ENTANGLED DREAMS AND FRAGMENTED SCHEMES: NAVIGATING 5G’S PROMISE FOR A GREEN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN THE BLACK COUNTRY

Abstract

This thesis critically examines the socio-technopolitical landscape of the Black Country region, birthplace of the industrial revolution. The region is poised at the forefront of the UK’s Ten Point Plan, promising a green industrial revolution. It explores these promises of 5G technology as the catalyst for equitable green and digital transformations, addressing the complex interplay between technological advancement and the entanglements and fragmentations among various stakeholders and public-private partnerships. Theoretically, the research is anchored in the Social Construction of Technology (SCoT) and empirically it employs critical cartography to navigate the interpretative technopolitical flexibilities of emerging technologies. Using multimodality and expert interviews (n = 6), it unveils the interplay of conflict and cooperation that informs the implications for digital sovereignty and social justice. Set against the backdrop of the Black Country’s transition from deindustrialisation to promised reindustrialisation, this inquiry probes the myriad of challenges and prospects that 5G infrastructures herald. Contributing to Global Studies, the thesis weaves together Science and Technology Studies (STS) with Global Political Economy (GPE), shedding light on the technopolitical sphere of 5G networks and their societal reverberations, discussed utilising literature from the anthropology of infrastructure. It offers a nuanced panorama of the socio-technopolitical ecosystem enveloping 5G deployment and its extensive consequences for research, policymaking, and practice. The thesis posits that the development and deployment of 5G must be steered to ensure equitable access and benefits for all stakeholders, nurturing a socio-technopolitical arena to bolster secure, sustainable green and digital transformations, attuned to the specificities of the region.