National territory and telecommunications infrastructure: the participation of the Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund in the expansion of fiber optic networks in Brazil

Abstract

Since the 1990s, Latin American countries have been receiving numerous investments in information technologies, a process triggered by the current stage of financial capitalism. In Brazil, the use and expansion of fiber optic cabling are linked to the period of insertion of the country in the context of informational globalization. Structural and financial assets controlled by Sovereign Wealth Funds and Private Funds, such as Singapore's GIC and BTG Pactual, respectively, are agents with the ability to produce and organize the territory. Financial investments in technical telecommunication networks print power relations that integrate, articulate and drain this territory at different scales of action. This process leads to the debate of the logic of financialization of the territory and of the different hegemonic agents that are constituting the new dynamics of infrastructure production. Thinking about the maintenance of socio-spatial inequalities associated with investments in fiber optic infrastructure networks, and what are the territorial implications of these investments in the condition of the use of these communication instruments, brings to light how the different geographical objects subscribed in the territory lead to the selective specialization of certain areas. In view of this, this article seeks to contribute to the understanding of the socio-spatial inequalities promoted by the new installations of telecommunication infrastructure, since they are related to the logics of interest of agents of international financial capital.