Blockchain Papers

Tammy Wahpeconiah

How is God in the world? Is He, according to Christian theology, both transcendent and immanent? In other words, is He distant and separate from the world and humanity while at the same time working within both? Or, did He create the universe and then remove Himself from it? Are we able to comprehend certain aspects of God through our understanding of the order and beauty of the universe? Or, do humans seek a God who is no longer interested? Many science fiction writers have asked and responded to such questions including Ted Chiang in his collection, Stories of Your Life and Others. Several of his stories deal directly with these questions and we can read them as a critique of faith, religion, belief, and the nature of God. Chiang questions whether God has a role in our lives, what that role may look like, and the ability of religion to provide meaning. Furthermore, these stories are apocalyptic in nature, especially if we think of apocalypse as revelation, the Greek definition. Frederick Krueziger further defines apocalypse as “an unfolding; hence a revelation through unfolding” (5). Such unfolding always takes place within a story; thus, we must consider the inherent connection between apocalypse and story. As Krueziger says, “Apocalypse as story first of all reveals story as that which shapes our search for meaning” (5). The revelation, the unfolding, therefore is the story itself as well as what the story means. We can read Chiang's stories as apocalyptic because they reveal our disillusionment with our world and our inability to find meaning in religion alone. For Krueziger, science fiction as apocalypse illustrates our disillusionment with “the failure of the promise of technology and science to deliver the world from poverty, ignorance, disease, war, famine, plague, and death. &”(6). Although I agree that many science fiction works address these particular disillusionments, Chiang's stories, I would argue, have a certain similarity to the apocalyptic writings of John. People disappointed at the failure of the Second Coming to occur during their lifetime lost faith in the promise of God. John's writings deal with crises of both history and faith. Thus, Chiang's stories are similar to John's writings in that they deal with the disillusionment and failure of faith and religion. Before discussing the stories, it may behoove us to consider the definitions of faith, religion, and belief. Although we may feel we know what these words mean, and may even think they are synonymous, the distinctions among them are of importance to this essay. As John Bishop states, “& at its most general, ‘faith’ means the same as ‘trust‘.” Greg Popcak defines faith more narrowly, asserting that faith “is merely the innate drive to search for meaning, purpose and significance.” Religion, at its most basic, can be defined as a specific form of human activity as a means of achieving spiritual or material improvement. However, this form of human activity is often cultural because it is a system of behaviors and praxes uniting a community. Belief, according to Eric Schwitzgebel, refers “to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true.” Interestingly, many define faith as belief without proof. Although many use these three terms interchangeably, Chiang employs them in specific ways in his stories. In the “Tower of Babylon,” Chiang uses the biblical story of the tower of Babel as his premise. His focus is not on God's creation of various languages as punishment for defying Him, but on humanity's desire “to see what lay beyond [the earth's] borders, all the rest of Yahweh's creation” (5-6). This story juxtaposes science with faith and religion as the Babylonians are building the tower so they can break into the vault of heaven. They desire knowledge about their world, but also desire knowledge about God, believing that the tower will enable them “to ascend to see the works of Yahweh” while allowing Yahweh to “descend to see the works of man” (6). In this story, Ted Chiang combines the above definitions of religion as a “search for meaning, purpose and significance” as well as the desire for material and spiritual improvement (Popcak). The envisaged structure is simple: Earth was seen as being situated in the middle of a great volume of water, with water both above and below Earth. A great dome was thought to be set above Earth (like an inverted glass bowl), maintaining the water above Earth in its place. Earth was pictured as resting on foundations that go down into the deep. These foundations secured the stability of the land as something that is not floating on the water and so could not be tossed about by wind and wave. The waters surrounding Earth were thought to have been gathered together in their place. The stars, sun, moon, and planets moved in their allotted paths across the great dome above Earth, with their movements defining the months, seasons, and year. (60) Chiang brilliantly describes the geocentric worldview through the protagonist of the story, Hillalum, who is an Elamite miner contracted to dig into the vault of heaven. He, along with other Elamite miners, spends four months climbing to the top of the tower. Along the way, he discovers how his world and his universe functions. He comes to know that night is “the shadow of the earth itself, cast against the sky” (“Tower” 11). He and the others reach a point on