Glitching Colonial Radio History: Listening for Non-linear Temporalities in the Archive

In my work on Dutch and French colonial radio history and its intersection in South-East Asia, I examine how the crackle traces a history of failures. This framing of colonial radio history through the lens of failure stems from a refusal to repeat history on the terms given by colonial archival materials. I approach the crackle as a glitch, an active refusal to seamlessly perform the self-congratulatory discourse of colonial success broadcasted and recorded on shortwave radio. In my period of focus, around 1945, the above-mentioned colonial regimes continuously attempted and failed to eradicate crackles from shortwave radio broadcasts. I argue that this struggle against the crackle reveals the fantasy of closeness and immediacy that the radiophonic crackle disrupted. The crackle derailed the colonial discursive regime and exposed its internal incoherences. The crackle, incidentally, traces a history of resistance as it became the site of a symbolic and material struggle for decolonization.