graph below demonstrates.
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The following graph shows the evolution of the infrastructure index6 over the decade; one should note the exceptional performance of Bahrain, which pushed the UAE from its leading position to that of runner up, not only in terms of Internet penetration rate but also in terms of infrastructure development, as the graph shows. Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt display the most important growth over the period.
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Figure 4: Infrastructure Index by Country (2003-2010)

Despite efforts towards building an open economy and attracting foreign investors, experts agreed that by 2009 the liberalization of the telecommunications market had not yet been attained, which drives away foreign investment and capital interests, and thus slows adoption. The table below shows a comparison between 2005 and 2010 in terms of cellular, fixed and Internet regulatory frameworks where one can see that there has been a move towards liberalization, even though progress has been somewhat slow. Regulatory Framework for Cellular Market Monopoly Duopoly Competition Telephone Fixed Market Monopoly Duopoly Competition Internet Market Monopoly Duopoly Competition 5 1 12 1 4 14 17 1 1 10 5 4 3 9 7 6 13 2005 2011

Figure 5: Number of Arab Countries by Market and their regulatory status (Source: Arab Advisors Group 2011 and ITU)

While the majority of Arab countries have adopted liberalization for the mobile market and the Internet, for example 13 countries have full competitive market for the cellular market and 14 for Internet market in 2011, the fixed lines market is still under the control of the state with only three countries moving to a competitive market in fixed lines between 2005 and 2011. This lack of, or slow, pace in moving towards privatization on the part of governments infringes upon improvement to the Internet infrastructure, since only governments are responsible for the development of infrastructure. But this is not only an investment or capital problem; Arab governments strive to keep control of the telecom sector by managing root servers, controlling content, and at the same time preserving their commercial and political interest and, in some instances, even a personal interest (for instance

some presidents such as the former Tunisian president Ben Ali reserved the business of telecom operators for his family relatives, for instance his daughter who runs the French operator Orange). This leads to an imbalance between the private and the public sectors, and their fair interests in the telecommunications market. Second; the dissemination of the Internet is also conditional upon access costs. Access costs across Arab countries has been an impediment to Internet adoption for many years. Only recently (2009) has the cost of Internet connections in most Arab countries fallen under the global average cost, which indicates the efficacy of policies encouraging Internet adoption. Recent efforts to ensure a competitive telecommunications market have helped in bringing the price down, which is notably the case in Egypt where the connectivity cost is the lowest in the entire Arab region. The ICT price basket (an ICT cost index calculated by the ITU that measures the affordability of fixed and mobile telephony and fixed broadband Internet services7) shows that the UAE ranks first according to this index with a value of 0.82, followed by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar. This again indicates that the GCC countries encourage better performance in terms of both telecommunication market offerings and accessibility. Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon and Egypt follow the GCC countries, with Yemen at the rear with the highest ICT price basket index, a value of 35.64. The following chart displays a comparison of terms of Internet access cost to ICT price basket between 2000-2009. Ranking of Countries according to Internet access price 20008 UAE (most affordable) Morocco Tunisia Lebanon Oman Qatar Jordan Bahrain KSA (least affordable) Ranking of Countries According to ICT price basket 2009 UAE Bahrain KSA Oman Qatar Algeria Tunisia Lebanon Egypt
Figure 6: Comparison of Terms of Internet Access Cost to ICT Price Basket, 2000-2009

Finally, we should not forget that the accessibility of costs is not only comparable amongst countries but also within countries. The digital divide in terms of costs is very

significant between classes and rural/urban areas where theres a clash between buying power among citizens. There is a significant disparity in terms of personal computer ownership between urban areas and rural areas where one cannot afford even a single PC, instead gaining Internet access through the cybercafs or Internet cafes that are very popular in the region. Despite this fact, most of the Arab countries have signed the agreement of Internet universality, although many of them have still not achieved levels of universality required by the agreement. Important gaps between rural and urban areas in terms of education and illiteracy, income, use of technology, etc., remain significant for most Arab countries Third; another way to disseminate access is through schools and other educational institutions; in this regard, the Arab Knowledge Report noted in 2009 that the initiatives taken by some Arab countries to use ICT in the different stages of education remain less than what is required and possible.9 For instance, 66% of schools in Egypt and 53% in Algeria are connected to the Internet, whereas this percentage drops to 25, 20 and 18 respectively for Tunisia, Lebanon, and Jordan.10 Furthermore, the link between ICT use and higher education in the Arab countries is weak.11 Assimilation of technology in schools and educational institutions helps to spread IT knowledge and development. Through schools, community centers and eventually other institutions, pupils and youth become technology literate and have greater opportunity to develop technological knowledge, applications, and eventually, digital content. The assimilation of technology at the institutional level index12 for 2009 shows that GCC countries occupy the first ranking: For example, the UAE ranks first (14), followed by Kuwait (28), Tunisia (34), Jordan (35), Bahrain (36), and Saudi Arabia (44). Internet Politics and the Regulatory Environment The phrase, Internet politics and regulatory environment embraces many things, perhaps the most notable of them are how governments can ensure democracy and the use of ICT for civil society, how governments can establish privacy and a trusting environment, how much of a flexible environment a government can offer its citizens, and how many legal restrictions a political system can install. This paper cannot address all of these aspects, but it will discuss three aspects successively: independent regulation, the politics of embracing global society, and online freedom of speech. The existence of an independent regulatory body can guarantee non-partiality and independence in decision-making, whether through the granting of licenses, ensuring the existence of a fair market, maintaining competitive price offers, etc. The majority of Arab ! P