the tower where they see “storms from above and from below” and where people “[harvest] crops from the air” (14). After climbing a number of weeks, the miners find themselves “at precisely the same level as the moon when it passed; they had reached the height of the first of the celestial bodies” (14). When they reach the level of the sun, the intense heat forces them to travel at night. Passing this level, Hillalum finds that the sun shines “upward, which [seems] unnatural to the utmost” (15, emphasis in original). When they are level with the stars, the miners discover that a star has hit the tower, leaving “a knotted mass of black heaven-metal, as large as a man could wrap his arms around” (16). Finally, they reach the vault of heaven itself, “a solid carapace enclosing all the sky (16) that ”[seems] to be made of fine-grained white granite, unmarred and utterly featureless“ (18-19). Hillalum's travels to the top of the tower allows him to discover both the meaning and significance of the physical world, not through religion or faith, but through his own observation. Since, in the geocentric view, the Earth is “situated in the middle of a great volume of water,” the Babylonians and the Elamite miners fear that breaking into the vault of heaven will release another Great Flood (Robishaw 60). They believe Yahweh caused the Great Flood, or the “Deluge,” by releasing “the waters of the Abyss & from the springs of the earth, and & [from] the sluice gates in the vault” (19). Concerned that they may hit one of these reservoirs, the Babylonians enlist Egyptian masons who design a system using large blocks of granite that will “slide down until [they] rest in the recess of the floor” and will completely block any opening (22). Using this design, they are able to safeguard the world from another flood when their worst fear is realized and the miners accidently dig into a reservoir. Hillalum and two others are trapped within the vault, but only Hillalum survives. The rising water forces him upward and the current of water carries him until “the walls [open] out away from him” (25). He awakens in a tunnel, but is able to see light ahead. He comes out of what he discovers is a cave and finds himself in the land of Shinnar, which is south of Babylon. Hillalum's return to earth from the vault of heaven forces him to realize that the world is shaped like a seal cylinder, “wrapped around in some fantastic way so that heaven and earth [touch]” (28). Thus, Hillalum's journey is in itself apocalyptic—as his story unfolds, the world reveals itself through his experience. The scientific worldview Chiang incorporates is fascinating; yet, what is even more fascinating is the way the inhabitants view God and their attempts to connect with Him. The people fear God's displeasure and Hillalum feels uneasy at the thought of breaking open the vault of heaven (4). Standing at the base of the tower even Hillalum's senses rebel, “insisting that nothing should stand so high” (6). He and the others continually wait for a sign from God “to let men know that their venture was approved,” yet God is silent (14). When the star mentioned above first hit the tower, “everyone descended &, waiting for retribution from Yahweh for disturbing the workings of Creation. They waited for months, but no sign came” (16). God never acknowledges their efforts, either blessing or damning them for their attempts. Their overwhelming desire for knowledge of God's workings cause them to give “thanks that they [are] permitted to see so much” while at the same time they “beg forgiveness for their desire to see more” (18). Their reactions show lack of surety regarding their purpose as Yahweh fails to respond. The inhabitants debate how God may perceive their attempts to reach Him. Qurdusa, one of the tower's bricklayers argues that “if the tower were sacrilege, Yahweh would have destroyed it earlier” causing one of the Elamites to counter: “If Yahweh looked upon this venture with such favor there would already be a stairway ready-made for us to use in the vault” (19). Hillalum, however, takes a more Deistic viewpoint, saying, “Yahweh may not punish us, but Yahweh may allow us to bring our judgment upon ourselves” (19). The God in this story creates the world but does not actively intervene. When Hillalum and the others hit a reservoir, he believes “his fate had come at last. Yahweh had not asked men to build the tower or to pierce the vault; the decision to build it belonged to men alone, and they would die in this endeavor just as they did in any of their earthbound tasks. Their righteousness could not save them from the consequences of their actions” (24). In this world, the focus is on the choices one makes and the consequences one must pay for those choices. Yes, God exists, but He does not intervene in human lives, nor does He care if they are virtuous or sinful, or if they worship or ignore Him. It was clear now why Yahweh had not struck down the tower, had not punished men for wishing to reach beyond the bounds set for them: for the longest journey would merely return them to the place whence they'd come. Centuries of their labor would not reveal to them any more of Creation than they already knew. Yet through their endeavor, men would glimpse the unimaginable artistry of Yahweh's work, in seeing how ingeniously the world had been constructed. By this construction, Yahweh's work was indicated, and