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

Introduction:

1. Background

During the last fifteen years, there has been proliferating practices of grass root, DIY networking around the world. Grass root DIY networking practices is 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). Projects that can be categorized as grass root DIY networking vary by their technical medium, original context, locality and scale. A few examples can be used to illustrate these varying projects under the same shared notion of counter-infrastructure, such as autonomous feminist servers, local mesh networks for site specific communities, and experimental, speculative infrastructures to propose critical imaginaries, that may be of limited scale and application.

The building and facilitation of grass root DIY networks often utilize Free/Libre Open Source Software (F/LOSS) tools and open hardware, and adhere to their core principles of freedom to use, modify and redistribute. At the same time, the adaptation of open principles reaffirm objectives of grass root, DIY networking practices. Openness can be used as a tool to create accessibility, for those who are at the margins and are not connected to networks provided by mainstream providers. Additionally, accessibility can also mean an accessible option, a possibility for alternative, in addition to relying on network infrastructures from mainstream providers. Openness can also provide transparency, in terms of visibility of network's topological structure, visibility of processes that happen during maintaining and taking care of shared networks, such as making decisions, reaching consensus, raising suggestions and critiques, amongst a group of users, so that power is distributed in a visible, horizontal and democratic manner. Openness can also encourage reproduce-ability, encouraging more communities to take similar actions - the potentials of openness are multifaceted, and I will not go on with its elaboration.

The research of DIY grass root networking practices will also be studied in tandem with media archaeology. The interest in media archaeology is two fold. First, the field of networking is a sedimented terrain, consisted of layers built on top of existing layers. Media archaeological approaches to studying networks 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 retro, phased out media, such as radio communication networks. Archaeological reuse of these media effectively provoke a tension in temporality that critically question the nature and affordances of networking, in the age of the networked world that's promising faster speed, greater durability, larger bandwidth and constant connectivity. This thesis will examine networking combined with media archaeology in the following two aspects. First, understanding the current state of networking in a reverse engineering manner, by looking back to histories of networking. Second, surveying the reuse of retro, considered-as phased out media in DIY networking practices.

2. Thesis statement

The making and hacking of grass root DIY networks and infrastructures construct the counter narrative towards centralized forms of network organization. DIY networking promises porosity, transparency and flexibility unavailable in centralized systems. Very often, decentralized networking practices are using and applying F/LOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) tools and its tenets. The making process often call for transparency, such as making public and accessible the materials and technical procedures. Adaptation of open working methods aim to confirm objectives of creating grass root DIY networks, such as accessibility, transparency and reproduce-ability.

The making process if facilitate by textual mediums, often belonging to the notion of technical texts, such as tutorials, user manuals, and bug reports, and RFCs (Request for Comments). I propose to examine these textual mediums critically, despite the impression that they appear to be plain, accessible, instructive, universal and decontextualized. The thesis will question the promised accessibility, legibility and openness these mediums and processes they facilitate for envision. Are there 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 instructive texts. This critical examination can activate these textual mediums as public, civic sites to lessen barriers to be able to engage with technology, interject lay-speech into technological discourses and instigate collective making.

The examination of technical and instructive texts is taken as a lens to probe into larger context of grass root maker movement, DIY networking, and open source software and hardware practices. By examining the writing of technical and instructive texts in both contemporary networking and network archaeology, I aim to address the importance of making acknowledging privileges, making visible barriers of access, and diversifying the understanding of open models of DIY maker culture and inviting richer interpretations.

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Topic 1：Networking: about today and yesterday

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