A Transnational History of the Internet in Central America, 1985–2000

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

   PDF

2. “Follow the Networks”

   • Ignacio Siles

   Pages 1-18

3. Matters of Central American Integration (1960s–1990s)

   • Ignacio Siles

   Pages 19-32

4. The Founding Networks of Central America

   • Ignacio Siles

   Pages 33-59

5. An Internet for the Global South

   • Ignacio Siles

   Pages 61-78

6. A Central American Internet

   • Ignacio Siles

   Pages 79-105

7. Internet and Integration in the Era of Privatization

   • Ignacio Siles

   Pages 107-134

8. The Inconclusive Project of Technological Integration

   • Ignacio Siles

   Pages 135-143

9. Back Matter

   Pages 145-148

   PDF

This Palgrave Pivot analyzes how six countries in Central America—Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama—connected to and through computer networks such as UUCP, BITNET and the Internet from the 80s to the year 2000. It argues that this story can only be told from a transnational perspective. To connect to computer networks, Central America built a regional integration project with great implications for its development. By revealing the beginnings of the Internet in this part of the world, this study broadens our understanding of the development of computer networks in the global south. It also demonstrates that transnational flows of knowledge, data, and technologies are a constitutive feature of the historical development of the Internet.

• history of computer networks
• the Internet in Central America
• Costa Rica
• transnational collaborations
• technology in Central America
• technology and integration
• microwave links
• telcommunications
• BITNET

“A Transnational History is an attempt to detach the histories of the internet in Latin America from national narratives and early adopters. Siles’s contribution interweaves local histories of technology, highlighting the common processes that made it possible to integrate the internet in Central America.” (Fabian Prieto-Ñañez, Technology and Culture, Vol. 63 (2), April, 2022)

• University of Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica

  Ignacio Siles

Ignacio Siles is a professor of media and technology studies in the School of Communication, and a researcher in the Centro de Investigación en Comunicación (CICOM) at the University of Costa Rica. He is the author of Networked Selves: Trajectories of Blogging in the United States and France (2017) and Por un sueño en.red.ado: Una historia de Internet en Costa Rica (2008). 

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