In this hauntological text, academic and trained architect Luis Hernan weaves together threads of technological developments, Chicano rights, border walls, borderlands and the electromagnetic spectrum. This essay appears in the book ‘Informal Settlements of the Global South’ (Routledge, 2023) edited by Gihan Karunaratne which challenges current ways of thinking about the governance of settlements, mobility and placemaking from a diversity of global perspectives.
A Spectral Technology
Wireless technologies have, historically, been linked to ghosts and spectres. The electromagnetic spectrum, a theoretical model that classifies radiation according to wavelength and photon energy, was first proposed by Sir Isaac Newton in his Experimentum Crucis.1 In a letter to the Philosophical Transactions, Newton coins the term ‘spectrum’ to describe the way that light splits after passing through an optical prism.2 The word comes from the Latin specere, ‘to look’, and shares etymology with spectrum and spectre, ghostly apparitions. Around the same, ‘spectral evidence’ was admitted in witch-hunt trials in England and the American colonies, involving a witness account of a witch seen spectrally, their spirit disembodied.3
Wireless technologies have, historically, been linked to ghosts and spectres.
The excess of meaning in ‘spectrum’ resonates in the development of wireless. Research on electromagnetic phenomena in the 19th century was animated by the notion of the ether, an invisible yet material force. It was this rarefied air that was thought to make electromagnetic fields possible, leading scientists such as Oliver Lodge to enquiry the connections between physical and psychic phenomena, believing ghosts and spectres were invisible yet material ‘vibrations’.4 Jeffrey Sconce reminds us that the development and popularisation of wireless telegraphy led to renewed interest in telepathy and spiritualism.5
Spectral analogies are useful in contextualising wireless technologies. Media theorist Adrian Mackenzie suggests that wirelessness involves a ‘conjunctive’ form of inhabiting places, allowing enhanced and multiple connections. The experience made possible by wireless technologies is ‘diffuse, multiple and unstable in outline’.6 Understanding wireless as a spectre is also useful in engaging with more political, urgent considerations, such as the way that the technology articulates conflicting discourses around the Mexico/US border.
Understanding wireless as a spectre is useful in engaging with more political, urgent considerations, such as the way that the technology articulates conflicting discourses around the Mexico/US border.
A Lingering Memory
At the height of the Chicano Rights movement of the 1960s, Aztlán became a symbol of emancipation. Mexicas, the original inhabitants of central Mexico also known as ‘Aztecs’, were fabled to have migrated from Aztlán to find a new homeland.7 The existence of an original place from where Mexican people originally migrated has long been debated. It is known, for example, that Mexicas recorded history in a way that would be considered imprecise to modern, Western standards: they used written records to define the main narrative stages, which were then used as template by history-tellers. In each telling, the story would be adapted to make sure everyone felt included. This approach meant skipping contentious passages, for example, the defeat of the local army or how a town had come to be subjugated by the Mexica Empire. The myth of Aztlán seems to have been fashioned in a similar way. The tribes that lived in Aztlán are said to come from Chicomoztoc, the place of ‘seven caves’, each representing the largest groups that lived under the rule of the Aztec empire. There is, however, some linguistic and material evidence to suggest that Nahuatls, as Mexica’s ancestors are known, had originally lived in different places of the current Southwestern United States.8
The myth of Aztlán was used by the Chicano movement to signal the historical interconnectedness of Mexican and North American communities.