countries have an independent regulatory authority with decision-making autonomy. However, the ITU estimates that Qatar and the UAE, the most advanced countries in terms of ICT infrastructure and use, but also countries with quasi monopoly markets, do not yet fulfill the requirement of an independent regulatory environment. The TRA (Telecommunications Regulatory Authority) is a public body established through a 2003 act of law in the UAE, and presents itself as an independent public authority for the oversight of the various telecommunication sectors and licensees. It is responsible for all restrictions to website access in the UAE, and fulfills this responsibility by instructing the ISP providers, Etisalat and Du, to do so. ictQatar presents itself as an independent and fair regulator, established under Emiri decrees in 2004 and 2006, to protect consumers and businesses and to lead the country in establishing global competitiveness. The independent regulatory body, an initiative of the WTO (World Trade Organization), is supposed to protect and encourage a competitive market as well as protect foreign and domestic assets. Unlike other Arab countries, where the separate regulator reports to ministries or legislation, the RTA and ictQatar report their decisions not to external entities but to their respective boards. It is legitimate to think that this separate regulatory requirement by the WTO is not a unique guarantee for success, since both countries perform the best in terms of infrastructure build out and Internet development. The WTO and its different stakeholders were the first to establish rules and regulations for Internet access and usage, almost around the world, by 1990. One should understand that there is little autonomy among countries, especially those in the south, to decide on their own IT status and development since the above-mentioned stakeholders are, in general, the providers of Internet access through root servers or nodal distribution, and networks in general. During the early days of the commercialization of the Internet, in the early-nineties, the northern powers committed themselves to globalization, determining that this process had many benefits and that as many countries as possible should open their markets to world trade so as to be part of a new, open, global economy. Nivien Saleh13 explains that Egypt did not choose to be part of this integration but was forced to adopt it. She writes that, Core actors, through numerous enforcement mechanisms, imposed the IT regime on the peripheral state.14 Indebted as Egypt was, and as most Arab countries were, it was a challenge to most of these countries to embrace online trade as encouraged by the WTO, through the reform of investment policies, the elimination of trade control, the improvement of the financial system, and the adoption of Internet rules. Arab countries were attracted by the leapfrogging promise made by the WTO; they finally could catch up on technological advancements and join the global network revolution. However, most of them ! Q

had, and still have, deficient infrastructures, obliging them to seek foreign investment and expertise in order to fulfill the requirements of Internet adoption at the same time that most of the developed countries were, and are, working on improving their existing infrastructure and adopting the next generation of technology. As a result the leapfrogging was never possible and many Arab countries have not ever been able to catch up. At the same time, however, they were required to open their economies, sign agreements with the European commission in favor of European exports to these countries, and integrate their markets into the world economy. Now, despite the fact that some countries have behaved as good students following the WTO, the World Bank, and other core stakeholders instructions, rules and regulations, most of them have still not achieved autonomy in terms of Internet regulation, and remain tied to the dicta of world organizations and their interests. The Arab countries did not do enough in terms of the development of the Internet as well, not because of resource problems but because of knowledge and control problems. To begin; Arabic content on the Net is only tributary of Arabs efforts and investments. The domain names in Arabic as part of the domain name system was a handicap to the spread of the Internet and Arabic content because of language specificity, although this problem was recently sorted out in 2010 with the announcement by ICANN that domain names in Arabic had been approved for the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Some countries began initiatives for developing Arabic content, for example the Saudi project to translate some of Wikipedias pages and the initiative by Qatars Supreme Council for Information and Communication Technology for creating more digital content in Arabic. When examining statistics of Arabs usage of the Internet produced by the Emirates Internet Project (EIP),15 which show the tremendous use of English language content rather than Arabic content, one should not only focus on the creation of content but also on encouraging the use of Arabic content among a generation of Internet users used to, and born into, online English language use. On the other hand, even more harmful to the development of the Internet in the Arab states than external actors, are the Arab governments and their representatives, themselves. The shared characteristic of Internet content censorship among almost all Arab countries is a driver lowering Internet usage and productivity, while harming civil society as a whole. Arab governments put tremendous efforts and investments into buying online spying and interception software from the West in order to invade Arab users privacy. These governments have invested a great deal of effort in elaborating rules and regulations that sanction the freedom of speech. Most of them refer either to their Press law or specific ! "'

legislation in order to sanction the freedom of expression. Bahrain, for example, exerted censorship of online content in its 2002 Press law, as did Moroccan, Tunisian, Syrian, and Kuwaiti governments. Internet use in Oman is regulated by the ISP OmanTel and in Yemen, in addition to the ISP, the penal code is also referred to for freedom of speech cases. In the UAE, the freedom of expression online is specifically regulated by the 2007 cyber law, while in Saudi Arabia 16 new articles were introduced as new laws governing the use of technology. The following table, for example, displays that the number of bloggers under surveillance or arrested, was highest in Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria, all of which have maintained absolute control of the Internet, and media usage in general.
Countries Nbr. Bloggers arrested, threatened or released (2010)

Bahrain Egypt Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Morocco Oman Palestinian Territory Qatar Saudi Arabia Syria Tunisia Yemen