Yahweh's work was concealed. Thus men would know their place. (28). Hillalum comes to understand that faith does not provide meaning or significance to his life. He glimpses “the unimaginable artistry” of the world through human endeavor, not through worship or religious ritual. As Alan Gregory states, while all “apocalyptic texts reveal human life in its precarious contingency,” apocalyptic “science fiction finds the contingency of life before immanent powers” (161). The inhabitants of this world find “a sense of wonder at the complexity of creation” that comes from their own exploration of the world (Smith). Yahweh does not open their minds or increase their understanding of their world and their place in it, only an individual's desire for knowledge does so. Chiang's story is apocalyptic in that it is the story itself that reveals our search for meaning. We do not need religion to achieve spiritual or material improvement; what we need is our continuing desire to discover and understand the physical world. The “Tower of Babylon” is a story illustrating the existence of God through the reasoning and observation of its characters, but not by supernatural manifestations. Such is not the case in “Hell Is the Absence of God.” In the world of the story, the idea of faith as belief without proof is not an issue. Angels make frequent appearances and inhabitants witness the dead ascending into Heaven or descending into Hell. Hell itself becomes visible on occasion, allowing the living to see a place very similar to their world as going to Hell means “permanent exile from God, no more and no less” (“Hell” 208). Angelic manifestations can lead to miracles but can also lead to indiscriminate death and birth defects because of the destructive power of their visitations. Furthermore, anyone caught in “Heaven's light,” which appears “only when an angel [enters] or [leaves] the mortal plain,” go to Heaven, even if they are wicked or evil (226). The protagonist of the story, Neil Fisk, believes in God (as do all in this world since there is no question of God's existence), but he does not love God. Neil in the believing that were of unfolding, or without from Neil is of either or about God, he to go to Hell people like Hell was where when exile from God no fear for Neil as it means without His however, is a that Neil since many of such as he in “the for God that he had love of God had to the then it did make The together even view of God and Neil would have reached the point where he was to However, he is not that is one of during a from the angel is by glass when the of the of the in which was see to Heaven, and while Neil have seen death as a he becomes of He to be with and the only way to achieve this is for Neil to to love God. However, he finds himself in a had been the blessing of his and God had he was to love for it? For it was like a love as a for his he have but was a he He a of those who the but is by the that he should his role as one of God's those who have a to Neil is to his and make with God to find a way to love God, Neil finds a when a and while of the of his an and his was seen ascending to Heaven, to the of his Neil to a one of those who go to where either or the mortal When the angel Neil attempts to him but his into a However, a of light that “the light to Neil all the he should love As he now God an beyond what humans can for one he that he will go to Heaven since of him to Hell In is and he has a he than was when he was but his only is to love God. & He his being to Hell was not a of he he there was no for it, no His love for God, the us, “is the nature of In “Hell Is the Absence of Chiang brilliantly a of those who a religious that God those who love Him. Chiang forces the to with a why would a God on the Chiang believes this “is one of the of and with the that in the this story as of an world in which the is a directly the of the religious that miracles are always I do not agree that it is just the religious who believe miracles are always I do agree that many who would define themselves as religious have such In the world of the story, supernatural can have both and on However, we see on these have no at a witness to the angel believes God has a purpose for him and for “an with the to provide him However, does not either or He Neil death and to which to a of God's people that they can no more in the than in the mortal while them to worship God, just not a one God or not to have no on whether one in heaven or the is to question the of religious faith. In many “Hell Is the Absence of is a on In the world of the story, the inhabitants know God there is no or in to believe or not to The or is situated in the love one has or does not have for God. one God and to then one However, if one God and to as does Neil Fisk, then one is no in this world as one God to the argues that is us to take a religious belief and make it a and by so he forces us to think about ways religion can be so and in our Many of us feel certain as either a blessing or a from God, yet of us would feel a birth for as one or the Chiang us into a world where the inhabitants do not have such a world where is not God is not God is not (“Hell” This God is the God for those who do not see religion as a means of achieving any of spiritual improvement. Chiang the and the of God's We never know why God Neil to Hell and to “Hell Is the Absence of is an apocalyptic story that reveals a of