research-article

"The Network Is an Excuse": Hardware Maintenance Supporting Community

Authors:

Philip Garrison,

Esther Han Beol Jang,

Michael A. Lithgow,

Nicolás Andrés PaceAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 5, Issue CSCW2

Article No.: 464, Pages 1 - 20

https://doi.org/10.1145/3479608

Published: 18 October 2021 Publication History

Editorial Notes

A corrigendum was issued for this paper on January 10, 2022. You can download the corrigendum from the supplemental material section of this citation page.

Abstract

The global community networking movement promotes locally-managed network infrastructure as a strategy for affordable Internet connectivity. This case study investigates a group of collectively managed WiFi Internet networks in Argentina and the technologists who design the networking hardware and software. Members of these community networks collaborate on maintenance and repair and practice new forms of collective work. Drawing on Actor-Network Theory, we show that the networking technologies play a role in the social relations of their maintenance and that they are intentionally configured to do so. For technology designers and deployers, we suggest a path beyond designing for easy repair: since every breakdown is an opportunity to learn, we should design for accessible repair experiences that enable effective collaborative learning.

Supplementary Material

3479608-corrigendum (3479608-corrigendum.pdf)

Corrigendum to "'The Network Is an Excuse': Hardware Maintenance Supporting Community" by Garrison et al., Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 5, Issue CSCW2 (PACMHCI 5:CSCW2).

Download
221.55 KB

References

[1]

Abdelnasser Abdelaal and Hesham Ali. 2007. A typology for community wireless networks business models. AMCIS 2007 Proceedings (2007), 308.

[2]

Michael Adeyeye and Paul Gardner-Stephen. 2011. The Village Telco project: a reliable and practical wireless mesh telephony infrastructure. EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, Vol. 2011, 1 (2011), 78.

[3]

Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Steven J Jackson, and Mohammad Rashidujjaman Rifat. 2015. Learning to fix: knowledge, collaboration and mobile phone repair in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development. ACM, 1--10.

Digital Library

[4]

Antonio D'iaz Andrade and Cathy Urquhart. 2010. The affordances of actor network theory in ICT for development research. Information Technology & People (2010).

[5]

AlterMundi Civil Association. [n.d.]. AlterMundi. https://altermundi.net/ Retrieved May 26, 2020 from

[6]

Luca Belli. 2018. Community Networks: Bridging Digital Divides through the Enjoyment of Network Self-determination. The Community Network Manual: How to Build the Internet Yourself (2018), 23.

[7]

Nicola Bidwell. 2020 a. Wireless in the Weather-world and Community Networks Made to Last. In Proceedings of the 16th Participatory Design Conference 2020-Participation(s) Otherwise-Volume 1. 126--136.

Digital Library

[8]

Nicola J Bidwell. 2019. Women and the Spatial Politics of Community Networks: Invisible in the sociotechnical imaginary of wireless connectivity. In Proceedings of the 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer-Interaction. 197--208.

Digital Library

[9]

Nicola J Bidwell. 2020 b. Women and the Sustainability of Rural Community Networks in the Global South. In Proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development. 1--13.

Digital Library

[10]

Stefano Crabu and Paolo Magaudda. 2018. Bottom-up infrastructures: Aligning politics and technology in building a wireless community network. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Vol. 27, 2 (2018), 149--176.

Digital Library

[11]

Roderic N Crooks. 2019. Times thirty: Access, maintenance, and justice. Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 44, 1 (2019), 118--142.

[12]

Marianne De Laet and Annemarie Mol. 2000. The Zimbabwe bush pump: Mechanics of a fluid technology. Social studies of science, Vol. 30, 2 (2000), 225--263.

[13]

Mandy de Wilde. 2020. ?A Heat Pump Needs a Bit of Care": On Maintainability and Repairing Gender--Technology Relations. Science, Technology, & Human Values (2020), 0162243920978301.

