In the Andean cosmovision, constellations are not formed by connecting the dots of stars, but rather from the spaces of darkness in the night sky. The most important one is the Yakana, shaped like a llama —the most essential animal for life in the Andes (Zuidema & Urton, 1976). What might be seen as void, then, can reveal as much as, or even more than, the brightest star.
This brief text reflects on the relevance of attending to those spaces, moments, and situations that remain undigitized in order to understand the social role of digital technologies and how they shape our lives. Much like the dark voids that give form to Andean constellations, these intervals can illuminate dimensions of existence that are otherwise overshadowed by the glow of the screens. Specifically, I refer to those everyday circumstances that unfold outside the internet even though they could be, not due to a lack of access, but rather as a choice. To ground these considerations, I will begin by presenting a recent fieldwork experience.
Since 2022, I have been traveling twice a year to Cusi Cusi, a small rural village inhabited by an Indigenous Quechua community in the Jujuy Puna (NW Argentina), to carry out my doctoral research on the incorporation of the internet and digital media into their everyday lives. Connectivity there is recent: in 2019 the government installed a free Wi-Fi hotspot in the village’s central square, and only in 2023 did households obtain individual connections. I first visited this place in 2017 as part of an archaeology team. Coming from a large metropolis like Buenos Aires, working there meant a period of total disconnection and, thus, complete concentration. Over the years I have been documenting the struggles and negotiations that allowed the community to connect to the Federal Fiber Optic Network (Monje y Vilte, 2021; Di Tullio, 2023, 2024), as well as the many ways in which everyday life has begun to take on new shapes and dynamics in accordance with this new infrastructure. The central question of the research became what a permanent connection means for life in this territory, which is threatened by the advance of lithium extractivism.
There I was in May 2025, for my sixth field trip. I had arrived a few days earlier but was struggling to adjust to the village’s pace. I was feeling anxious in my room, scrolling through apps and wondering: what am I doing here? This is a familiar question for many anthropologists, as our research paths are usually not clearly predefined. Why had I come again, when I already had enough information to write my thesis, and conversations with my interlocutors felt repetitive, even redundant? I was checking out return tickets, until I finally decided to step outside for some fresh air. As I walked down the stairs, I suddenly slipped and fell down seven steps to the ground.
“Are you okay?!” yelled Consuelo as she came to help me. She had been cleaning, so all the floors were wet. After making sure I had not broken any bones, she brought her hand to her chest and said: “You made my ánimu jump!”. In the Andes, all beings from the Kay Pacha (terrestrial world) have their own ánimu (camac in Quechua), which is the vital principle (Bugallo & Vilca, 2011). It can be lost in situations of danger. The accident had scared both of us, so our ánimus jumped —almost escaped from us. Physically, I only had some bruises; symbolically, that moment and Consuelo’s reaction made me most aware that even if it felt comfortable, I was not at home: I was in the Puna. This is a high, arid region, where both oxygen and water are scarce. The word “puna” also names the sickness caused by altitude, which can be treated with water, coca leaves, or many local herbs. But it is also important to take care of one’s spirit. To avoid being caught by the puna requires both physical and symbolic care. That is why, after this accident, at first I decided to perform a ch’alla —a rite to acknowledge and ask Pachamama for permission and protection.
However, even after that I was still not completely at ease. “What could be wrong?” I asked some friends via WhatsApp, and they aptly pointed out: “the thing is, you are permanently online now”. I then realized how much I had been using my phone during those days, just as much as the people I was living with. I decided to draw a contrast once again: I deleted all social media apps, turned off the Wi-Fi, returned to taking notes on paper, and limited my phone use as much as possible in the following days. I was finally able to feel less anxious and instead pay full attention to what surrounded me. By embracing it, I managed to avoid being caught by the puna.