faith, the disillusionment of those who no longer believe in the promise of God to the The disillusionment of faith those who do not see God as a way of their belief as Eric defines it, something we regard as what when one that something return to what if one can that God does not what when the one to it is the one for religious belief In by and what when the seek and find to the questions surrounding religious belief. understanding of and the universe on of the of For “is the of the the and the As a & is and of being & think and the of is to think and the has always with a of discovers this when is a and the understanding of the universe However, to a that is and discovers “a that any number with any other that any two are which of in the same sense of that has world to this but this sense of to that the of is nor with apocalypse reveals that can no longer provide meaning or structure to life and attempts understanding of himself and the universe on his that a of his allows him to a who “the between and and he finds his in his ability to in similar as to world, in the other and the other to world is to discover he has no for was it was something he In he feels more than a sense of to a when faith and religion no longer provide structure and meaning, both and their when they discover that what they have always as the of themselves and their world can no longer be Chiang's structure of by further to the of of faith. The story is out in with the of the which only two and The first is one through and a the other two are on either or a in and we can read one as a for faith and belief. For in the us that two The first one in that that may be but are & His that a of the of is just such a it be by any means using the of In other words, and proof are not the same we can know certain to be while not the ability to they are Such is one of the definitions of belief without proof. Chiang us with an look at what when what we believe meaning the is and the proof not from the but from As the that this is to a that there was no God. just it, but it for a For was something and is “the one who that it is not the same discovers his ability to his belief that meaning his understanding of the does not to for feel He feels as that has the of something he which is why the of the story is However, this this feels for than and their faith and both do so through their and Ted Chiang's apocalyptic stories are on our own search for meaning. Many science fiction writers often consider religion may however, creates and where religion and faith are while at the same time to the As the stories we our own disillusionment and many of us, the in the “Tower of Babylon” are to themselves whether they in knowledge or and Hillalum's and understanding of the world reveals to him that meaning is in scientific not or faith. Fisk, on the other in a world where proof of God is a yet he comes to know that God and may question why God, like the God in “Hell is the Absence of the and the without or In by religion for and “the to of the universe as yet, they find their universe not only but Chiang's story to those belief structure has intense and search for meaning them not to a and but only them further into As with all science Ted Chiang's stories reveal more of our than our reveals to We are not to God's role in our his stories us to question our own Chiang's apocalyptic is out of our own disillusionment that is on the world, but on the promise of God & which has and for some 11). these stories do not us or lead us and Ted Chiang's apocalypse reveals and that meaning and come out of death of

Karl Lauschke

Although academic and practical interest in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has continuously increased over the last few years, there is still a need to better understand their social acceptability. The aim of the study was to explore the double edge of NFT legitimacy for NFTs by unveiling the role of sustainability and by adopting technology legitimacy and the field of sustainability transition studies as a theoretical lens. Specifically, this research investigates the role of sustainability in securing and maintaining technology legitimacy within NFT projects. We interviewed 12 experts through exploratory qualitative research. The findings highlight three main ways in which sustainability participates in the legitimation of NFT projects. While sustainability can be inherent in the NFT project itself, this legitimation can also be derived from the perceived sustainability of the NFT technology or be part of innovative business models. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are then discussed. JEL CODES: O33, O35, O50

B. Balamurugan, T. Poongodi, M. R. Manu, S. Karthikeyan · 5 authors

