Published in Compost Digital (Issue 1), this is a group reflection on a project run in Bidar, India, to set up a community mesh network. Facilitated by Living Labs Network and Forum, Team YUVAA, and Janastu Servelots, the local mesh network was designed to act as an intranet of local informal archives- with tools like Papad running on the network- that would collectively function as a knowledge network. This work is part of a broader arc of community network writing and feeds into the principles we distilled around Community Owned Wifi-Mesh. The network also spawned experiments in community-driven content tools: Jingle Tales customised device boot-up sounds as a way of claiming ownership, and Webinar Pi proposed a locally maintainable video-conferencing alternative.
The archives come from various communities in Bidar and their knowledge practices- the same place-based research orientation that informed the Climate Resource Center. During the project, we came to see both the limitations of technology and its potential to catalyse spaces of cultural collaboration. The piece presents narratives from the field- possibilities and futures that our network members came across while documenting and creatively engaging with folklore, songs, and oral practices held by women of various communities in Bidar.
