Infrastructure enables capitalism and imperialism to operate.
Capitalism requires infrastructure for the production and transport of raw materials and commodities.
Imperialism requires infrastructure for the movement of settlers and military forces.
Both capitalism and imperialism depend on communications infrastructure.
Infrastructural Reading
Dominic Davies proposes a dual approach to infrastructural reading.
-Infrastructure in the text: How is infrastructure represented in colonial literature?
-Infrastructure of the text: What colonial infrastructures made the production of the text possible?
This approach exposes the internal contradictions of colonialism, even when colonial territories are portrayed.
Text: Mobility Humanities Interconnect
Dominic Davies, Imperial Infrastructure and Spatial Resistance in Colonial Literature, 1880–1930, trans. Taehan Kim and Taehee Kim (LPBooks, 2025).