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Session Five: Regulation of tech and frameworks

In this session, we have Karla sharing some of her learnings from her work at REDES accompanying Indigenous and community-based media and connectivity projects. She also shared her reflections on the methodological and theoretical issues that came in place when discussing regulations within the powers of autonomy within the community, and the reimagined future together.

Starting her presentation with a story about herself as a lawyer born in La Paz, with a son who likes superheroes, as someone who loves nature and mountains, and dogs, and as someone who is a part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Her intention of sharing her own stories is to show that our own stories are important as a starting point in shaping regulation and public policy, as they can relate to your territory, relationship, and lived experiences.

Sharing her work at REDES, Karla mentioned that her organisation always think about these three questions:

  • What is our ethical responsibility in accompanying their demands?
  • What are the benefits and risks?
  • How will the why will determine the how? 

The nature of technology is never neutral and always political. It is built for specific purposes, and built by and for specific people. As such, when regulating or thinking of public policy, it is necessary for us to disregard the thinking that tech is neutral. In REDES, everyone has the ethical responsibility in making sure that the idea is taken into account, especially when they have to work with specific demands coming from certain groups of communities. In addition to that, as some of the team do not belong to the indigenous communities themselves, they have to be aware of these positionalities. When introducing new tech to a certain community, the group will always consider both the benefits and the risks to the community, as the implementation can change the ways of the communities, or it can affect the laws and regulations in the country. Finally, in working with the communities, Karla stressed that it is also important to examine the goals, as there will be some impacts and consequences that can befall the communities especially. The goals will also determine the methods and processes, which is why it is important to think of the why in order to determine the how.  

Karla also shared some guidelines for working with the community. They are:

  • Learn in relation to others
  • Dreams and desire guide us
  • Networks frame relationships. Relationships can frame networks.
  • Different networks equate to different types of relationships
  • Networks may create relationships similar to those built by indigenous people, that indigenous people built 

As we do not have all the knowledge, we often have to learn in relation to others. Changes are also possible, says Karla, as we are often in the process of learning. When working with any community, it is important to be guided by their dreams and desires in order to fit the regulation and public policy to their needs. Translating these dreams and desires into a specific objective for policies may not be easy, and their needs may encompass bigger than the limitations of technology. 

Karla also spoke of how networks can shape relationships, and vice versa, especially in the context of new technologies where it might change how the communities connect and communicate with each other e.g. mobile phones. Lastly, it is also important to understand that building networks, it can also equate to different types of relationships, and may be similar to the existing networks that the communities have already built. 

In understanding regulations, Karla also stressed that communities must be able to establish their dreams regarding the use of technologies since they will be the ones using them the most. Decisions about technologies involving communities must also include consultation and decisions from the community members themselves. Regulation must be shaped by local realities instead of the other way around. Regulations should also recognise different realities and autonomy processes and must be able to hold multiple truths and realities of these communities. 

A few essential elements of regulations should include: 

  • Diagnoses that consider the recipients of the regulations (the community) down to the nitty-gritty details e.g. how many men and women, how many elders, common practices, tradition, language etc. 
  • Consultation with the indigenous community in order to give us some insights into principles to work with, to begin with regulations. It is also important to consider existing technology in the community, and if we can build upon them. 
  • Understanding their barriers like funding and budgets could be a huge enabler for autonomy in the community
  • Monitoring and evaluation of regulation - important to assess the impacts so we can design regulations that better suit the needs of the community in the future. 
  • Embody intersectional axes in our work, as they can greatly shape the framework of the regulation e.g. if we embody gender and class axes in our regulation, we can see the impacts much differently 

The mentees were then invited into different groups to discuss these questions:

“You are the regulatory authority. Think about the specific community without internet access — those you already know or you can invent — and the community has done the advocacy effort to change the situation.

Think about three questions you should ask yourself about this situation and build one strategy to get the info.”

Back in the plenary, the groups shared their proposed questions:

  1. What is the community like? Gender, age, ethnicity etc. What is the local story about them and their culture? How about their geographical positions? How about their languages? How about their livelihood — what do they do to survive? Are these different for men and women?
  2. Are they already any available services or infrastructures e.f. Radio, satellite. What is the existing infra? Can we build on this existing infra? 
  3. What are their technical and economic needs, and their capacity?
  4. What are their existing resources? Any resources they need?
  5. What do they need specifically from the regulator or government? What are their current needs? Do they need it e.g. specifically for education, information, access to address grievances, entertainment or a combination of everything? Are these pressing needs? Is this specifically for their community?
  6. In order to address these questions, what are the tools and methodology to adapt to their specific community needs? 

One group also spoke about the initial idea of inventing or basing on an existing community. They then decided to build upon an existing community so they don't have to reimagine a whole new community and their imagined needs and lived realities. This can be seen as a reflection of relating and positioning ourselves to this community as someone not from the community.