The moving image archive of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) includes a copy of the film The Double Day (1975), cataloged in the series Moving Images Relating to International Development Programs and Activities, 1979–1991, a collection of more than eight hundred titles “created to provide information on assistance programs supported by the Agency for International Development (AID).”1 Yet, The Double Day does not, in fact, directly depict or engage with any specific development or aid initiative. Instead, the film—directed by US-based Brazilian filmmaker Helena Solberg as part of the International Women’s Film Project collective and described as “the first Latin American feminist documentary”—examines the gendered dynamics of paid and unpaid labor through the testimonies of women from Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Mexico.2 Its presence in the USAID archive is likely a consequence of its funding history, having received support from the Inter-American Foundation, a USAID-affiliated entity; the development agencies of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; the United Nations Development Program; and US philanthropist Calvin Cafritz.3These transnational funding structures not only enabled the film’s production but also determined its archival destination, which renders legible its place within the history of international development.4 The Double Day’s institutional trajectory reflects the shifting configurations of aid, gender, and media during a historic moment when women were being repositioned at the center of what Arturo Escobar has described as development’s “regimes of visuality.”5 Especially relevant to The Double Day’s production and exhibition was the international institutional framework of Women in Development (WID). Emerging in the early 1970s and culminating in United Nations’ proclamation of 1975 as International Women’s Year, WID emphasized women’s participation in the global economy as both an index and mechanism of development. Indeed, The Double Day premiered at the World Conference of the International Women’s Year, held in Mexico City.6 Within this context, the film forms part of a broader trajectory of media use by international organizations that intensified during the 1970s—as best exemplified by Media Habitat, a collection of 236 documentary films commissioned by the United Nations to represent urban and rural development initiatives for the 1976 Habitat Conference on Human Settlements in Vancouver. As a policy-shaping initiative, Media Habitat primarily featured films from the Global South intended not only to illustrate but also to help codify standardized audiovisual markers of “underdevelopment” that determined access to the emerging global economic order and to international aid.7Framed in relation to these international institutions and their operations, The Double Day could similarly be considered “development media”—exemplifying the type of nonfiction media produced and distributed outside of the commercial film circuits whose aspects and subcategories have been variously described in scholarship as nontheatrical, useful, sponsored, institutional, industrial, educational, or nonprofessional/amateur.8 Scholars working in this area have emphasized the institutional contexts of such media’s production and exhibition infrastructures as shaping its instrumentalized effects. From a feminist perspective, such an approach is crucial to grappling with the broader question of how “gender impacts [these works’] shape, content, and trajectories.”9 Yet we also argue that, taken in isolation, the institutional and infrastructural contexts are insufficient to account for the complex relationship between media and development, potentially not only limiting our understanding of the reach and impact of development but also distorting our interpretive conclusions. For example, to categorize The Double Day as “development media” is to overlook the film’s place within Solberg’s directorial oeuvre, as well as within the histories of both transnational women’s filmmaking and radical Latin American documentary cinema to which it simultaneously belongs. Such exclusive framing is especially limiting given that women globally were disproportionately engaged in nonfiction production throughout the twentieth century—sometimes by political choice but more often due to structural exclusions from fiction filmmaking. Even in nonfiction historiography, however, institutional media has remained particularly marginal, reinforcing hierarchies that separate such works from the aesthetic and authorial frameworks through which film history has been constructed.10 This marginalization not only tends to erase women’s contributions but also presumes a “weak” or derivative authorship, rendering these films unworthy of the interpretive attention needed to apprehend their aesthetic and political complexity.11 The same dynamic is likely to structure assumptions about “development media” as well.Categorizing The Double Day exclusively within this category would further prompt us to assume top-down institutional analyses that have been characteristic of both institutional media methodologies and the scholarship on development at large. This, in turn, would risk obscuring this film’s radical Marxist approach to women’s labor as well as its concrete contribution to activism and its attendant grassroot structures. In Mexico City, The Double Day became a catalyst for feminist solidarity in practice when one of the film’s protagonists, Bolivian activist and trade unionist Domitila Barrios de Chungara, was invited to participate in the Tribune of Non-Governmental Organizations held alongside the official UN conference.12 There, Barrios de Chungara challenged Western feminist priorities by reframing the debate around labor, class, and imperialism, helping to articulate a shared Third World feminist agenda that significantly departed from the developmentalist vision of the United Nations and USAID.13 Seen through the lens of activist media, The Double Day helped forge transnational solidarity