User:)biyibiyibiyi(/RW&RM 04/thesis o 0 1 0

Introduction:

1. Thesis Statement

My thesis will examine technical textual media used in DIY networking processes. By technical textual media, I refer to text documents such as tutorials, user manuals, bug reports, and RFCs (Request for Comments). I propose to examine these textual mediums critically, despite the impression that they appear to be accessible, instructive, and universal.

Do textual media imply barriers of access? If there is, how are these barriers constructed? Are there ableism and meritocracy in open practice? If there is, how are these signs of privileges and power indicated? By acknowledging these un-comforting urgencies, I want to call for critical interpretation towards textual media. Critical examination can activate textual media as public, civic sites to lessen barriers to be able to engage with technology, interject lay-speech into technological discourses and instigate collective making.

2. Background

The examination of textual media is contextually situated within the larger landscape of DIY networking practice. During the last fifteen years, DIY networking practices have been proliferating in Europe and North America. It serves as a counter narrative to mainstream networking, responding to pathologies of the modern networked world, such as opacity of network infrastructure and asymmetry of power between network monopolies and users (Dragona & Charitos, 2017). Centralized network infrastructure are growing into opaque entities impossible to elucidate for the general public, laden with asymmetries of power between network monopolies and users (Ibid). The objective of DIY networking projects is to reclaim digital autonomy, and collaborate within a transparent, horizontal environment, where decisions are made by consensus within the community.

To accomplish these objectives, the building and facilitation of DIY networks is often done with Free/Libre Open Source Software (F/LOSS) and open hardware. The culture and sociality surrounding DIY networks also adhere strongly to open source principles, such as openness and freedom, in terms of network architecture, topology, and governance. In turn, the adoption of open source tools and culture affirm the original objectives DIY networks, such as accessibility and transparency and free distribution. By accessibility, I refer to the examples of DIY community networks that bring connection for off grid regions without mainstream provider coverage. Additionally, accessibility also means the option for considering alternatives to centralized network infrastructural services. By transparency, I refer to visibility of network topology and architecture, and processes for maintaining, taking care DIY networks, such as decision making, reaching consensus, raising critiques, so that power is distributed in a visible, horizontal and democratic manner. By free distribution, I refer to the practices that make possible for more communities to initiate similar actions, such as forking and modifying source codes, procuring equipments from open BOMs (Bill of Materials). The potentials of open source practice in DIY networking are multifaceted, and I will not go on with its elaboration.

I will study DIY networking practices with network archaeology methods. My interest in network archaeology is two fold. First, the field of networking is a sedimented terrain, consisted of newly developed layers built on top of pre-existing ones. Network archaeological methods will unravel historical lineages of network development, and shed light on understanding how modern network's topology, attributions, structures and qualities come into beings as of today. Second, there has been recurring interests and practices devoted to networking with conventionally considered as phased out media, such as amateur radio communities. Archaeological reuse of these media effectively provoke a tension in temporality that critically question modern network's promise of faster speed, greater durability, wider bandwidth and constant connectivity. To summarize, the relevancy of network archaeology to DIY networking is two fold. First, to understanding the current state of networking in a reverse engineering manner, by looking back to histories of networking. Second, to survey the reuse of retro, considered-as phased out media in DIY networking practices.