Group three shared the below questions that emerged from their discussion:

  1. Affordability - How much are they willing to spend on internet access per month?
  2. Sustainability - What are the 3 projects that they think would benefit the community once the internet is installed?
  3. To determine their internet requirements - What kind of businesses are in the community? What are the demographics in this community? Will a young person lead this initiative?
Memorable Quotes

“Technology is never neutral! It is built for specific purposes, and built by and for specific people. As such, when regulating or thinking of public policy, it is necessary for us to disregard the thinking that tech is neutral.” — Karla 

“The why will determine the how. For example, if you put your work into the framework of care and relationship to the community, you notice you will do things differently.” — Karla 

“Translating dreams and desires into public policy will not be easy. These dreams may not revolve around technology and maybe bigger than technology.” — Karla

“Autonomy is not something that is given to you — you must exercise it. The state could enable the environment for you and the community in order to be able to build, but you need to build yourself to be autonomous.” — Karla

Session Six: Infrastructure is political. Environmental justice, community sovereignty, power dynamics

For this session, we have Tania and Maud sharing about the concepts of environmental justice, feminist internet principles and community sovereignty in community networks. Mentees were then invited to map the environmental weight of networks together. The session concluded with the mentors speaking about eco-aware policy making and asking the mentees to share their thoughts.

In the first part of the session, Tania and Maud introduced themselves and invited the mentees to do so as well by telling their names, pronouns and their expectation from the session, especially revolving around environmental justice in their CNs. A few expectations came up:

  • Wanting to find out how much energy consumption takes place in community networks
  • Learning more about community networks in general from an environmental lens
  • Biodiversity, land rights, and knowledge sovereignty especially with indigenous communities
  • Community networks as a space for storytelling and conceptualising different narratives and alternatives around earth justice and community access 
  • Introducing more intersections of environmental justice to communities they are in 
  • Community network as a model for a more sustainable and environmentally friendly substitute and to empower more women
  • Understanding more about environmental and political aspects of the community networks, and how to influence the regulations around the areas 

Maud and Tania spoke about environmental justice and the feminist approach to ICT and how it can shape the understanding of networks and infrastructure, as well as understanding of different ways of community ownership. All of these concepts can be related in one way or another, especially when we think about nature, resources, labour, and practice that go into the production of the network. 

Maud spoke about the idea of dematerialisation of infrastructure in the development, which can be extended to the invisibilisation of the production chain, the resources, labour, and many others that we need to sustain the infrastructure. This can be exemplified by the idea of cloud computing, which was always deemed ‘sustainable’ and ‘environmentally friendly, but we forgot the fact that these ‘cloud’ and data also reside in physical data centres that will also run out of space one day. “The idea contrary to this approach is related to environmental justice and feminist internet, one that is careful, not careless,” Maud said. A careful approach entails care for the surroundings and their relationship, more than just the innovative cycle but also the labour and production that go into the whole network. Responding to a participant’s comment on maintenance vs innovation, Tania said that there needs to be a balance between both, and it is not necessarily one is better than the other. 

Tania spoke about community sovereignty in relation to technology. It is important to assess the impact of new technology brought into the community, as this tech can change the way they interact with each other, and in return shape their relationships. She spoke of two examples: one where a cooperative in Brazil decided to share their network with their whole village so everyone else can use it, and another where a community where they limit their network because the youngsters are addicted to the Internet in the village that they abandon communal responsibilities. As always, Tania said, everyone can use the network to suit their own needs. 

One participant shared her experience about a group of women shrimp farmers in her program area who use IoT and realised the use is more efficient for them because they can also save electricity. In addition to that, the tech not only assists them in their work but also makes them realise their rights to internet access. 

Participants were then invited to draw based on these two prompts:

  1. As we are part of CN, draw how it would be if you were to connect someone from the village to the internet itself. How do you see a person in the village connected to the zoom meeting now? What tools e.g. mobile, computer, routers, satellite etc. What do you see in this ecosystem?
  2. What are the (natural) resources as well as labour that sustain this ecosystem? 

While drawing, participants were invited to share their thoughts. Participants spoke of trees, libre routers, phones, TP-link, antennae, cables, wifi, energy kits, solar panel etc. Some participants mentioned tasks and skills such as training, knowledge sharing, maintenance, and capacity building. One participant also shared about wasps who build nests in the routers, so removing them has always been part of the maintenance routine. 

Tania also invited the participants to think of the responsibilities of the companies who produce these materials, where they got the materials and resources, and how their work contributes to the carbon footprints and environmental destruction. The data centres, for example, are owned by big corporations and require tons of water and electricity, often taken from local communities.

Cynthia then invited the participants to tie this topic to the goal of SPACE — which revolves around policy advocacy. Community networks have been one of the models that have integrated care and respect for the planet in infrastructure building. Cyn posed a question: What are the challenges for community networks to become the alternative that is more environmentally aware? Some insights from the participants:

  • The strength of community networks in certain spaces depends on their influence on local and regional conversation, as such constant advocacy is needed
  • How to negotiate the kind of conversation between land rights and community networks 

The session concluded with Tania and Maud inviting the participants to share resources of their CN practices with regard to environmental considerations. 

Memorable Quotes

“The idea that materials and flesh will be replaced by virtual, that we can call dematerialisation of infrastructure.” — Maud 

“The invisibilisation of infrastructure makes us forget that the said infrastructure is up and running, but we complain when it breaks down.” — Maud

“The idea contrary to the dematerialisation and invisibilisation of infrastructure is related to environmental justice and feminist internet — one that is careful, not careless.” — Maud

“Tech itself is not always the problem, but the problem is our behaviour around the usage of tech.” — Tania




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