The myth of Aztlán was used by the Chicano movement to signal the historical interconnectedness of Mexican and North American communities. It was also used as a reminder of a more recent history when the United States annexed a good part of the Southwest following the Mexican-American War in the 19th century.9 The mythical place is at the core of the ‘Plan Espiritual de Aztlán’, the Spiritual Plan of Aztlán which became a rallying cry to assert the agency of the Mexican community in the United States:
“We are free and sovereign to determine those tasks which are justly called for by our house, our land, the sweat of our brows, and by our hearts. Aztlán belongs to those who plant the seed, water the fields, and father the crops and not to the foreign Europeans. We do not recognize capricious frontiers on the bronze continent.”10
The notion of Aztlán has been revived in recent years with anti-immigration groups linking it to a suspected attempt to invade and ‘reclaim’. Representatives of MEChA (Chicanx Movement of Aztlán), the organisation who released the original plan, insist the document should be contextualised in the radical movements of the late 1960s, but there are anti-immigration groups who take the plan literally, warning of a latent threat.11 The anxiety over this lingering memory, the ghost of a territory and its original inhabitants who might come back to reclaim it, has historically led to controversial decisions that impact the life of Latino and other minority communities such as, for example, the ban on teaching of Chicano culture in the public education system.12
The ghost of a territory and its original inhabitants who might come back to reclaim it, has historically led to controversial decisions that impact the life of Latino and other minority communities.
There is no linguistic or etymological connection, but they are almost near homophones: Aztlán and Altán. Aztlán comes from the Náhuatl Aztatl, the name for heron in reference to the abundance of the bird species in the mythical place, but also as a symbol for the ‘place of whiteness’.13 It is not clear what the motivation was to name the consortium ‘Altán’, but it is easy to speculate that the similarity played a role in the decision of Senator Cruz to get involved in a highly technical dispute between two telecommunication companies over frequency sharing protocols. Despite having Cuban descent, Cruz is well known for his position against so-called illegal immigration. More recently Cruz made an official visit to the border and produced a documentary, in the style of wildlife, exposing a border that is ‘out of control’. Wearing a fisherman’s vest and a rolled up, unbuttoned shirt, a grave Cruz speaks to camera to tell of the human traffickers on the other side of the Rio Grande ‘yelling and taunting Americans, taunting the border patrol’.14
The controversy reveals the political imbalances in the relationship between Mexico and the United States. An analysis of the first 30km of the Tijuana/San Diego border, where the first cases of interference were reported, show over 30 masts operated by Verizon (Figure 1). By comparison, Altán Networks operates less than ten masts. The interference between Altán and Verizon is not unusual—the propagation of electromagnetic signals depends on a large number of factors, including the buildings, vegetation, landscape and atmospheric events, making it difficult to model their precise coverage and potential interference. Cross border interference is, in part, the subject of the 2014 World Press Photo winner ‘Signal’, by John Stanmeyer. The photograph shows a group of people gathered at the beach holding their mobile phones to a full moon sky. Stanmeyer explains the photograph was taken in a beach near Djibouti city, where people attempt to catch mobile coverage from neighbouring Somalia, where connection rates are cheaper.15
Fig. 1 - A map of the ‘Battlefield’. Senator Cruz describes the interference as an act of provocation from the Mexican government. Putting aside the questionable use of martial metaphors, the ‘facts’ on the ground call the assessment into question. An analysis of the first kilometres of the Tijuana-San Diego border reveals a significantly higher concentration of Verizon masts compared to those installed by Altán Redes. The waves surrounding each mast speculate on the dispersion of signal that strays across the wall.
Reading through the letter of Senator Cruz, the interference is experienced as a haunting: fleeing, repetitive moments where home becomes unfamiliar, when ‘your bearings on the world lose direction’.16 Media coverage stressed the inconvenience for users who would rely on the network to communicate with their family and friends. Senator Cruz hammers the point by calling the situation a ‘threat of harmful interference’ and an ‘important issue to public safety and border security’, mobilising with this the imagery of a hostile state raiding the border. When describing the situation, Senator Cruz is quick to mention that the disruption has been generated by a ‘new, wholesale telecommunication carrier created by the Mexican government’.17
Writer Colin Dickey suggests the United States is a haunted land.18 Reflecting on the tradition of ghost stories, he argues that there is a primal anxiety in the American psyche over the ownership of the land. For the middle classes, it is anxiety over their ability to, ultimately, pay up their mortgage and truly own the land they live in. Beneath this there is a more fundamental haunting, that of the violence involved in conquering and claiming the land from its native inhabitants. As the Altán/Vodafone controversy shows, the use of wireless technology at the border seems to conjure up these ghosts once more, even over signals that stray momentarily over the wall.
