Internet as Infrastructure Development in Post-Socialist Lithuania

We invite you to the lecture by the Center's resident Migle Bareikyte. Migle will present her PhD research that explores the development of the Internet in post-socialist (1990-2018) Lithuania from the perspectives of science and technology studies and infrastructure studies, with the aim of contributing to the study of materialist media research through culturally attentive fieldwork.

Migle Bareikyte focuses on the telecommunications industry because it has developed and maintains the socially valued physical networks of the Internet; on post-socialist Lithuania because it is a country that is usually perceived as a periphery of Europe, but also has particularly well-developed Internet services since the fall of the Soviet Union; and through fieldwork, because this method of inquiry is attentive to the practice-based research on media technologies. Therefore, Migle conducted multi-site fieldwork (consisting of interviews with telecommunications stakeholders, archival work, participatory observation of labor practices at Telia Lietuva) between March 2017 and October 2018 in the cities of Vilnius and Kaunas to explore how the internet as a phenomenon is maintained in contemporary Lithuania.

During the lecture, she will present her motivation, methodological approach as well as the key arguments from my now-published dissertation (Transcript Verlag, 2022) by focusing on infrastructuring labor, geopolitical imaginaries and critical negotiations that frames the Internet development in Lithuania.

The lecture will be conducted in English. Simultaneous interpretation into Ukrainian will be provided at the event.

To attend the lecture, please register.

Live streaming on Youtube will be available.

Credits

Cover image: Migle Bareikyte

Portrait: Julija Goyd