REvised Abstract proposal
Group history research object
Baobaxia, “a rota os Baobas” is an eventually connected network formed by a number of Mucuas (nodes) located in over 200 communities of the Mocambos network.
Baobaxia has been formed in the years 2004 in Brazil building Mucuas in a “digital land where culture may grow” assembling material and sharing information in the Quilombos.
My experience with the Baobaxia project comes from an active implication with the Bricolabs group in europe since the beginning of the 2000, its strong ties with Brazil, supporting community originated networks. As Baobaxia has developed further European ties, Petites Singularités is hosting one of the three European Mucuas.
-
research problematic
Brazil is a fertile territory where a unique discourse characterises community and independant technological projects. Both the development of the language and of the networks are largely understudied, hidding the benefice of these aparatuses to a broader understanding of decentralized network, intersectional and anticolonial studies. -
method
A Feminist Epistemology considers necessary principles of intra-action (Barad) looking for apparatuses that are conceived in situation opening ways for contextual interaction. This article will focus on “knowledges” brought by otherwise left behind social groups who often exist under several axis of oppression, which explains their non consideration, as they might form a divergent viewpoint within, allowing for the construction of different organisations and informations preserved in their community,
Working from a necessary distance the research will still build from direct implication of its authors who have actively contributed to the implementation of baobaxia, the study is equally nourished by interviews and interactions made by Petites singularités.
This analysis pursues the third technoscape research led since 2017 by Petites Singularités "Singular technologies and the third technoscape"JOPP (Journal of Peer production)#11 city, 2018. Highlighting the importance of minorised technological practice that convey integrative organisational models, responding to capitalist hegemony. -
theory
I will here take a subjective position in choosing to bring forward the specificities of underepresented media projects, that have been developped by and for specific communities. Rather then examining southern based projects that exist in relation to the dominant model, as Yuri Takhteyev, has explained, this article will expand on difference within the system. This analysis will present the history of important peculiar projects in free software that built infrastructure for specific comunities in Brazil, and work to understand the horizontal and emergmerging spaces they have help to build, within capitalist society.