networks by enabling information exchange across the diverse voices that shaped its making—from the women featured in the film to the activists who circulated it—revealing a considerably more dynamic interplay between institutional and grassroots or contingent media practices.Moreover, the film’s Latin American context—reflected in Solberg’s formation in Brazil as the only woman in Cinema Novo, its focus on women from across the region, and its premiere and key reception in Mexico City—requires grappling with the regional specificities of the very notion of development in its multiple iterations.14 Far from being an epistemological and political framework imposed solely by the Global North, both the practices of development and the theoretical foundations of developmentalism (understood as a broad and polysemic set of discourses) were shaped through the active participation of Latin American economists.15 Within this iteration, underdevelopment, as a constitutive notion of developmentalism, became central to a distinctly critical strand, which by the late 1960s became known as the dependency theory.16 This same approach is reflected in some of the best-known Latin American radical film manifestos of the time, arising precisely from the same milieus to which Solberg belonged.17These various considerations of the film’s history illustrate the methodological challenges confronting feminist scholars seeking to assess the impact of development on media projects, theories, and practices. To disregard the developmentalist context of such works by emphasizing their political aesthetics and affects risks reproducing a romanticized narrative of heroic resistance (albeit from a feminist perspective). Yet to engage exclusively with their institutional and material infrastructures risks naturalizing developmentalism’s political and epistemological foundations at the expense of the goals and beliefs of the many women who participated in these projects. The contradictions and ambivalences that animate such histories call for feminist frameworks capable of holding both institutional complicity and radical possibility in view.This challenge resonates with ongoing debates about the politics of the archive and what Allyson Field has termed “the practice of informed speculation.”18 As she reminds us, feminist, queer, and decolonial methodologies have long taught us to “press at the limits” of the archive to “inoculate our scholarship against our evidence’s afflictions.”19 The concern that the evidence we draw on in our analysis reproduces the very structures and blind spots of the dominant ideology and therefore shapes and delimits our interpretation becomes particularly urgent when engaging the developmentalist media corpus. Informed speculation offers an alternative by inviting the experimental, creative, and speculative rewriting of history, mobilizing the archive “in a project that runs counter to the original purpose, or the imperative to preserve, or the conditions that led to erasure.”20 Yet, as Field cautions, such speculative gestures must remain grounded in a deep and “intimate familiarity with the archive” that we are working with and against. Building on this imperative, we suggest that the developmentalist archive, in particular, demands expansion and critical reconsideration in ways that unsettle the very disciplinary frameworks through which it has been studied as well as the larger institutional contexts for such knowledge production.Our focus on The Double Day in the opening of this introduction thus foregrounds the entanglements of institutional and grassroots forces, local and international contexts, structural and interpersonal relations, and creative and economic factors that have shaped not only this film but the broader ecosystem of development media projects—and their preservation—over time. Addressing such a constellation involves transgressing methodologically entrenched divisions between political economy and aesthetics, between material infrastructures and affective regimes; reckoning with divergent periodizations across film history and world economics; and situating these within the local specificities of women’s movements and international institutional programs. It also demands attentiveness to the coexistence of multiple, and sometimes competing, understandings of development—each historically, geographically, and ideologically situated.We imagine this special issue as an opening toward a critical dialogue, not only about how such an approach might be enacted in practice but also about the far-reaching ways development paradigms have shaped both our objects of study and the contours of the field itself. The decision to center institutionally sponsored films across all the essays in this issue is deliberate and enables us to highlight institutional critique as a vital methodological imperative within our analytical framework. Created within the frameworks of international organizations, state agencies, or NGOs, these films’ histories make legible the institutional logics that underwrite their production. Yet our critique does not stop at these specific entities. Rather, we argue for a broader interrogation of the political conditions and institutional infrastructures that shape media and knowledge production more generally. This includes contemporary corporations embedded in the digital platform economy, from streaming services to the