Community networks and the evolution of civic intelligence

Both authors have been engaged in the community networking movement and its evolution for many years in an ongoing effort to help create online systems that meet human needs. Community networks are intended to help address shared "public affairs" in geographical areas. Although this goal is important and laudable, community networking communities are often unable to have their voice heard in these matters. To help address this question — and the broader problem of inadequate and marginalized citizen engagement society-wide — we have launched several research / action projects related to community networks and online deliberation. To inform that process we focus on three prominent protest communities in Italy. We find that they must move beyond the community network model and perspective in two profound ways. Firstly, the communities must necessarily work with and integrate local and non-local perspectives. Secondly, the need exists for more purposive modes of communication that we believe can be supported through informed development and use of technology. We take this approach as an useful step in an ongoing process, building on our experiences with community networks as conceptualized in the mid 1990's to help develop and define our requirements for useful online capabilities as they link local and non-local communities in a sustained way that manifests civic intelligence.

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NIH Funding Community Networks to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e507192006-006 ◽

2004 ◽

Keyword(s):

Health Disparities ◽

Community Networks ◽

Cancer Health Disparities ◽

Nih Funding

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The Development of Community Networks Affecting Health Promotion of the Elderly and Incorporating Local Wisdom at Ban Ton Tan Community, Saraburi, Thailand

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e570112013-020 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Payao Phongsakchat ◽

Pudsadee Korjedee ◽

Jiraporn Cheanchum ◽

Prapas Tana ◽

Siritorn Yingrengreung

Keyword(s):

Health Promotion ◽

The Elderly ◽

Community Networks

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PLAYING WITH FIRE COLLECTIVELY: CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL RITES AS DEVISERS AND OUTCOMES OF COMMUNITY NETWORKS

Event Management ◽

10.3727/152599520x15894679115475 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Alba Colombo ◽

Jaime Altuna ◽

Esther Oliver-Grasiot

Keyword(s):

Social Networks ◽

Social Context ◽

Power Relations ◽

Symbolic Capital ◽

Community Networks ◽

Mutual Dependence ◽

Community Solidarity ◽

Symbolic Content ◽

The Relationship

Popular festivities and traditional events are important moments in which symbolic content, deep emotions and community solidarity are developed. However, there has been little research on the relationship between such events and their social networks and the power relations within these networks. This paper explores the ability of community events and networks to reflect and strengthen social context. Rather than observing the capacity of the event to generate a network, we focus on identifying how the event network is constructed, and how it creates relationships between the different groups, or nodes, within broader social networks. The case analysed is the Correfoc de la Mercè, a traditional firework event in Barcelona involving the Colles de diables, or Catalan popular fire culture groups. Our findings show that there is a bidirectional link or a mutual dependence between the groups (or nodes) and the event, which also support the development of shared social and symbolic capital.

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Military, Family, and Community Networks Helping with Reintegration

10.21236/ada577069 ◽

2010 ◽

Author(s):

Laurie Slone

Keyword(s):

Military Family ◽

Community Networks

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Rural Uncommoning

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction ◽

10.1145/3445793 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 28 (3) ◽

pp. 1-50

Author(s):

Nicola J. Bidwell

Keyword(s):

Global South ◽

Community Networks ◽

Small Scale ◽

Communal Identity ◽

Women's Participation ◽

Rural Governance ◽

The Commons ◽

Local Telecommunications

Shared use of small-scale natural commons is vital to the livelihoods of billions of rural inhabitants, particularly women, and advocates propose that local telecommunications systems that are oriented by the commons can close rural connectivity gaps. This article extends insights about women's exclusion from such Community Networks (CNs) by considering ‘commoning’, or practices that produce, reproduce and use the commons and create communality. I generated data in interviews and observations of rural CNs in seven countries in the Global South and in multi-sited ethnography of international advocacy for CNs. Male biases in technoculture and rural governance limit women's participation in CNs, and women adopt different approaches to performing their communal identity while using technology. This situation contributes to detaching CNs from relations that are produced in women's commoning. It also illustrates processes that co-opt the commons in rural technology endeavours and the diverse ways commoners express their subjectivities in response.

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