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Chapter 6: Satellites, Oil, and Footprints: Eutelsat, Kazsat, and Post-Communist Territories in Central Asia
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6 @ Satellites, Oil, and Footprints Eutelsat, Kazsat, and Post-Communist Territories in Central Asia lisa parks In their study of energy, water, and telecommunications systems, Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin note, “infrastructure networks and the sociotechnical processes that surround them are strongly involved in structuring and delineating the experiences of urban culture and what Raymond Williams termed the ‘structures of feeling’ of modern urban life.” Furthermore , they write, “As capital that is literally ‘sunk’ and embedded within and between the fabrics of cities, [infrastructure networks] represent longterm accumulations of finance, technology, know-how, [and] organizational and geopolitical power.”1 Rather than examine infrastructures that are “sunk” beneath Earth’s surface, in this chapter I consider the accumulations of finance, technology, know-how, and organizational and geopolitical power that orbit Earth. More specifically, I explore how satellites and their footprints have played a role in reorganizing the economic and cultural flows across the post-Communist territories of Central Asia in recent years.2 Central Asia underwent major political and economic transformations after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Once in the orbit of Soviet control , republics or countries from Kazakhstan to Mongolia and from Ukraine to Bulgaria experienced democratization campaigns, gradually liberalized their economies, and began to integrate within the consumer cultures of Western Europe and the United States. In the midst of these political and economic transitions, foreign investors have also scrambled to access Central Asia’s natural resource wealth. Western corporations began investing in the region in the early 1990s and have dramatically expanded operations since then in an effort to plumb the region’s oil, gas, metal, and mineral deposits. Central Asia has also gained geopolitical importance in recent years as the United States has attempted to reposition itself strategically in relation to Russia and China, and has maneuvered to stake out new positions in the region in the context of the war on terror. These historical conditions set the backdrop for satellite developments and orbital slot assignments in Central Asia since the Soviet Union’s dissolution . As international communications scholar Monroe Price has argued, there is a “need for a richer understanding of the geopolitical, economic, and technical factors that determine who controls which orbital slots, what satellites gain access to those slots, and what program services are actually carried .” He continues, “an understanding of infrastructure—the way satellite routes come into being and are regulated—is necessary for an assessment of the consequences of information and entertainment flows. One way to begin this process is to examine some examples—small case studies—of the differentiation of satellite patterns.”3 Following Price’s suggestion, I examine the strategies of two very different satellite operators doing business across postCommunist territories of Central Asia—Eutelsat and Kazakhstan. My research on this topic began when I attended the Caspian Telecoms Conference in Istanbul in April 2007, where representatives from global telecom corporations and state officials from new nations of the Caspian region and Central Asia, including representatives of Eutelsat and Kazakhstan, met to discuss the future of the region’s telecommunications infrastructure. The contrasting positions of Eutelsat (one of the world’s largest and most established satellite operators, headquartered in France) and Kazakhstan (one of the smallest and newest satellite operators) were especially intriguing. They provide a unique opportunity to consider the relationship between satellites and post-Communism. While Eutelsat has expanded into this region to cultivate new markets in what the company refers to as “extended Europe,” Kazsat was launched primarily to offer satellite services to regional clients. The satellites of both of these operators have been used to circulate broadcast and telecommunication signals, facilitate flows of finance and capital, and reshape geographic imaginaries. While satellites have bolstered the broadcast and telecom sectors of the region, it is important to note that satellite operators have also provided orbital platforms for the Caspian’s booming oil industry. Satellites are used to support everything from surveying oil fields to monitoring drilling operations, from constructing oil rigs to maintaining pipelines. Since the same satellites can be used to support very different industries, it is important to develop an analytical model that can account for the more satellites, oil, and footprints 123 [54.160.244.62] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 05:11 GMT) “cultural” uses of satellites (such as broadcasting) in relation to their more “extractive” uses (such as natural resource development). In an effort to develop such a model, I concentrate on the footprint—the territorial boundary in which...