Writer Colin Dickey suggests the United States is a haunted land. Reflecting on the tradition of ghost stories, he argues that there is a primal anxiety in the American psyche over the ownership of the land.
Ghost Sickness
If the idea of Aztlán, of a land taken by force, still haunts the borderlands, what sort of spectral figure emerges? Navajo people believe that the spirit, or chindi, enters the human body as a stiff breath at birth, and leaves it as a ghost at the time of death. Normally this transition is uneventful and the chindi migrates to the underworld, where its personal identity degrades, making it difficult for it to come back and haunt its living relatives. In extraordinary circumstances, however, the chindi remains in the world and clings to the bones and worldly possessions of the deceased, becoming a malevolent force.19
The chindi is useful in imagining wireless, a spectral technology, as a device to exorcise the other ghosts of the borderlands. Research by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has revealed the use of Cellsite Simulators, also known as Stingrays, by Immigration Enforcement Agencies and, especially, by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Stingrays can be described as ghostly.20 They imitate a cell phone mast signal to trick nearby phones into connecting to a ‘ghost’ station. Researchers at ACLU are uncertain about the capabilities of Stingray, but it is believed that they are able to pinpoint the location of connected phones. They can also access the list of recent calls and text messages, a feature which has been used by ICE to track migrants as they cross the border.21
Plath suggests poles are tools of disappearance and obfuscation. While providing a technological solution to the problem of locating migrants, who might be in need of medical help, panic poles render their ‘illegality’ visible, while strategically reframing some as criminals or victims.
Stingrays are one of a panoply of wireless technologies used at the border to identify and apprehend migrants. The US Custom and Border Protection Agency has installed Rescue Beacons, also known as ‘Panic Poles’, in the Arizonian desert. They are around 10 m tall and configured to house radio equipment that allows would-be migrants to send a distress signal directly to the Border Agency. The pole also includes motion sensors and a strobing light which, along with a spinning reflective metal piece, makes it visible from afar. Placards display instructions, in English and Spanish, that explain the terms of communication: ‘If you need help, push the red button. US Border Patrol will arrive in one hour. Do not leave this location (…) You are in danger of dying if you do not summon for help’.22
When the first poles were installed in the early 2000s, the Border Agency portrayed them as a rational response to the spiralling crisis of migrants dying in their attempt to cross the border. But as Tara Plath reminds us, poles constitute a ‘supplemental technology’ of a surveillance apparatus deployed in the wake of Operation Gatekeeper, launched in 1994 during the Clinton administration as part of a larger strategy of militarisation of the border.23 Plath suggests poles are tools of disappearance and obfuscation. While providing a technological solution to the problem of locating migrants, who might be in need of medical help, panic poles render their ‘illegality’ visible, while strategically reframing some as criminals or victims. This rhetorical function is particularly important in the media discourse at the time, which described the border as running out of control, and calling for solutions to secure the border. The poles are meant to make border crossings riskier, pushing routes away from urban environments and towards the harsher landscape of the desert. They offer the possibility of being rescued linked to the certainty of being apprehended — the expression of a ‘humanitarian’ state who understands its primary role as that of detecting and deporting ‘aliens’.
Fig. 2 - An initial prototype of the Anduril Sentry. Leveraging on his support of the Trump presidential campaign in 2016, Palmer Luckey used the Sentry as a proof of concept for a situational awareness system which would enable soldiers a total view of the battlefield. The use of the Mexico-US border as a test ground for military hardware keeps with a long tradition of militarisation, as the McNamara Wall and SBInet show.
