Digital Tuvalu: state sovereignty in a world of climate loss

Abstract

In a widely shared video, the government of the island state of Tuvalu posed an imaginary of Tuvalu as a digital nation in a situation of unabated climate change. In this article, we take the example of Digital Tuvalu as a paradigmatic case to advance the debates on international relations in the Anthropocene, demonstrating how the processes of climate catastrophe and digital state formation juxtapose. In linking climate loss and state extinction to notions of virtual sovereignty and cyber statehood, we are attentive to the infrastructural power of large information and communications technology companies, while at the same time acknowledging the agency of the Tuvaluan state in navigating the challenges of the Anthropocene. We discuss how a virtual deterritorial state mobilizes the Tuvaluan indigenous philosophy of fenua, to link land, sea, people and culture in a relational understanding of territory and sovereignty. Digital Tuvalu in this way envisions emerging digital technologies to rebuild Tuvaluan fenua in virtual space, thereby regaining agency in the face of existential climate threats. This, we argue, signals a new and highly relational model of digital state preservation, having profound implications for international relations in the Anthropocene.