5 31 1 2 5 6 0 1 0 6 16 23 3
Figure 7: Bloggers arrests by Arab country

This heavy control environment damages the welfare of the state, nurtures repression, and provokes frustration amongst the population of users. This leads either to an apolitical attitude or drives people to the streets, in a manner similar to what most of the Tunisians and Egyptians did. Global Flows In addition to the policies that have stymied the development of the political Internet in the Arab world during the past decade, we also understand the dearth of the digital public sphere in the Arab world to be a function of the Internet qua network. In this respect we ! ""

believe that the Internet, as one of the key elements that both Castells and Appadurai have enumerated in their descriptions of what they both term flow, has played a role in the absences of an online Arab civil society during these past ten years. Flow is a process by which centers of production and consumption of advanced services, and their ancillary local societies, are connected in a global network on the basis of information flows.16 These flows function to interconnect the many regional centers of the world on a global level,17 functioning within this global network as a hub of exchange and communication, playing a role of coordination for the smooth interaction of all the elements integrated into the network.18 Flow exists as the result of the global deployment of an apparatus of physical networks, a complex infrastructure through which people, information, finances, and goods and materials, move and interact on a global scale, and which is enabled, monitored, and managed by digital information networks.19 Although Castells and Appadurai have both identified flow as a contemporary global phenomenon, and although both describe flow as a phenomenon that is complex, multivariate, and that exists across social and spatial scales, they nonetheless approach this concept from very different directions. Appadurai understands flow from a primarily culturalist perspective, and his enumeration of the five major categories of flows is culturally oriented: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes.20 It should come as no surprise that Castells tendency is to approach flow from a sociological perspective. Castells also identifies five flows, although he collapses two of Appadurais five flows - ideoscapes, and mediascapes - within a single category in his description, which includes flows of capital, flows of information, flows of technology, flows of organizational interaction, flows of images, sounds and symbols.21 It is not our intention in this paper to adjudicate between Castells and Appadurais description of the various flows that each describes. Indeed, we see great profit in both perspectives. For the purposes of this paper we shall use the term flow as a term that not only describes what is flowing from both Castells and Appadurais perspectives, but that also describes the physical infrastructure; the complex of transportation, organization, cargo, finance, and information networks, across which information, people, messages, ideas, beliefs, cultures, finances, and things, move as well as the shape of the deployment of this infrastructure and the effects of this shape. In other words, to use an old Althusserian term, flow is an apparatus.22

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Flow, The State, and Civil Society One aspect of flow that is of great interest to us is its effect upon the state,23 structures of political participation, and subjective notions of political membership and participation. This specific aspect of flow - its articulation to the state and civil society, and its effect upon online political participation - is important to us, given that over the past decade the West has experienced an explosion of online politics while the Arab world has remained politically stagnant online during the past decade. We have already examined political economy and regulatory policy as they have been articulated in the Arab world over the past decade. We now turn to conceptions of flow and the dimensions of its effects. In particular, we want to use the concept of flow in order to understand the effects of digital networks upon political participation in the Arab world over these same networks. Castells describes the contemporary relationship between the state, civil society, and political participation, in terms of a crisis of political legitimacy, one in which considerable evidence points to the increasing alienation of citizens vis vis their political representatives, and the institutions of representation. [A] high percentage of people feel able to change the world. But they feel empowered not through the political system but through autonomous mobilization.24 This is a byproduct of flow: The global integration of states through bilateral, multilateral, and global political, economic, and juridical treaties is increasingly intensified - extending more and more deeply into the political, economic, and juridical structures of individual states - and extensified - encompassing and affecting more and more aspects of these structures in increasing numbers of states - by the ongoing process of integration into the apparatus of flow. The apparatus of flow and its twinned processes of intensification and extensification result, argues Castells, in the articulation of the network state. [The] actual practice of the network state is characterized by the tension between three processes how individual states relate to their constituencies how they ensure the balance and power of the network state to which they belong in a globalized system; and how they advance their own specific interests vis vis other states in their shared network.25 In the network state the tension between these three processes leads to, on the one hand, the ceding of some of the states sovereignty to what Castells has termed the global network state. Individual states within the global network state must assume the interests of the overall network states, and respect the domination of the most powerful interests in this network as a condition of being a node in it.26

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On the other hand, at the sub-state level - regions, cities, provinces, etc. - the tension between these three processes results in a rending of the fabric of the (formerly) nation-state and civil society. Within this tear there exists a gap between the space where issues are defined (global) and the space where the issues are managed (the nation-state).27 This gap enables two processes that we will discuss with reference to the EIP, below. The first process may be seen as a proliferation of politicized and localized identities free from the constraints of, and obligations towards, the former nation-state / civil society complex.28 The second process may be understood as the global deployment of sub-state politics and identities through the apparatus of flow. Sub-state political movements are able to acquire and project more political power and influence than they may otherwise have because of their ability to network with other political movements in other regions, across the globe. Not that current nation-states will disappear in their institutional existence, but their existence as power apparatuses is profoundly transformed, as they are either bypassed or rearranged in networks of shared sovereignty.29 In this respect, and in terms of the institutions of the heretofore nation-state, civil society becomes a far more flexible spatial envelope than it was in its previous, nationally based, existence. Indeed, one can argue that civil society no longer exists as a single, specific space. Rather it now exists as an agglomeration of sites and locales that are connected to one another through the apparatus of flow.30 Flow, the Politics of the Subject, and the Subject of Politics A second aspect of flow that we are concerned to understand and test through our research is the nature of subjectivity, and the political role of the subject in a global network society. Here, then, we turn to Appadurai, one of whose primary concerns in Modernity at Large is to explain the nature of subjectivity and political interaction across state borders and the consequences of this interaction for conceptions concerning the spaces of politics and civil society. As we have discussed, above, although Appadurai enumerates macroscopic flows in much the same fashion - if not the same substance - as Castells, Appadurais analytical approach to these flows begins with the perspective of the subject and subjective experience, moving from the local and microsocial towards the global and macrosocial. Appadurai sees both subjectivity and the location of the subject as products of flow. Both the subject and subjective experience are products of intersections of flows, which result in the articulation of subjective experience and ones sense of self.31 Similarly, locality is not something that can be seen geopolitically, in terms of a subset of the state. Rather, locality is something that ! "%

