Abstract
On October 1st 2023 the British Overseas Territory of St Helena was fully con-
nected to Google’s Equiano undersea cable, a spur linking it with the main cable off
the west coast of Africa. This link brought high-speed internet access to this remote
Atlantic island for the first time. In the successful application to the European
Development Fund to cover the 21.5 million euros cost of the project, the St Helena
Government (2018) suggested that creating this link was essential if the island were
to meet its ongoing development goals, particularly in the area of health, business
and education. While it is still too early to judge the impact of this significant invest-
ment in the island’s connectivity,1 on the surface it seems to be an exemplar of “digi-
tal transformation for development” (e.g. AU, 2020; GIZ, 2023). A common position
is to view an investment of this kind, and the enhanced connectivity it has brought,
as the latest, almost inevitable step in industrial, or post-industrial, development: an
information and communication technology (ICT) that will deterministically pro-
duce these anticipated benefits. Yet like all technologies, Equiano is not being installed in some neutral, inert space, but into an environment, and culture, that has been shaped by diverse forces over time.
This chapter considers how flows of information, culture and technology have sustained and influenced culture and society in this very remote place. St Helena is around 1165 miles (1875 km) from the west coast of Africa, but while it has always been, and must always be, separated from the rest of the world by this profound physical gulf, that does not mean it has always been inaccessible, or even peripheral.
In fact, St Helena offers a case study of how the impact of technology on culture
and society is a more nuanced, less linear process than the determinist narrative sug-
gests. The island’s history provides evidence for a persistent and profound separa-
tion between technology and local culture. Several significant investments in
‘connectivity’ have been made in the past, but all have come and gone with little
impact being felt by the island community. In addition, St Helena is a colony, and
always has been: never home to an ‘indigenous’ population, it is now one of the 14
remaining British Overseas Territories.2 As Hearl noted, this status is very signifi-
cant for any analysis of the island’s cultural development—and, I will suggest, its
technological development also.
nected to Google’s Equiano undersea cable, a spur linking it with the main cable off
the west coast of Africa. This link brought high-speed internet access to this remote
Atlantic island for the first time. In the successful application to the European
Development Fund to cover the 21.5 million euros cost of the project, the St Helena
Government (2018) suggested that creating this link was essential if the island were
to meet its ongoing development goals, particularly in the area of health, business
and education. While it is still too early to judge the impact of this significant invest-
ment in the island’s connectivity,1 on the surface it seems to be an exemplar of “digi-
tal transformation for development” (e.g. AU, 2020; GIZ, 2023). A common position
is to view an investment of this kind, and the enhanced connectivity it has brought,
as the latest, almost inevitable step in industrial, or post-industrial, development: an
information and communication technology (ICT) that will deterministically pro-
duce these anticipated benefits. Yet like all technologies, Equiano is not being installed in some neutral, inert space, but into an environment, and culture, that has been shaped by diverse forces over time.
This chapter considers how flows of information, culture and technology have sustained and influenced culture and society in this very remote place. St Helena is around 1165 miles (1875 km) from the west coast of Africa, but while it has always been, and must always be, separated from the rest of the world by this profound physical gulf, that does not mean it has always been inaccessible, or even peripheral.
In fact, St Helena offers a case study of how the impact of technology on culture
and society is a more nuanced, less linear process than the determinist narrative sug-
gests. The island’s history provides evidence for a persistent and profound separa-
tion between technology and local culture. Several significant investments in
‘connectivity’ have been made in the past, but all have come and gone with little
impact being felt by the island community. In addition, St Helena is a colony, and
always has been: never home to an ‘indigenous’ population, it is now one of the 14
remaining British Overseas Territories.2 As Hearl noted, this status is very signifi-
cant for any analysis of the island’s cultural development—and, I will suggest, its
technological development also.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Technology as cultural mediator |
| Subtitle of host publication | Theories and experiences from different contexts |
| Editors | Maria Beatrice Ligorio |
| Publisher | Springer Nature |
| Chapter | 2 |
| Pages | 23-52 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-3-031-97673-5 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-3-031-97672-8 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Aug 2025 |
Publication series
| Name | Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Springer |
| ISSN (Print) | 2523-7306 |
| ISSN (Electronic) | 2523-7314 |
Research Beacons, Institutes and Platforms
- Global inequalities
- Global Development Institute
