The secret power of audiovisual archives: Ethnographies of time and infrastructure in the Alto Magdalena

Abstract

Social s tudies o f i nfrastructure h ave a ccounted f or t hese t echno-scientific a ssemblages' non-linear, multiple, and contradictory temporalities. However, our knowledge of their plurality contrasts with our limited understanding of their capacity to synchronize multiple temporal experiences into hegemonic historical narratives. Drawing on an archival ethnography of the documentary 50 years of history for a single reality, this article analyzes the primary devices and operations of temporal production of the Betania dam in the upper Magdalena River basin. The article contributes to the scholarly literature on the non-linear temporalities of infrastructure by showing that the multiplication of temporal experiences and the production of hegemonic historical narratives are parallel and co-constitutive operations whose political effects must be read in tandem.