travels with the subject of flows.32 Civil society articulates itself to and through this mobile conjuncture that, although articulated to a given state, becomes a flow phenomenon itself, and thus a byproduct of networks. In this conception, subjects of flow - transnational migrants 33 - are able to utilize communication networks in order to maintain a virtual presence, and participate at distance, in political activities in other locales by using digital information networks in order to bridge the aforementioned distance. The Myth of Digital Transparency We have no doubt that one can maintain ones membership in a community, be it political or otherwise, through the use of communication networks. This is a fact of everyday life in the world of flow. Indeed, all communities, whether polities or not, articulate themselves symbolically, and to the varying degrees that they do so, we can say that all communities are imagined communities; it matters not whether the spaces that these communities inhabit are physical, virtual, or some combination of the two, for a community is always already an imagined entity. 34 And yet, at the same time, we believe that Appadurais conception of flow, and the ability of subjects of flow to participate politically amongst communities at distance, smacks of what we term the myth of digital transparency. We contend that discussions of digital networks - be they discussions of political efficacy, the formation of communities, the efficiency of organizational communication, or the power of ecommerce - often contain a phenomenology of im-mediated presence: In Appadurais case the myth of digital transparency is articulated to both the subject of flow and the political efficacy that Appadurai argues can be achieved over digital networks. Indeed, Appadurais discussion of networks of flow, and political participation across these networks, relies upon a notion of transparent space - ironically, unseen - as the deus ex machina across which this participation takes place.35 This machine enables subjects of flow to perceive, communicate, and act, politically across digital networks, without material interference, signal noise, or other forms of obfuscation. There is thus always already the unproblematized material dimension across which the subject of flow is digitally articulated to other political spaces; one that naturalizes the political acts that stem from it, and that itself has been naturalized. Looking for Flow: The Emirates Internet Project The Emirates Internet Project (EIP) is a longitudinal survey research project of patterns of Internet usage amongst residents of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The EIP is a

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participating partner in the World Internet Project (WIP), a consortium of institutions researching Internet usage in 35 countries. Partners survey a basket of common questions used for comparative analysis, and local survey questions to gain additional insight of local Internet usage. We turn to our work on the EIP in order to critically assess the two theses that we have discussed, above: The proliferation of politicized and localized identities, and the deployment of sub-state politics and political participation across the apparatus of flow.
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Figure 8: Internet Use in the Preservation of National Identity

In our most recent survey research report we examined the role of the Internet in the preservation and articulation of national identities. We argued that the Internet is playing a mixed role in the production and preservation of identity. Although significant percentages of respondents report that they either agreed or strongly agreed with the statements, The Internet helps me in preserving my national heritage/culture, (37%), and The Internet helps me in learning about my home country, (41%), an even greater proportion of respondents were neutral in their response to the role that the Internet plays in either preserving ones national heritage and culture (40%), or learning about ones home country (46%). Indeed, the only statement that a majority of respondents (64%) either agreed or strongly agreed with was, The Internet helps me to stay in touch with friends/family in my home country.36
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Figure 9: Frequency of Expatriate Consumption of News from the Home County

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When examining other survey evidence for explanations concerning the limited role that the Internet plays in the production of national identities, we found that One likely reason for the limited role that the Internet is playing in the preservation of expatriates national heritage and culture in the UAE may lie in the limited frequency of access of online news about expatriates home countries. Although more than two in five respondents (45%) report reading news from their home countries online on at least a daily basis, an equal proportion of respondents (45%) report that they do so somewhat infrequently, on between a monthly and weekly basis. One in ten respondents (10%) reports that they never read news about their home country on the Internet.37

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Figure 10: Internet"=,>"$-"?>)*0"-@"AB**>0$"C@@)/*,"/0"$#>"=CD"

The weak relationship between the use of the Internet for keeping up with current affairs, and the production and preservation of national identities carried over to news and current affairs regarding the UAE. The bimodal pattern of distribution persists when examining respondents use of the Internet to stay abreast of current affairs in the UAE. Although more than two in five respondents report that they either agree or strongly agree with the statements, The Internet helps me to stay up to date with UAE news, (42%) and The Internet helps me to learn about events in the Emirate where I stay, (42%), a slightly larger percentage of respondents reports that they are neutral to either statement (43% and 45%, respectively).38 Identity aside, we also found that the Internet was not being used by residents in the UAE as a medium for political expression, organization, or activism.

