intentional infrastructures: feminist principles of the internet and community networks

Posted Tue 12 Nov 2019 - 10:13 | 14,493 views

This edition takes a closer look at the realities of the women who are working for and with their communities through enabling, weaving, sustaining installing, running and advocating for community networks. Community networks are zones of autonomy around infrastructure and technology that hold the promise of connecting the unconnected and also are becoming creative and feminist sites of…

Image description: A single light bulb on the ceiling

Editorial

Women-circles that hold and ground community networks

Posted Tue 12 Nov 2019 - 03:39 | 10,929 views

What is the potential overlap between the energies and drive towards building a feminist internet and the growth of community networks in different parts of the world where communities build their own infrastructure and connectivity? In this article, we explore the ways in which community networks question gender norms, and the need for feminists to build infrastructure.

Image description: A lone body on tower against the sunrise and clouds

Feminist talk

News about our community network – Portal sem Porteiras

Posted Wed 23 Oct 2019 - 13:23 | 5,510 views

In this layered podcast, the members of Portal sem Porteiras, Marcela and Luisa explore their excitement over the possibilities of their community network and how they are re-finding meaning and solace in connections. 

Image description: A man and a woman hold a solar panel on a roof

In depth

Privileging the social over the technical in community networks: Interview with Sol Luca De Tena

Posted Wed 23 Oct 2019 - 12:08 | 7,101 views

Zenzeleni, which means ‘do it yourself’ in isiXhosa, has become exemplary of the unique challenges and remarkable successes of a community network in the global south. In this interview, Sol Luca de Tena discusses how the cooperative business model for Zenzeleni has evolved to center community needs and priorities.

Image description: A person high up on a communications tower

In depth

Observing a community network in the Philippines through a gendered lens

Posted Mon 7 Jan 2019 - 09:03 | 10,852 views

In this interview, Serene Lim dives deep into what are the gender implications of making a community network in a remote area of the Philippines - from tackling gender stereotypes to the distribution of labour of running a community network to the benefits of access for communities often overlooked by telecommunications companies.

Feminist talk

Women's Community Radio: How Islanders And Mountain Residents Are Coping With The Impact Of Covid-19 in Rural Indonesia

Posted Mon 12 Dec 2022 - 05:08 | 2,086 views

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the digital divide that exists in rural Indonesia as the world moved to technology for everyday needs and tasks. The residents of the villages set up community radios to address this gap, which then helped in addressing many economic, educational, communication and entertainment needs of the residents.

Feminist talk

Connecting reflections through a community network's experience in Brazil

Posted Thu 20 Oct 2022 - 04:47 | 1,497 views

Community networks in quilombolas from Terra Seca/Ribeirão Grande in Brazil have been helping households to connect to the internet while serving individual needs of residents. In the backdrop of the FIRN research exploring the same, the authors discuss how these community-led networks connect communities with technology.

Infrastructures of resistance: Community networks hacking the global crisis

Posted Mon 13 Dec 2021 - 08:57 | 4,905 views

Community networks proved that an infrastructure is only as robust as the more caring of its communal nodes. In this second year of living in times of unequal global health crisis, we are glad to present this special edition of GenderIT.org: Infrastructures of resistance: Community networks hacking the global crisis and to share with our readers how intersectional approaches in CNs…

a group of women sharing knowledge on how to connect a router

Feminist talk

Sharing human and internet bandwidth of a community network in the middle of a pandemic

Posted Mon 13 Dec 2021 - 07:36 | 2,745 views

In Vale do Ribeira, São Paulo, Brazil, a group of ecological, quilombola farmer women, in partnership with two feminist organisations: APC and Sempreviva Organização Feminista (SOF), managed to deploy and operate their Wi-Fi mesh network. Bruna Zanolli highlights the importance of building trust, empathy and feminist guidelines in the community so that their internet infrastructure could…

group of children around a laptop in a classroom

Feminist talk

Community networks: states, solutions and communities

Posted Sun 12 Dec 2021 - 11:48 | 3,261 views

Upasana Bhattacharjee further builds on this notion of community network not only as a local connectivity infrastructure serving the unserved people and rural areas left out by markets or states, but mainly as a social actor that builds knowledge, autonomy and agency at the local level, through a community-owned infrastructure and organized operation.