This thesis explores how locally-constructed agency, based on what we really care about, can be developed within and thence beyond localities. At issue is the need for new forms of connectedness and belonging in the globally-based network society. Globally-based communications and media technologies create new networks and mobilities that stretch and fragment existing socio-economic, administrative and ecological systems and with this, older, local and national forms of sociality. Such social upheavals are apt to drive people into defensive and divisive "us" against "them" forms of belonging. Local communities are then called on almost daily to fix these problems, but scarcely exist as connected effective agents on their own account. The thesis examines how official institutions (policy and academic) can help undo one-way global-local flows, by supporting new forms of local-local and local-through-to-global agency. A transdisciplinary methodology, developed in this thesis, performatively demonstrates productive, new local-academic-policy connections. Research included a fully participatory process that blends theoretical concepts (social, aesthetic, literary and film), with film and interactive technologies. A microcosm or simulation of locality was created through DVD film and an interactive research website. Through the shared use of screen interfaces, over one hundred co-detectives or co-researchers from hugely diverse backgrounds collaborated to search for, help reveal, and test out ways that local inhabitants could more effectively connect and co-create a filmed narrative of the kind of place that all would like to inhabit. A "network locality" development narrative is here piloted as a counterpoint to the global network society. Based on inclusive co-construction of locally grounded technology - and aesthetic-based communities - new possibilities of belonging around engagement in locally grounded civic-cosmopolitan projects are demonstrated.

This thesis explores how locally-constructed agency, based on what we really care about, can be developed within and thence beyond localities. At issue is the need for new forms of connectedness and belonging in the globally-based network society. Globally-based communications and media technologies create new networks and mobilities that stretch and fragment existing socio-economic, administrative and ecological systems and with this, older, local and national forms of sociality. Such social upheavals are apt to drive people into defensive and divisive "us" against "them" forms of belonging. Local communities are then called on almost daily to fix these problems, but scarcely exist as connected effective agents on their own account. The thesis examines how official institutions (policy and academic) can help undo one-way global-local flows, by supporting new forms of local-local and local-through-to-global agency. A transdisciplinary methodology, developed in this thesis, performatively demonstrates productive, new local-academic-policy connections. Research included a fully participatory process that blends theoretical concepts (social, aesthetic, literary and film), with film and interactive technologies. A microcosm or simulation of locality was created through DVD film and an interactive research website. Through the shared use of screen interfaces, over one hundred co-detectives or co-researchers from hugely diverse backgrounds collaborated to search for, help reveal, and test out ways that local inhabitants could more effectively connect and co-create a filmed narrative of the kind of place that all would like to inhabit. A "network locality" development narrative is here piloted as a counterpoint to the global network society. Based on inclusive co-construction of locally grounded technology - and aesthetic-based communities - new possibilities of belonging around engagement in locally grounded civic-cosmopolitan projects are demonstrated.

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During the twentieth century, Cable & Wireless was the world’s biggest and most important telegraphy company, employing large numbers of people in stations across the world. Its network of submarine cables and wireless routes circumnavigated the globe, connecting Britain with the Empire. This thesis examines the ways in which the British Empire and modernity shaped Cable & Wireless’ corporate identity in order to understand the historical geography of the relationships between Empire, state, and modernity. Additionally, it investigates the role of design in the Company’s engagement with the discourses of modernity and imperialism. Historical Geography has not paid sufficient attention to the role of companies, in particular technology companies, as institutions of imperialism and instruments of modernity. The study of businesses within Historical Geography is in its infancy, and this thesis will provide a major contribution to this developing field. This thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach that sits at the intersection of three main disciplines: Historical Geography, Design History and Business History. This thesis examines how Cable & Wireless’ identity was produced, transmitted and consumed. This thesis is based on detailed research in Cable &Wireless’ corporate archive at Porthcurno, examining a wide range of visual and textual sources. This pays particular attention to how the Company designed its corporate identity through maps, posters, ephemera, corporate magazines and exhibitions. Drawing upon the conceptualizations of the Empire as a network, it argues that Cable & Wireless’ identity was networked like its submarine cables with decision-making power, money and identity traversing this network. This thesis seeks to place both the company and the concept of corporate identity within a broader historical and artistic context, tracing the development of both the company’s institutional narrative and the corporate uses of visual technologies. No study has been conducted into the corporate identity and visual culture of Cable & Wireless. This thesis not only provides a new dimension to knowledge and understanding of the historical operations of Cable & Wireless, but also makes a substantive contribution to the wider fields of Historical Geography, Business History, Design History and the study of visual culture.