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Figure 11: Perceptions of Online Governance in the UAE

Here the most interesting results may very well be the percentage of respondents who either refuse to respond to a statement, claim that they dont know how to respond, or respond as neutral to the statement. We found that respondents did not wish to involve themselves in statements that could be read as even obliquely or potentially critical of the government. Almost two in five respondents (38%) either refuse to respond to the statement, In general I feel comfortable saying whatever I think about politics, or claim that they dont know how to respond to the statement, or report that they are neutral regarding this statement. The same proportion of respondents (38%) either refuse to respond to the statement, On the Internet, it is safe to say whatever you think about politics, or claim that they dont know how to respond to the statement, or report that they are neutral regarding this statement. Almost one in three respondents (31%) either refuse to respond to the statement, People should feel free to criticize their government

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on the Internet, or claim that they dont know how to respond to the statement, or report that they are neutral regarding this statement. Slightly more than one in three respondents (35%) either refuse to respond to the statement, It is okay for people to express their ideas on the Internet, even if they are extreme, or claim that they dont know how to respond to the statement, or report that they are neutral regarding this statement. Three in ten respondents (31%) either refuse to respond to the statement, I am worried about the government checking what I do online, or claim that they dont know how to respond to either statement, or report that they are neutral regarding either statement.39

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Figure 12: The Impact of the Internet Upon Social Relationships in the UAE

Approximately one in four respondents (24%) reports that their time spent with others who share the same political interests has either somewhat or greatly declined since they began going online. When combined with the number of respondents who report that their time spent with other who share the same political interests is either unaffected, or who report that they dont know, or refuse to answer, this number climbs to almost 4 in five respondents. Clearly the regulatory environment, either in the home country, or in the UAE as the destination country for transnational migrants, is having an effect upon the responses that we are obtaining in our surveys.

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Figure 13: Language of the World Wide Web by Nationality and Age

We conclude our exploration of some of the results that we have obtained in the EIP with a discussion of the language most commonly used on the web. These results not only display the effects of a decade of Internet regulatory policy and political economy upon the Arab world that we have discussed, above, they also provide us with powerful evidence of the effects of the Internet as a social network upon the propensity for transnational migrants, particularly those who are native Arabic speakers, to engage in the proliferation of politicized and localized identities. In our first survey research report, we noted the existence of two important facts: The first fact is that English is the overwhelmingly dominant lingua franca of World Wide Web use of any form in the UAE. We note that this occurs despite the fact that Asians comprise 50% of the countrys population, Arab speakers 42% and Western expatriatesof whom native English speakers comprise a subset8%. The second fact is that the younger one is, the more likely one will view the World Wide Web as an English language information universe. Indeed every Emirati and Arab respondent of another nationality under the age of 18 reports that the World Wide Web is, to them, an English language phenomenon. [The] World Wide Web, is playing a role in the shift away from what may be described as heretofore behaviors and cultural values amongst young Emiratis and Arabs of other nationalities.40

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Reading the Emirates Internet Project as A Lack of Flow: Distance, Blockages, and Fluids Distance [The] death of distance is not the end of the spatial dimension of society.[The] space of places, based in meaningful physical proximity, continues to be a major source of experience and function for many people in many circumstances. -Manuel Castells41 We begin this section with a quote by Castells because we are convinced that space does play a role in the lack of evidence for both the online deployment of sub state politics, and the proliferation of politicized identities and political participation across the apparatus of flow. Indeed, we agree with Urrys assertion that the extensive and intensive deployment of the Internet on a global scale can be understood, in part, as the deployment of social networks. We believe that understanding the Internet as a social network, alongside its existence as a digital information network, 42 enables us to arrive at certain insights concerning the organization and deployment of political behaviour across the Internet. Viewing the Internet as a social network enables us to understand that, although individuals can make and maintain social, political, and cultural ties across vast distances, these weak ties come at a price, one that Urry has termed, the burden to mobility.43 What gets exchanged through intense and dynamic conversational interactions are rich social goods, of friendship, power, projects, markets, information and so on. Central to networks then are meetings and hence traveling through time-space in order to cement the weak ties at least for another period.44 Of course, the further ones network extends, and the weaker the ties, the more burdensome the imperative to be mobile becomes, and the more likely this obligation will not be met, which eventually results in the severing of weak ties. Note figure 12, a chart concerning the impact of the Internet upon social relationships in the UAE: Although we can certainly explain the lack of effect upon political relationships in terms of the fears that individuals have of the surveillance of their political activities while online, we believe that the burden of mobility to preserve weak ties is also crucial to understanding this chart. Many Arab and other expatriates in the UAE, as well as across the Arab world, lack the resources, time, or opportunity to fulfill the obligations to mobility. Indeed, given the rather unique political economic structure found in the UAE and other GCC countries, we estimate that almost seven in ten residents lack the resources to travel to any degree of frequency that may be considered to be regular. Thus, although they may establish weak ties that are founded upon common political beliefs and commitments, and although these weak ties may