[14]

Michaelanne Dye, David Nemer, Neha Kumar, and Amy S Bruckman. 2019. If it Rains, Ask Grandma to Disconnect the Nano: Maintenance & Care in Havana's StreetNet. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 3, CSCW (2019), 1--27.

Digital Library

[15]

Nicolás Echániz and Pezé Florencia. 2018. Decentralising culture: The challenge of local content in community networks. In Global Information Society Watch 2018: Community Networks. Association for Progressive Communications and International Development Research Centre.

[16]

Nicolás Echániz and Florencia Peze López. 2018. LibreRouter: The Hardware and Software Platform for Community Networking. The Community Network Manual: How to Build the Internet Yourself (2018).

[17]

Virginia Eubanks. 2012. Digital dead end: Fighting for social justice in the information age. MIT Press.

Digital Library

[18]

Hernan Galperin. 2005. Wireless networks and rural development: Opportunities for Latin America. Information Technologies & International Development, Vol. 2, 3 (2005), pp--47.

Digital Library

[19]

Michael Gurstein. 2012. Toward a conceptual framework for a community informatics. In Connecting Canadians: Investigations in community informatics, Andrew Clement, Michael Gurstein, Graham Longford, Marita Moll, and Leslie Regan Shade (Eds.). Athabasca University Press, Edmonton, Alberta.

[20]

Shaddi Hasan, Mary Claire Barela, Matthew Johnson, Eric Brewer, and Kurtis Heimerl. 2019. Scaling community cellular networks with communitycellularmanager. In 16th $$USENIX$$ Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation ($$NSDI$$ 19). 735--750.

[21]

Richard Heeks and Carolyne Stanforth. 2014. Understanding development project implementation: An actor-network perspective. Public Administration and Development, Vol. 34, 1 (2014), 14--31.

[22]

Lara Houston and Steven J Jackson. 2017. Caring for the “Next Billion” Mobile Handsets: Proprietary Closures and the Work of Repair. Information Technologies & International Development, Vol. 13 (2017), 15.

[23]

Lara Houston, Steven J. Jackson, Daniela K. Rosner, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Meg Young, and Laewoo Kang. 2016. Values in Repair. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (San Jose, California, USA) (CHI '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1403--1414. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858470

Digital Library

[24]

Marleen Huysman and Volker Wulf. 2004. Social capital and IT--Current debates and research. Social capital and information technology (2004), 1--16.

[25]

Steven J. Jackson, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, and Md. Rashidujjaman Rifat. 2014. Learning, innovation, and sustainability among mobile phone repairers in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

Digital Library

[26]

Steven J. Jackson, Alex Pompe, and Gabriel Krieshok. 2011. Things Fall Apart: Maintenance, Repair, and Technology for Education Initiatives in Rural Namibia. In Proceedings of the 2011 iConference (Seattle, Washington, USA) (iConference '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 83--90. https://doi.org/10.1145/1940761.1940773

Digital Library

[27]

Steven J. Jackson, Alex Pompe, and Gabriel Krieshok. 2012. Repair Worlds: Maintenance, Repair, and ICT for Development in Rural Namibia. In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (Seattle, Washington, USA) (CSCW '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 107--116. https://doi.org/10.1145/2145204.2145224

Digital Library

[28]

Esther Jang, Mary Claire Barela, Matt Johnson, Philip Martinez, Cedric Festin, Margaret Lynn, Josephine Dionisio, and Kurtis Heimerl. 2018. Crowdsourcing Rural Network Maintenance and Repair via Network Messaging. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 67.

Digital Library

[29]

Esther Han Beol Jang, Philip Garrison, Ronel Vincent Vistal, Maria Theresa D Cunanan, Maria Theresa Perez, Philip Martinez, Matthew William Johnson, John Andrew Evangelista, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Josephine Dionisio, et al. 2019. Trust and Technology Repair Infrastructures in the Remote Rural Philippines: Navigating Urban-Rural Seams. (2019).

[30]

Bruno Latour. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford University Press.