Spectres of a Forgotten Future
The figure of the ghost was conjured in critical theory by Jacques Derrida in Spectres of Marx, which compiles a series of lectures he gave as part of Whither Marxism?, a conference held at the University of California, the borderlands, in 1993.24 The lecture reflected on the state of the left and communism after the fall of the Soviet Union, amid the much celebrated ‘end of history’ in which the liberal democracies of the West would be unhindered to spread their economic and democratic values to the rest of the world.25 Spectres of Marx is Derrida’s riposte, proposing that Marxism would continue to haunt capitalism despite the apparent crumbling of any viable alternative. Derrida suggested the notion of hauntologie, which instead of studying the nature of being as its homophone ontology does, uses the figure of the ghost as a way of studying paradoxical entities which are neither present nor absent, dead nor alive.26 Belief in actual ghosts is not important to the notion of hauntology, as Frederic Jameson reminds us. What the figure of the ghost tells us is that: The living present is scarcely as self-sufficient as it claims to be; that we would do well not to count on its density and solidity, which might under exceptional circumstances betray us.27
What the figure of the ghost tells us is that: the living present is scarcely as self-sufficient as it claims to be; that we would do well not to count on its density and solidity, which might under exceptional circumstances betray us.
The notion of hauntology is used by Mark Fisher to diagnose a contemporary fascination for the past, manifested in a predilection for ‘vintage’ elements in popular culture forms.28 Fisher concentrates primarily in popular music but his analysis of a ‘temporal malaise’ extrapolates to other forms of cultural expression, and points towards a more general ‘cancellation’ of alternative futures.
The project of a smart border wall also suffers from a temporal malaise, fascinated and forgetful of the past. In July 2017, Republican Representative Will Hurd introduced the Secure Miles with All Resources and Technology Act (SMART) to the US House of Representatives. Co-sponsored by two Democratic Representatives, Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar, the bill sought to reach a consensus on the infrastructure of the Mexico/US border.29 The government of Donald Trump proposed the construction of a reinforced concrete wall along the southern border to deter so-called illegal crossings, which proved to be deeply divisive in Congress. The SMART act sought to reach a compromise by forcing the government to explore technological solutions, including computer imaging, sensor technologies, wireless and virtual reality headsets, to ‘secure’ the border. Technology was argued to create a more humane border, representing the antithesis of ‘big, beautiful’ walls.30
The SMART initiative paved the way for the Trump administration awarding a contract to Anduril for the development of ‘sentry’ towers for a virtual border wall. The towers (See Figure 2) integrate off-the-shelf sensors that are cheap and unreliable individually but, when combined with Artificial Intelligence, they are able to provide situational awareness, filtering erratic data and delivering border agents with an assessment of genuine threats.31 Anduril was founded by Palmer Luckey, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who describes the company as an effort to leverage the expertise and technology development of Silicon Valley for the defence sector.32
Although the use of the adjective ‘smart’ suggests that the solution is novel, the idea of a technological alternative to a physical border is a recurring spectre in the borderlands.
Although the use of the adjective ‘smart’ suggests that the solution is novel, the idea of a technological alternative to a physical border is a recurring spectre in the borderlands. Iván Chaar-López analysed efforts in the 1970s to create an ‘electronic fence’, a complex assembly of radio waves, ground sensors, and computers to detect border crossings. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) drew inspiration from the emerging field of cybernetics to design a system to exclude racialised migrants — ‘wetbacks and narcotic smugglers’ as Border Patrol officials describe their targets. The electronic fence was, in turn, inspired by the McNamara Wall, the unsuccessful system of sensors and transmitters used to detect incursions of the Vietcong during the Vietnam War.33
Although both the electronic fence and the McNamara Wall proved to be ineffective, due to intermittent sensor failure and frequent false positives, they continued to attract funding and political attention, becoming a powerful symbol of an ‘imperial control fantasy’. This fantasy helps explain the emergence of an almost identical ‘solution’ in the Secure Border Initiative (SBInet), implemented during the presidency of George W. Bush. The programme was commissioned to Boeing, who developed Project 28, an initial implementation covering 28 miles along the Arizona border.34 The prototype involved nine towers, around 30 m tall, integrating wireless networking, radar and high-resolution cameras. Although similar solutions had been installed along the border before, the project was considered to be a sophisticated solution aggregating sensor outputs, which were transmitted to a control centre where agents would be assisted by computers to identify ‘illegal’ crossers.35 As with the electronic fence, the project was ultimately thwarted by the challenges of the desert before it was cancelled in 2011.
