WIRED FOR EMPIRE: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AS AN INSTRUMENT OF HYPER CAPITALIST CONTROL IN MOHSIN HAMID'S EXIT WEST AND KAMILA SHAMSIE'S HOME FIRE

Abstract

This paper considers Mohsin Hamid's Exit West (2017) and Kamila Shamsie's Home Fire (2017) as narrations of the ways in which information technologies infuse hyper capitalist power into everyday life. Following Hardt and Negri (2000) I locate both novels in reference to Empire, and Graham (2006) presents an understanding of a techno-entertainment complex in which the most intimate activity can be technologized and sold—which is to say a hyper capitalism of which I wish to argue that digital systems are a governing instrument, not a neutral channel. Exit West is the place where the web that delivers whatever that's couriered and whatever that's pirated is one thing that could be shut off with a press of a button by the state in a single instant. Brazile's Home Fire is a story and a place where a browser history, Skype window, and trending hashtag are all places of reading, sorting, and managing for the Muslim citizen. Qualitative: Textual analysis of selected passages. It discovers that the point of control for both writers is at the level of access and visibility, and the technologies that guarantee connection are those that enable the legibility of people to capital and the state