[31]

Catherine Middleton and Barbara Crow. 2008. Building wi-fi networks for communities: Three Canadian cases. Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol. 33, 3 (2008).

[32]

Javier Mignone and Heather Henley. 2009a. Impact of information and communication technology on social capital in aboriginal communities in Canada. Journal of Information, Information Technology, and Organizations, Vol. 4 (2009), 127--145.

[33]

Javier Mignone and Heather Henley. 2009b. Implementation of information and communication technology in Aboriginal communities: A social capital perspective. Journal of Community Informatics, Vol. 5, 2 (2009).

[34]

Fabio Morreale, Giulio Moro, Alan Chamberlain, Steve Benford, and Andrew P McPherson. 2017. Building a maker community around an open hardware platform. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 6948--6959.

Digital Library

[35]

UN IGF Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity et al. 2018. Declaration on Community Connectivity. The Community Network Manual: How to Build the Internet Yourself (2018).

[36]

Julian E Orr. 2016. Talking about machines: An ethnography of a modern job. Cornell University Press.

[37]

Jo Rhodes. 2009. Using actor-network theory to trace an ICT (telecenter) implementation trajectory in an African women's micro-enterprise development organization. Information Technologies & International Development, Vol. 5, 3 (2009), pp--1.

[38]

Mohammad Rashidujjaman Rifat, Hasan Mahmud Prottoy, and Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed. 2019. The Breaking Hand: Skills, Care, and Sufferings of the Hands of an Electronic Waste Worker in Bangladesh. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1--14.

Digital Library

[39]

Daniela K Rosner and Morgan Ames. 2014. Designing for repair?: infrastructures and materialities of breakdown. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing. ACM, 319--331.

Digital Library

[40]

Donna D Rubinoff. 2008. Towards an ICT4D geometry of empowerment: using actor-network theory to understand and improve ICT4D. In Developing Successful ICT Strategies: Competitive Advantages in a Global Knowledge-Driven Society. IGI Global, 133--154.

[41]

Koen Salemink, Dirk Strijker, and Gary Bosworth. 2017. Rural development in the digital age: A systematic literature review on unequal ICT availability, adoption, and use in rural areas. Journal of Rural Studies, Vol. 54 (2017), 360--371.

[42]

Tom Scott-Smith. 2013. The least provocative path: an ANT lens on development project formation and dissolution. Actor-Network Theory for Development Working Paper Series (2013).

[43]

Emile Silvis and Patricia M Alexander. 2014. A study using a graphical syntax for actor-network theory. Information Technology & People (2014).

[44]

Emily Jean Slager. 2018. Infrastructures of survival: digital justice and black poetics in community Internet provision. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Washington, Department of Geography, Seattle, WA.

[45]

Sonesh Surana, Rabin Patra, and Eric Brewer. 2007. Simplifying fault diagnosis in locally managed rural WiFi networks. In Proceedings of the 2007 workshop on Networked systems for developing regions. 1--6.

Digital Library

[46]

Sonesh Surana, Rabin K Patra, Sergiu Nedevschi, Manuel Ramos, Lakshminarayanan Subramanian, Yahel Ben-David, and Eric A Brewer. 2008. Beyond Pilots: Keeping Rural Wireless Networks Alive. In NSDI, Vol. 8. 119--132.

[47]

Arthur Tatnall. 2005. Actor-network theory in information systems research. In Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, First Edition. IGI Global, 42--46.

[48]

Tim Unwin. 2009. Conclusions. In ICT4D: Information and communication technology for development. Cambridge University Press.

[49]

Geoff Walsham. 2017. ICT4D research: reflections on history and future agenda. Information Technology for Development, Vol. 23, 1 (2017), 18--41.

Digital Library

[50]

Etienne Wenger. 1999. Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge university press.

[51]

Etienne Wenger, Richard Arnold McDermott, and William Snyder. 2002. Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Harvard Business Press.