The way that these technologies are spatialised often reveal these ghosts, which range from long-standing issues of race and colonial anxieties, but also extend to issues of class and gender.
Conclusions
The involvement of Silicon Valley in the security of the border, and the emergence of a ‘smart’ border wall, is thought to signal a change of strategy. Specialised media discusses the long-standing interest from the Pentagon and other security agencies to ‘tap’ on the technological expertise of Silicon Valley, and their expected ability to develop and deploy comparatively cheap technologies to make security tasks more efficient that they would be able to produce if developed from scratch.36 In the political imaginary, the development of a more technological wall is also a more positive, more palatable version of the old policies of confinement and control of racialised populations.37 The alliance also signals a contradiction in the ethos and agenda of Silicon Valley, whose design culture is often associated with counterculture and, generally, the aspiration to produce technologies that empower the individual and enable communities to self-organise without the need for a central government.38
However, as I have discussed in this chapter, wireless and other electronic technologies are spectral, being often associated with notions of ghosts and phantoms to account for the way they operate and the possibilities they hold. But the metaphor is also useful in navigating the contradictions inherent in the use of wireless and other electronic technologies in the borderlands. The way that these technologies are spatialised often reveal these ghosts, which range from long-standing issues of race and colonial anxieties, but also extend to issues of class and gender. More importantly perhaps, a critical examination of these technologies and their ghosts creates the theoretical foundations to challenge them and, ultimately, imagine new possibilities.
A critical examination of these technologies and their ghosts creates the theoretical foundations to challenge them and, ultimately, imagine new possibilities.
The ghosts that host the borderlands, and the technologies of invisible borders, are crucial in our understanding of the Global South. Despite rhetoric that suggests that borders are ‘dematerialising’, and that the world is coming closer together, the borders that separate north and south are intractable, and new technologies reinforce their materiality. The ghost demands that we listen to the past and the boundaries of the Global South speak of material injustice and histories of violence which are difficult to ignore, despite all the cool gadgets that we use to produce smarter and invisible walls.
Bio
Luis Hernan trained as an architect in Mexicoand is a Lecturer in Architecture and Digital Cultures He is a deputy director of the Postgraduate Research where I lead in our PhD by Design programme. He is also the co-editor in chief, with Emma Cheatle and Iulia Statica, for field: journal. Luis’ work explores the interface of technologies, space, everyday life and the urban environment. It combines critical theory with design explorations to interrogate technology and its spatial politics, as well as challenging discourses of progress and necessity.
Notes
1Isaac Newton, ‘A Letter of Mr. Isaac Newton, Professor of the Mathematics in the University of Cambridge; Containing His New Theory about Light and Colors: Sent by the Author to the Publisher from Cambridge, Febr. 6. 1671/72; in Order to Be Communicated to the R. Society’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 6, no. 80 (19 February 1672): 3075–3087, online.
2 Wendel D. Craker, ‘Spectral Evidence, Non-Spectral Acts of Witchcraft, and Confession at Salem in 1692’, The Historical Journal 40, no. 2 (1997): 331–358.
3 Anthony Enns, ‘Psychic Radio: Sound Technologies, Ether Bodies and Spiritual Vibrations’, The Senses and Society 3, no. 2 (1 July 2008): 137–152, online.
4 David Hendy, ‘Oliver Lodge’s Ether and the Birth of British Broadcasting’, ed. James Mussell and Graeme Gooday (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), 183–197, online.
5 Richard Noakes, ‘Thoughts and Spirits by Wireless: Imagining and Building Psychic Telegraphs in America and Britain, circa 1900–1930’, History and Technology 32, no. 2 (2 April 2016): 137–158, online.
6 Adrian Mackenzie, ‘Wirelessness as Experience of Transition’, The Fibreculture Journal 13 (2008), online.
7 Rudolfo Anaya, Francisco A. Lomelí, and Enrique R. Lamadrid, Aztlán: Essays on the Chicano Homeland. Revised and Expanded Edition (Alburquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2017).
