gender and community networks

What is feminist infrastructure? Our lives are determined now by technology and especially data and surveillance. How can we undermine the existing technological hegemony and rebuild infrastructures that accommodate different realities and needs through community networks?

A photo essay of a community network and the women working at the radio station and using the community network located just at the outskirts of Bangalore in India.

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. 

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.

In this interview with Chako Armant who researches and works on a community network on the island of Idjwi in DRC, she talks about running a community network while there is ongoing uncertainty and conflict, and how they are addressing norms around gender and technology.

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.

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…

In times of crisis, community networks proved that an infrastructure is only as robust as the more caring of its communal nodes. We are glad to present the special edition: Infrastructures of resistance: Community networks hacking the global crisis. Read the editorial article, by Adriana Labardini.

This article situates the role of community networks that strive to deliver on technology’s promise of greater gender equality, making the case for recentring the needs of women and communities in technology-making and connectivity, as infrastructures of resistance in times of crisis.

In this article, Daiane Araujo discuss the link between popular education and community networks, and argues that class, race and gender should be part of the analysis in the implementation of autonomous infrastructure and technical training dedicated to digitally excluded communities.