rapid expansion of AI. Equally critical is a reflexive examination of academia itself, where departments of economics, political science, and centers for development have played a formative role in producing and legitimizing developmentalist theories and policy frameworks. While the humanities and arts have at times offered critical alternatives, they have also frequently mirrored and reinforced many of the same developmentalist assumptions. A feminist analysis of the nexus between development and media must therefore unsettle not only dominant archives but also the institutional and disciplinary foundations of our own scholarly practices.As scholars, we share the complex position of navigating the same tensions between institutional complicity and emancipatory aspiration as many of the media-makers whose work we study. Mirroring our subjects is also the transnational, collective mode of this special issue’s own production as it emerges from an ongoing informal working group we have sustained over several years. While relying on institutional and disciplinary affordances—such as university funding for conferences or access to academic publishing platforms—we have been working toward creating a community that exceeds, and often resists, the prevailing logics of our academic institutions. Our aim has been to create a space for shared inquiry and mutual support that pushes back against disciplinary siloing and technocratic neoliberal assessment modes of both labor and knowledge production—and this certainly extends to our experience collaborating with the journal editors throughout the publication process. Our goal has been to examine both the persistence and variability of developmentalism, understood as what Gustavo Esteva calls a “powerful but fragile semantic constellation,” as a conceptual formation that has historically inspired, legitimized, and mobilized media projects across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.21 And gendered biopolitics, from population control to gender mainstreaming, have remained integral to development policies and media practices, recurring across formats from institutional newsreels to film festivals.We share the conviction that, far beyond the history of nonfiction institutional media, development (as both a broad ideological project and a network of material and institutional practices) and developmentalism (as a set of discourses and theoretical models associated with development) have exerted a far-reaching influence on film and media cultures at large. As such, they must be treated as a major force in shaping global film and media systems and also the many ongoing assumptions behind their critical discourses. The discipline of communication studies was founded on modernization theory governed by Cold War goals of dissemination of Western liberal democracy around the world, while “an area studies framework allowed compartmentalizing Western and non-Western outcomes of technologies that were always claimed to be universal.”22 Despite critique from postcolonial and critical race studies, many of these frameworks have remained foundational for media theory.23 In historical scholarship, as we increasingly move beyond “modernity” as a dominant conceptual anchor, engaging with practices and discourses of development opens more precise analytical pathways. These film and media’s entanglements with the logics of and economic and the associated with as well as their conceptual underdevelopment, and impact in as diverse as and of media aesthetic and paradigms in film and film and funding are developmentalist assumptions to the they to underwrite the narrative and logics of and global media from the structure of the film to the cultures of argue that a examination of the historical entanglements between film and developmentalist aesthetics, modes of as well as infrastructures and critical the and that our contemporary media is a of the historical contours of development as a field of inquiry embedded within a of some of the methodologies by the featured in this special a of this complex history, to the larger at in media, development, and gender all its development a it as an of be with practices as divergent as and in In as we work on this the of the of the USAID the ideological that have the history of international the and of this on the global its a from development as a global practice and as an institutional and which over the has as a with its own media Yet or does not erase the historical impact of these the contradictions they have reflected and over the as the of development several crucial to the economic theories of development initiatives to and through the of the development an international policy framework at from the Global to the of the Global the by the political role of and the of the International the on was challenged by dependency theory and at development as global structural the neoliberal of the the Programs by the and World imposed and as conditions for and forms of assistance became known as the major markers for international development development has moving beyond economic to such as the Human Development and the Development and from international organizations such as the United Nations to a broader network of These frameworks increasingly of and liberal of and with what in many ways to various while the of the to development’s epistemological more scholarship has toward a of its