As most data travel through subsea cables, this article investigates social imaginaries of the cable laid in 1889 from Banyuwangi in south-eastern Java to Broome in north-western Australia. Through collaborative fieldwork in Broome and Banyuwangi, radically different representations are identified at either end of the cable. In Broome, the cable telegraph station is memorialized for introducing colonial sophistication to a town where Java is celebrated for facilitating communication with Britain. In Banyuwangi, there is no mention of Broome and little mention of the undersea cable. Instead, there are mythical and haunted representations of a decrepit British Hostel occasionally associated with telegraph operations. Despite some similarities in Indigenous perspectives and entrepreneurial desire to realize tourism income from cable heritage, an ocean-size gulf was identified between the social imaginaries that enabled the cable to be dug up and normalized as a cultural attraction in Broome while remaining buried, almost forgotten, in Banyuwangi.

由于大多数数据都是通过海底电缆传输的，因此本文研究了1889年从爪哇东南部的Banyuwangi到澳大利亚西北部的布鲁姆铺设的电缆的社会假想。通过在布鲁姆和Banyuwangi的合作野外工作，在电缆的任一端都可以找到截然不同的表示形式。在布鲁姆，电缆电报站因将殖民地的精致介绍给一个小镇而受到纪念，该小镇因庆祝爪哇与英国的交流而闻名。在Banyuwangi，没有提到布鲁姆，也没有提到海底电缆。取而代之的是，偶尔会有与电报操作相关联的衰落的英国旅馆的神话和闹鬼的表现。尽管土著人的观点有些相似，并且企业家渴望从电缆遗产中获得旅游收入，