Toward a geographical stack: Reworking state-less and scale-less conceptions of the digital in China and California

Abstract

The past decade has seen a dramatic re-scaling of digital geopolitics: in the place of state-less and scale-less imaginaries of the digital world, a new imaginary centers on a great power rivalry. Stacks—assemblages of platforms and infrastructures exercising governance over populations and space—and their relation to states have become central. Yet neither global nor bipolar imaginaries adequately capture the vast and increasingly heterogeneous typology of geopolitical arrangements between states and stacks. This paper pulls together studies of state territoriality, digital platforms, and more-than-human infrastructures to reconceptualize the stack geographically: historically entangled with the state but with distinct spatialities.