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persist for some time, they will ultimately be severed as a result of one or more actors inability to travel. We must also be mindful of the effects of a decade of regulation - political, economic, regulatory, and otherwise - on both the creation of, and the propensity to access, various forms of online content. We noted, above, that the imposition of a global system of trade regulations, infrastructure and technology financing, domain name structures and rules, and the surveillance and sanctioning of online content, has resulted in the overwhelming access and consumption of English language online content on the part of Arabs from the UAE and elsewhere. The EIP has found that, the younger an Arab respondent is, the more likely he or she is to remain solely within the English language web universe, a universe devoted to the promulgation of Western cultural values, political ideals, and cultural products. Indeed, given the extremely strong trend indicated by our research, we conclude that this propensity has increased over time during this past decade of Internet use. This propensity on the part of younger and younger respondents to increasingly live in the English language web universe is important to us, because it points to another explanation as to why our research points to a dearth of political behaviour while online. As we discussed, above, conceiving of the Internet as a social network enables us to describe its topology in terms other than those that are technological. In this respect we do not want to discuss a topology of root servers, nodal points, and other IP-related terms. Rather, as above, we want to discuss and describe the Internet as a social topology. In this respect, the digital network of the Internet, and particularly the World Wide Web, does not replicate social networks. In social networks individuals are found in a normal distribution of individuals across the world weakly connected and a few moderately powerful nodes.45 However, and despite its global reach and the massive number of nodes that it possesses, it cannot be said that the Web is normally distributed, in a random fashion. The Web consists of a relatively few exceptionally well-connected hubs that utterly dominate its networks. [Each] time the number of links doubles, the nodes that possess that number of links reduce by around five. The Web has thus been characterized as an aristocratic network in which the rich get richer. There is thus a hidden order lying behind the development of the Web even though much of its historical development was unplanned, uncontrolled and amorphous.46 Although we believe that Urrys use of the small worlds thesis, and his discussion of the Internet and the World Wide Web in terms of social network topographies, are extremely insightful, we cannot agree with his assertion that the aristocratic character of the social

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topography of the Web is hidden or uncontrolled. For a decade or longer the development of the World Wide Web as an aristocracy of Western commercial, informational, and cultural sites has taken place in front of our eyes. Moreover, this has not gone on surreptitiously, or in some unplanned and uncontrolled manner: During this past decade of Internet time we have read of the regulatory, juridical, and political economic decisions that have shaped the relationships that are found online. These have not been reports hidden on the shelves of archives, nor have they been buried in the avalanche of reports produced by governments, think tanks, or NGOs. We have, all of us, read of these developments in the mainstream press on an almost daily basis, for the past ten years or longer. We now have to read these decisions literally, in the relationships that have been knitted into the very fabric of the social topology of the Web. They are there, in front of our eyes, and only a click, or five, away. Far from enabling the proliferation of political identities, this fabric literally ensnares us in a manner befitting a web. In this respect, the aristocratic social topology of the Web has contributed to the dearth of politics online, in the Arab world, for it has promoted a form of social inertia where users lose themselves in an endless number of sites driven by preprocessed entertainment, prepackaged news, and simplified forms of expression (like, not like). In addition to the limits of weak ties and the burdens of mobility, one must also take into account the relationship that transnational migrants have to their destination countries, and the effect that this relationship has upon the propensity towards activities online, and the proliferation of political identities and political participation across or at distance. A great deal of recent research has found that transnational migrants do not take their identities with them, or rather that their identities become attenuated, hyphenated, and certainly different than they were prior to the act of migration. This process of attenuation articulates itself to the identities, habits, and political activities that transnational migrants and transnational migrant communities develop over time, in their destination homes, along with the digital habits that they develop and the Web sites that they visit. Thus, although people often presume a connection between local citizenship and the existence of transnational political practices and processes of identification, empirical research at both levels is still scarce.47 Indeed, it would appear that the practice of local politics is far more likely to occur amongst transnational migrants,48 and that transnational political behaviour is far more complexly determined, requiring the conjunctural articulation of an opportunity structure of a variety of factors, not the least of which are those that are economic, political, and social, in nature.49

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Blockages Moreover, the effects of a decades worth of global political economy, and the heavyhanded regulation and surveillance of the Internet and the World Wide Web in the Arab world have, have functioned as blockages to online political behaviour and the proliferation of political identities as a result of the stifling political opportunity structure within Arab countries. Whether one wants to use the term political opportunity structure, or political relational fields,50 there are ultimately several factors that either mitigate or encourage the tendencies towards the proliferation of politicized and localized identities, on the one hand, and the deployment of sub-state politics and political participation over distance, on the other. A political opportunity structure [POS] is general described as more or less open, where a more open structure facilitates the emergence of certain movements and makes it easier for a social movement to influence the political system.51 Amongst the factors that contribute to an open POS are 1) the relative openness or closure of the institutionalized political system; 2) the stability of that broad set of elite alignments that typically undergird a polity; 3) the presence of elite allies; 4) the states capacity for repression.52 Its almost as if many of the countries in the Arab world had a checklist that they followed when building out their Internet infrastructure and regulating its use, for we can safely say that the majority of Arab countries - in particular those countries that have undergone the sudden and profound changes during the recent Arab Spring - were anything but open. The regulations, economic costs, lack of widespread access, relative regime stability, and the enormous capacity for repression, worked to stifle online expression of all but the most banal content, prevented the development of an online public sphere, and served to block the politicization of identities and political action. Indeed, it took a very dramatic and unfortunate use of very low technology to set the events of the Arab Spring in motion, and it is only now that both identities and participation are beginning to proliferate across the countries that have gone through the Arab spring. Fluids We conclude this paper with a meditation on the nature of subjectivity a decade on into the time of the Internet. Here we want to make a single assertion; subjectivity occupies a fluid space. This is not meant to be trite, nor is it meant to be a simplistic assertion of poststructural subjectivity that somehow trumps Appadurais assumptions, allowing us all to go home early. Rather, we see subjectivity as occupying a fluid space that is itself enabled, perhaps provoked, by the Internet and the apparatus of flow. Mol and Law identify three

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forms of space; regions, networks and fluids. Regions consist of clusters of objects that are maintained over time and in space through the existence of boundaries. Networks are relational spaces that are able to cross boundaries, and that exist relationally amongst the elements or objects within a network across distances. The difference and relative value amongst the elements and objects within a network are a function of the relational variety inherent to the network. 53 These terms should be familiar to us all, by now, for they correspond to the topology of the Internet. Fluid spaces, however, are a different story. To begin with, fluid space does not exist independently. Rather, its existence is a function of networks, and the ability of things objects, ideas, subjects, for instance - to move freely, to flow, across these networks.54 In this respect there is an inherent dialectic to the apparatus of flow, one in which the nature of subjectivity is freed from any structural determination, either by the topology inherent to the network, or the boundary conditions imposed upon the subject by the region in which he or she exists. Instead; the intensity of the Internet and the apparatus of flow provokes a space in which its not possible to determine identities nice and neatly, once and for all. Or to distinguish inside from outside, this place from somewhere else. Similarity and difference arent like identity and non-identity. They come, as it were, in varying shades and colours.55 Much like information, global brands, and automobility,56 subjectivity is fluid, and exhibits a propensity to mutate as the subject travels across the apparatus of flow, whether physically through transportation networks, or digitally across the Internet. There is no guarantee that the subject who was politically motivated in one region of the network, will be similarly so, in another. Indeed, this goes a long way towards explaining why transnational migrants cling close to their new home when they surf the web, and why they tend to prioritize the local politics and polities of their destination location. Like anything else, the subject is comprised of a variety of heterogeneous elements, some of which are more active than others at one place than they are at another,57 or while surfing one website, instead of another. Our sense of self is robust,58 but it is articulated in varying shades and colours. There is no guarantee, as we move from place to place, or site to site, across the Internet and the apparatus of flow, that we will be political or that we will engage in politics whether they be near to us or across vast distances made close by the Internet and the apparatus of flow, or that we will even remain whom we have been. We believe that this is precisely what leads respondents to our surveys, more than four in five of whom are transnational migrants, to indicate that they by and large dont read of news from home, or use the Internet in the

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preservation of their national identities. There is only the contingency and immediacy of this place, this region, this node, this site. Perhaps this is the most important lesson of all to learn, after a decade of Internet time. http://www.telecoms.com/31352/ericsson-joins-dus-ftth-project/. Source: Internet World Stats 3 CIA World Fact Book, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worldfactbook/fields/2184.html); Domain tools, http://www.domaintools.com/internetstatistics/country-ip-counts.html; World Facts and Figures, http://www.worldfactsandfigures.com/internet_isps.php. 4 The National, interview with Mohammad Gawdat, the managing director for southern and eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Google available at http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/industry-insights/media/tally-of-arabicpages-exceeds-google-expectations. 5 The network readiness index considers the following variables: market environment, political and regulatory environment, infrastructure environment, individual readiness, business readiness, government readiness, individual usage, business usage and government usage. http://reports.weforum.org/global-information-technology-report/ 6 The infrastructure index is developed by the UN and measures the performance of governments in telecommunication connectivity. 7 International Telecommunication Union (2010) Measuring the Information Society, ITU, Geneva, p. xi. 8 ITU (2000) Arab Region Internet Issues, online at www.itu.int/ITUD/ict/papers/egypt2000/Arab-States-Internet-Issues.ppt 9 AKR, 2009, p.161 10 http://www.arabstats.org/indicator.asp?ind=317&gid=4&sgid=35 11 AKR, 2009, p.161 12 World Economic Forum website at www.weforum.ord/pdf/gitr/2009/rankings/pdf 13 2010 14 p. 210 15 I Allagui and H Breslow, The Internet and the Evolving UAE: The Emirates Internet Project, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, American University of Sharjah, 2010, 2011, 2012 (forthcoming). 16 See M Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Volume I, Second Edition, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2010 (1996), p. 417; M Castells, Toward a Sociology of the Network Society. Contemporary Sociology, vol. 29, no. 5, 2000, pp. 694-696; A Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, The University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1996, pp. 29-37; P Howard, Castells and the Media, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2011, p. 58, and pp. 79-82; J Urry, Global Complexity, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2003, pp. 8-12; J Urry, Small Worlds and the New Social Physics. Global Networks, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 112-113. 17 M Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, p. 411, and pp. 443-444; Toward a Sociology of the Network Society, p. 696; A Appadurai, Modernity at Large, p. 31; J Urry, Global Complexity, p. 30-31, and pp. 51-56; J Urry, Small Worlds and the New Social Physics, pp. 114-116. 18 Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, p. 443.
2 1

