Computing in the Shadow of Empire: IBM, Development, and U.S. Power in Brazil, 1917-1991

FAIN: FEL-295197-24

Colette Perold
University of Colorado, Boulder (Boulder, CO 80303-1058)

Research and writing leading to a book on the history of the IBM computer corporation's operations in South America during the 20th century.

My book project tracks the expansion of IBM in Brazil from its entrance into the country in 1917, through its contribution to Brazil’s U.S.-backed military regime in 1964, to its ouster from and reentry to Brazilian markets in the 1970s and 1980s. It argues that IBM’s ability to grow its operations across South America prior to modern computing is due to three under-explored sources: its embrace of the United States’ imperial relationship to Latin America, its close collaboration with Brazil’s twentieth-century authoritarian regimes, and its strategic location developing the data infrastructure in Brazil and across the Americas for a liberalized trade order. Learning from this history opens new avenues for humanities research into democratic forms of global media governance. Based on research in 21 archival repositories in the U.S. and Brazil, my monograph is the first book-length study of a multinational IT monopoly and its relationship to U.S. empire in the global South.