[52]

Susan Wyche, Tawanna R Dillahunt, Nightingale Simiyu, and Sharon Alaka. 2015. If god gives me the chance I will design my own phone: Exploring Mobile Phone Repair and Postcolonial Approaches to Design in Rural Kenya. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing. ACM, 463--473.

Digital Library

Cited By

Bagalkot NShinde SVerdezoto NManuel GRamakka MIitumba NOrtega DDinesh TDensmore M(2024)Collective Infrastructural Speculations: A Situated Understanding of Pasts, Presents & Futures of Resilient Community Networks.Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2024: Full Papers - Volume 110.1145/3666094.3666111(159-172)Online publication date: 11-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3666094.3666111
Rubambiza GSengers PWeatherspoon HLiu J(2024)Seam Work and Simulacra of Societal Impact in Networking Research: A Critical Technical Practice ApproachProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642337(1-19)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642337
Heimerl KJang ENdubuisi-Obi I(2023)Stories from the Field (of Networking): Lessons from Deploying Research Systems in the Real World.Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Situating Network Infrastructure with People, Practices, and Beyond10.1145/3609396.3610547(15-22)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3609396.3610547
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

"The Network Is an Excuse": Hardware Maintenance Supporting Community
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Empirical studies in HCI

Recommendations

Stimulating social engagement in a community network
CSCW '02: Proceedings of the 2002 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work

One of the most challenging problems facing builders and facilitators of community networks is to create and sustain social engagement among members. In this paper, we investigate the drivers of social engagement in a community network through the ...
If it Rains, Ask Grandma to Disconnect the Nano: Maintenance & Care in Havana's StreetNet

In Cuba, where internet access is severely constrained, technology enthusiasts have built StreetNet (SNET), a community network (CN) that has grown organically, reaching tens of thousands of households across Havana. Through fieldwork conducted in 2016 ...
Practitioners and ICTD: Communities of Practice Theory in Technology Interventionism
COMPASS '20: Proceedings of the 3rd ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies

ICTD is a field with a long history of interventionist research in a broad set of domains, including health, agriculture, education, and civics. A common thread between many of these interventions is that they addressed the knowledge and actions of ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Volume 5, Issue CSCW2

CSCW2

October 2021

5376 pages

EISSN:2573-0142

DOI:10.1145/3493286

Editor:
Jeff Nichols
Apple Inc., United States

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2021 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 18 October 2021

Published in PACMHCI Volume 5, Issue CSCW2

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Badges

Best Paper

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Funding Sources

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

5
Total Citations
View Citations
159
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)36
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)2

Reflects downloads up to 21 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Bagalkot NShinde SVerdezoto NManuel GRamakka MIitumba NOrtega DDinesh TDensmore M(2024)Collective Infrastructural Speculations: A Situated Understanding of Pasts, Presents & Futures of Resilient Community Networks.Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2024: Full Papers - Volume 110.1145/3666094.3666111(159-172)Online publication date: 11-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3666094.3666111
Rubambiza GSengers PWeatherspoon HLiu J(2024)Seam Work and Simulacra of Societal Impact in Networking Research: A Critical Technical Practice ApproachProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642337(1-19)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642337
Heimerl KJang ENdubuisi-Obi I(2023)Stories from the Field (of Networking): Lessons from Deploying Research Systems in the Real World.Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Situating Network Infrastructure with People, Practices, and Beyond10.1145/3609396.3610547(15-22)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3609396.3610547
Olgado BPei L(2022)Stewarding the Documental Afterlives of Refugee Tech InitiativesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35555606:CSCW2(1-23)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555560
Jang EBidwell NLiu JSengers PBagalkot NVerdezoto NDensmore MVigil-Hayes MHasan S(2022)Situating Network Infrastructure with People, Practices, and Beyond: A Community Building WorkshopCompanion Publication of the 2022 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing10.1145/3500868.3560716(267-272)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3500868.3560716

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Article

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents