Digital Inequality & Infrastructure Clustering in the Network Society

This master’s thesis researches the disproportionate clustering of digital infrastructure around certain municipalities in Oaxaca. Through a sociological and correlational quantitative analysis of the Internet connectivity landscape of this Mexican state, based on a dual-layer snapshot of the Oaxacan social space and the digital infrastructure’s spatial form in 2020, a relationship is established between some socio-demographic, socio-economic, and socio-spatial characteristics of its inhabitants and the development of digital infrastructure quantity and quality. The research found strong correlations between digital infrastructure clustering and the amount of population, the degree of urbanization, and the mean household income of the Oaxacan municipalities. The findings suggest that Internet service providers prioritize urban, wealthier areas for infrastructure development, driven by market economy goals, while rural and Indigenous communities are often left with limited or no digital infrastructure for Internet connectivity. This prioritization results in a form of technical digital inequality based on spatial infrastructure clusters and gaps across space reflecting other forms of inequality also present in Oaxaca. A historical perspective structures the analysis in this research, as it is set to study a snapshot of the fast-paced development of digital infrastructure in Oaxaca amidst an ongoing historical process. The 2020 snapshot of the Internet connectivity landscape depicts, in consequence, Oaxaca’s stage of incorporation into the information age. This incorporation is found to be mediated by the socio-technical politics of the network society, evident in its promotion of a hierarchy of social attributes, where digital infrastructure development is historically intertwined with capitalist expansion in the 21st century and Internet access is conditioned on the basis of market economy participation.