and material the field has to a of and critical by and scholars, which development as a dynamic of conceptual and political to these the studies in this special issue call for sustained analysis in place of In we draw from a of and that in of of gender and to this special issue engage that and from Mexico to contemporary specific local historical of global distinctly feminist methodologies as well as attention to studies that this issue a in the global history of development on and documentary work in Mexico how early women infrastructures as of while US films an early of state and transnational on a outside the Global as the of developmentalist both the and markers of development media, its to the and Latin central grounded in archival also women’s in transnational and the methodological of archives on study of the series to a a digital media not by but by women not as but as subjects and within circuits of neoliberal and the aesthetics and of how development’s has models of to contemporary neoliberal paradigms of and analysis how digital and gender and practices, discourses on and their of these essays the of some of the historical of developmentalist as the question of the role of the state within such on a notion of economic as a and the dominant of development that the state as the for and through infrastructural projects. This understanding of development was shared across both of the as well as in the Third The United and the increasingly mobilized international in the of the modes of international at the postcolonial of policy and ideological These programs were at the expansion of their and of while with the and decolonial of The conceptual between modernization and development that the Cold in of and hierarchies of that long and As an of postcolonial their role as of international aid concern about the of Western development projects. In alternative across the Global South that to structural between and through policies of and In many they were further the global structures. In Latin for example, this approach was through organizations such as the United Nations for Latin and the both developmentalist projects and their have taken many forms historically, and they have and they have been to a of projects, and postcolonial and development has been and in ways and with frequently political While many of these alternative frameworks the embedded in dominant Western they often technocratic and assumptions. gender and gender as for the of to be shaped by This becomes particularly in the media that of development where women frequently a crucial associated with and women were as both the subjects and of their participation in the and labor often as the index of In this study of from the 1970s how women were as of this as these about women’s urban and recurring and of a within the own of and critique that official examination of archives and enables a feminist interrogation of their mobilizing a of the in the of contribution to this issue similarly the of a dynamic within as well as across ideological the of women’s and the media of the and as active in labor and as integral to the technocratic women became of as their labor remained a of and analysis and archival with attention to the specific of and It also transnational that as a and affective a nexus of and practices through which gender, media, and developmentalism one film not as a but as part of the of alongside and work a broader concern of this special media as a of developmentalist projects. The debates the World and which international such as the United Nations and a critical historical for such primarily by postcolonial and of the for the of media and communication infrastructures in as to counter Western The a between and economic how systems of media and reinforced global hierarchies of and in an agenda that supported and alternative media infrastructures across postcolonial contexts, the framework gender as an analytical This “gender in the 1970s by of the Women in Development in relation to The Double its political critique of with its broader to center women in development policy through and This was also in of media, which was shaped by its international reach and audiovisual production and and and Yet, as WID institutional it also to the and of the women’s development programs often by in These were by a of studies, and on and the to of women’s presence and through the of their economic and In this on the filmmaker this history directly by the and of for women by the WID framework during the with and agencies the of and against Women in at the of the neoliberal turn, when institutional media often the only to access and support to projects. The an by this dynamic as of the from the Global South are to engage with the developmentalist assumptions funding models that their similarly the as a in developmentalist media history by the of and centers on the Film a between of and the attention toward the and labor by and work was foundational the of and the of audiovisual aid, as both a of development projects and a critical for their the in this issue argue for a with media, gender, and developmentalism as an field of that is and shaped by feminist and methodologies and that challenge the entanglements between academic knowledge production and and technocratic development And while methodological these dynamics at the structural the of feminist in media and cinema by this the very a