8 Camilla Townsend, Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).
9 Marc Simon Rodriguez, Rethinking the Chicano Movement (New York: Routledge, 2014).
10 Rodolpho González, ‘El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán’, Atzlán: An Anthology of Mexican-American Literature (New York: Vintage Books, 1972).
11 David Kelly, ‘Vision That Inspires Some and Scares Others: Aztlan’, Los Angeles Times, 7 July 2006, online.
12 Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands: The New Mestiza (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 2012).
13 Miguel León-Portilla, ‘Aztlán: Ruta de Venida y de Regreso’, Letras Libres, 2005.
14 Erum Salam, ‘Republican Senator Ted Cruz Mocked for Documentary-Style Trip to US-Mexico Border’, The Guardian, 27 March 2021, sec. Americas, online.
15 Alexa Keefe, ‘World Press 2014: Signals from Djibouti’, National Geographic 9 February 2014, online.
16 Avery Gordon, Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997).
17 Cruz, ‘Letter to’.
18 Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places (New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 2016).
19 Jill Leslie McKeever Furst, The Natural History of the Soul in Ancient Mexico Yale University Press, 1995), 151, 158.
20 Alexia Ramirez, ‘ICE Records Confirm That Immigration Enforcement agencies Are Using Invasive Cell Phone Surveillance Devices’, American Civil Liberties Union, 27 May 2020, online.
21 South Lighthouse, ‘Mexico CDMX | FADe’, accessed 13 August 2021, online.
22 Brittany Pollard and Ryan Ruegg, ‘Rescue Beacons (“Panic Poles”)’, National Border, National Park: A History of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (blog), 7 February 2013, online.
23 Tara Plath, ‘An Elusive Viewshed: An Investigation of United States’ Border Patrol Rescue Beacons in Arizona’s Western Desert’, Plot(s) Journal of Design Studies, Parsons School of Design 7, no. 2 (n.d.): 26–42.
24 Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International, trans. Peggy Kamuf, Routledge Classics (New York: Routledge, 1994).
25 Francis Fukuyama, End of History and the Last Man (London: Penguin Books, 012).
26 Colin Davis, ‘Hauntology, Spectres and Phantoms’, French Studies 59, no. 3 (1 July 2005): 373–379, online.
27 Frederic Jameson quoted by Davis, p. 374.
28 Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Ghost Futures (London: Zero Books, 2014).
29 Will Hurd, ‘H.R.3479 - Secure Miles with All Resources and Technology ct’, Pub. L. No. 3479 (2017), online.
30 Will Parrish, ‘The U.S. Border Patrol and an Israeli Military Contractor Are Putting a Native American Reservation Under “Persistent Surveillance”’, The Intercept, 25 August 2019, online.
31 Paresh Dave, ‘Palmer Luckey’s New Defense Technology Start-up Anduril Draws Execs from Palantir’, Los Angeles Times, 3 August 2017, sec. Technology, online.
32 Stephen Levy, ‘Inside Palmer Luckey’s Bid to Build a Border Wall’, Wired November 2018, online.
33 Iván Chaar-López, ‘Sensing Intruders: Race and the Automation of Border Control’, American Quarterly 71, no. 2 (2019): 495–518, online.
34 Tamara Vukov and Mimi Sheller, ‘Border Work: Surveillant Assemblages, Virtual Fences, and Tactical Counter-Media’, Social Semiotics 23, no. 2 (1 April 2013): 225–241, online.
35 Randal C. Archibold, ‘28-Mile Virtual Fence Is Rising Along the Border’, The New York Times, 26 June 2007, sec. U.S., online.
36 Lee Fang and Sam Biddle, ‘Google AI Tech Will Be Used for Virtual Border Wall, CBP Contract Shows’, The Intercept, 21 October 2020, online.
37 Nancy Pelosi is one of the most visible Democrats to subscribe to technological alternatives to the border wall as an antidote to the supposedly more divisive policies of Donald Trump: ‘The positive, shall we say, almost technological wall that can be built is what we should be doing’. Quoted by: Will Parrish, ‘The U.S. Border Patrol’.
38 Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).
