Published in Branch Magazine (Issue 4), this piece reflects on facilitating community network spaces and developing principles for open climate networks. “COWs”- Community Owned Wifi-Mesh- is both acronym and metaphor: a grounded, unglamorous, collectively maintained form of infrastructure, explored further in the framework for establishing a generative community mesh network.
The article draws on our experience building and maintaining mesh networks in rural Karnataka- including the Bidar project- to propose principles for how community practices and local engagement can inform the design of climate-responsive digital infrastructure. It asks what “open” means when the communities in question have never been centred in conversations about openness, a question also taken up in the Alternatives and Demands in Network Ruins panel.
