ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the twentieth century evolution of telecommunications infrastructure through political and cultural shifts in Afghanistan as it relates to historic concepts of a woman’s “place” in Afghan society, particularly in Pashtun society. Afghanistan’s relative delay in nationalized infrastructure and control enabled women to perform in virtual media spaces without established constraints. Until the Soviet occupation in 1978, multiple foreign powers had constructed telegraph lines and radio towers as a means of monitoring one another’s operations in Iran and the Indian subcontinent, with minimal involvement in Afghan society. The Taliban rejected adoption of the internet and limited women’s physical mobility and visibility. After the launch of 2G phones with internet access, women quickly gravitated to social media as a public space in response to physical limitations. While other Islamic republics built their own internet services and architecture, Afghanistan was inundated with a range of international internet and mobile data service providers and built a decentralized digital infrastructure. The development of wireless and satellite providers made it difficult for any one political body to control and censor the country’s internet content. Today, reinforced by an active diaspora of Afghan women, mobility, power, and independence depend more on access to the internet, radio, and messaging than to the urban streets. The physical construction of modern communication systems in Afghanistan have become an evolving virtual forum for women in an otherwise constrained physical environment.