In the Andean cosmovision, constellations are not formed by connecting the dots of stars, but rather from the spaces of darkness in the night sky. Image from Wikimedia Commons
Those days of disconnection illuminated —like serendipities— two revelations of anthropological and epistemological interest. First, I recalled Wright’s (2008, 2022) remark on the importance of ontological displacement for ethnographic fieldwork. The ethnographer must, to some degree, feel out of place or uncomfortable in order to activate a form of attention different from that of everyday life, one that allows us to better perceive what takes place around us—even without traveling to a remote place. In line with this, if I spend most of my days online, today to do fieldwork I also need to be technologically displaced, even when my research is about technologies, or most importantly if that is the case. This used to happen naturally before, when Puna communities had no internet, or when access was only in the village’s square. But now, I must intentionally step aside from the digital currents and craft that distance for myself.
Secondly, this technological displacement allowed me to read many experiences and conversations with my participants through a different lens, like a resonance box. Under the afternoon sun, sitting on a rock and knitting sweaters with llama wool alongside a group of artisan women from the community, I began reflecting on similar situations: all those spaces and moments in which people, though having access to the internet, choose not to use it—whether because they are fully concentrated in tasks that do not require it, or because they actively limit its use.
After that moment, I understood certain interactions differently. For example, when I spoke in length with a herder about his fields, the Quechua language, politics, and football—but he lost all interest when I mentioned the internet, stood up, and left. Or when a young woman explained that she did not care to use her cell phone much because it was unnecessary for her work as an arts teacher or in the fields, nor for helping her sick relatives, and in her scarce free time she preferred to compose music. Similarly, Consuelo, a 40-year-old cook and artisan, chose not to use a winding machine or a calculator because, as she said, “we must not allow machines to defeat us”. Or when a policeman shared how he negotiated with his teenage daughter about internet use, insisting that “one must not allow the internet to catch you; one must raise the gaze.” All of this contrasts with touristic entrepreneurs like Roberto, for whom time feels faster ever since he gained permanent connection, as he is always available online; or with women like Silvana or Carmela, who spend most of their days watching YouTube videos to distract themselves from feelings of loneliness. Following Eric Sadin (2016), could we begin to see these lives that are not fully digitalized as everyday, subtle, and quiet forms of resistance to the capture of life by digital technologies? In this way, just like Andean constellations, I began giving shape and meaning to the void spaces—the ones not colonized by these devices, not because of a digital divide, but through people’s agency and values. As in Ursula K. Le Guin’s story of Omelas, they know what can be found online, and choose not to be part of it.
With this I do not intend to bring back the old binary of digital versus real life (Grillo, 2008); rather, it is precisely because the digital has permeated so many facets of existence that practices limiting that integration become intriguing. There is also extensive literature on the myriad of ways people avoid technology —thoroughly reviewed by Baumer et al. (2015) and Kaun & Treré (2020). Most of this work addresses reasons of security, economic, and mental health for avoiding or limiting the use of the digital.
Here I seek instead to mobilize Gómez-Cruz (2022)’s proposal of understanding the digital as vital because of its relation to the very shape of life: digital technologies now encourage certain forms of existence over others. As infrastructures of everyday life, their analysis is inseparable from macro- and micropolitics. Ever since the pandemic, in large cities, it feels as if almost everything has been touched by digitalization. Yet while the tech industry elites celebrate these technologies as instruments for the future of humankind, they simultaneously limit their own screen time (Nieva, 2024). Is this a privilege only the wealthy can afford? Or does leaving it to them silently acknowledge that these technologies guarantee economic success, while the rest of the world must grasp every second of their lives to exploit them for gain, like Arora (2019) notes?
I argue that the ability to perceive and act critically upon digital technologies is not reserved for elites as a mere “lifestyle” privilege. Countless forms of popular resistance exist, manifested in daily choices of prioritizing a way of living not entirely saturated by the digital. Attending these practices may allow us to make sense not only of the technologies themselves, but also of the ways we can study and engage with them.
This text is an invitation for social studies on digital media to raise the gaze and explore with more attention all those circumstances in which people could —but choose not to— engage digital technologies in their daily lives. These void spaces between the lights of the screens are also essential to life, much like llamas in the Andes. In this constellation of ideas, lives, and screens, perhaps it is what is not illuminated that shines the brightest.
This post was curated by Contributing Editor Iván Flores and reviewed by Contributing Editor Ziya Kaya.
References
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