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J Urry, Global Complexity, p. 125, M Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, pp. 32-33, 70, 127-128; Castells, Toward a Sociology of the Network Society, pp. 693-694; P Howard, Castells and the Media, pp. 3-6, and p. 19. 20 Appadurai, Modernity at Large, p. 33; J Urry, Global Complexity, p. 65. 21 Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, p. 442. 22 L Althusser, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards an Investigation, in L Althusser, On Ideology, Verso, London, 2008 (1971), pp. 1-60. 23 In acknowledgement of Castells argument, we will refrain from using the term nationstate, in acknowledgement of the fact that flow disrupts the relationship between the nation and the state, and that the two are no longer inseparable. See M Castells, The Power of Identity, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Volume II, Second Edition, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2010 (1997), pp. 356-358. 24 M Castells, Global Governance and Global Politics. Political Science and Politics, vol. 38, no. 1, 2005, p. 9. 25 M Castells, The Power of Identity, p. 361. 26 ibid., p. 363. 27 M Castells, Global Governance and Global Politics, p. 10. 28 ibid., p. 10; M Castells, The Power of Identity, pp. 69-70, and pp. 420-422. 29 Castells, Toward a Sociology of the Network Society, p. 694. 30 ibid., p. 697. 31 A Appadurai, Modernity at Large, p. 31, pp. 179-180, pp. 190-191 32 ibid., pp. 9-11, p. 42, p. 178, p. 190. 33 See A N Panagaos and H A Horst, Return to Cyberia: Technology and the Social Worlds of Transnational Migrants. Global Networks, vol. 6, no. 2, 2006, pp. 109-124; M van Bochove, K Rusinovic and G Engbersen, The Multiplicity of Citizenship: Transnational and Local Practices and the Identifications of Middle-Class Migrants. Global Networks, vol. 10, no. 3, 2010, pp. 344-364. 34 See B Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London, 1991; J Prodnik, Post Fordist Communities and Cyberspace: A Critical Approach, in Virtual Space: Mediations of the Self, Community and Polity, H Breslow and A Mousoutzanis (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, Forthcoming; H Breslow and I Allagui, The Internet, Fixity and Flow: Challenges to the Articulation of an Imagined Community, in H Breslow and A Mousoutzanis, Virtual Space: Mediations of the Self, Community and Polity. 35 See H Breslow, The Changing Space of the Arab City: The Case of Dubai, paper presented to Global Conference on Urban Pop Cultures, Prague, May 2011, pp. 1-2. 36 I Allagui and H Breslow, The Internet and the Evolving UAE: The Emirates Internet Project, Year II, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, American University of Sharjah, 2011, p. 29. 37 ibid., p. 29. 38 ibid., p. 30. 39 ibid., pp. 27-28. 40 I Allagui and H Breslow, The Internet and the Evolving UAE: The Emirates Internet Project, Year I, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, American University of Sharjah, 2010, p. 29. 41 M Castells, Toward a Sociology of the Network Society, p. 696. 42 See, for instance, J Urry, Small Worlds and the New Social Physics. Global Networks, vol. 4, no. 2, 2004, pp. 110-130. 43 ibid., p. 118. 44 ibid., p. 117.

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ibid., p. 114. ibid., pp. 114-115. 47 M van Bochove, K Rusinovic and G Engbersen, The Multiplicity of Citizenship: Transnational and Local Practices and Identifications of Middle-Class Migrants. Global Networks, vol. 10, no. 3, 2010, p. 347. 48 ibid., p. 350; M van den Bos and L Nell, Territorial Bounds to Virtual Space: Transnational Online and Offline Networks of Iranian and Turkish-Kurdish Immigrants in the Netherlands. Global Networks, vol. 6, no. 2, 2006, pp. 205; C Voigt-Graf, Towards a Geography of Transnational Spaces: Indian Transnational Communities in Australia. Global Networks, vol. 4, no. 1, 2004, p. 25-26. 49 See, for instance, M Wahlstrm and A Peterson, Between the State and the Market: Expanding the Concept of Political Opportunity Structure. Acta Sociologica, vol. 49, no. 4, 2006; M Schulz, Collective Action Across Borders: Opportunity Structures, Network Capacities and Communicative Praxis in the Age of Advanced Globalization. Sociological Perspectives, vol. 41, no. 3, 1998, pp. 585-616; M Skefeld, Mobilizing in Transnational Space: A Social Movement Approach to the Formation of Diaspora. Global Networks, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 265-284. 50 See J A Goldstone, More Social Movements or Fewer? Beyond Political Opportunity Structures to Relational Fields. Theory and Society, vol. 33, no. 3/4, 2004, pp. 356-359. 51 M Wahlstrm and A Peterson, Between the State and the Market, p. 364. 52 D McAdam, Conceptual Origins, Current Problems, Future Directions, in Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements, Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Framing, D McAdam, J D McCarthy and M N Zald (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, quoted in M Wahlstrm and A Peterson, Between the State and the Market, p. 364. 53 A Mol and J Law, Regions, Networks and Fluids: Anaemia and Social Topology. Social Studies of Science, vol. 24, no. 4, 1994, p. 643, and pp. 648-650. 54 ibid., p. 659; J Urry, Global Complexity, pp. 56-59. 55 A Mol and J Law, Regions, Networks and Fluids, p. 660. 56 See J Urry, Global Complexity, pp. 64-74, for an analysis of various global fluids. 57 M Callon and J Law, After the Individual in Society: Lessons on Collectivity from Science, Technology and Society. The Canadian Journal of Sociology, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 168-169. 58 On robustness, see A Mol and J Law, Regions, Networks and Fluids, p. 662.
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