Hi everyone, Remember that instead of our usual Change structure for this quarter, tomorrow we will instead be 'hosting' Esther Jang's thesis defense. What does this mean? * Change will still start at 12PM but run till around 12:30PM. We will unofficial start at 11:30AM. * If you can make it at 11:30PM when Esther will begin presenting, perfect! * You can attend virtually here: https://washington.zoom.us/j/91873963156 Best, --------------- When: Tuesday, April 23, 2024 11:30AM - 1:00PM Where: Gates Center (CSE2) 271 Title: Infrastructuring at the Margins: Building Power Through the Practice of Community Networking Advisor: Kurtis Heimerl Supervisory Committee: Kurtis Heimerl (Chair), June Lukuyu (GSR, Electrical and Computer Engineering), Richard Anderson, Jennifer Mankoff Abstract: This thesis provides three case studies of people claiming power over technology through DIY infrastructure building activities, in the context of ongoing community network (CN) projects and within diverse settings of technological marginality. The first presents the material hardships of achieving local technology repair in remote rural cove communities in the Philippines, identifies successful communities of practice around electrical line repair, and outlines requirements for sustaining what we term “training grounds,” an ecosystem of learning opportunities for new entrants into the community of practice. This concept emphasizes the importance of in-context “actual” problems for learners to solve as well as access to learning resources such as tools and expert knowledge. The second study uses the training grounds concept to establish a community of practice in an urban North American context for building and maintaining a community-operated broadband network for marginalized residents and neighborhoods. Through qualitative analysis of participant interviews from the Seattle Community Network (SCN) and NYC Mesh community networks as well as author participant observer journals from 2020-2023, the research presents a model for a non-profit, educational CN, termed a community learning network (CLN), that builds power among participants and produces a learning commons for in-context hands-on technical learning. Finally, the third study builds on the socio-technical infrastructure of SCN to conduct participatory design of networked sensing applications with residents of two self-managed Tiny House Villages (THVs) that SCN’s network serves, investigating the potential for IoT interventions to improve living conditions among low-resourced urban groups experiencing housing precarity. We identify land ownership, management, local regulations, and historical and current zoning as factors shaping the social problems and power relationships that the community must navigate, constraining the technologies residents can design, build, and maintain. Participants also emphasize the importance of data privacy and sovereignty for their collective protection, for example via a strict ban on camera-based visual or audio surveillance, and identify opportunities for sensors and actuators to improve village accessibility and alleviate resource sharing tensions. The three cases center a DIY and hands-on approach to infrastructure, emphasizing communities of practice and pedagogy as strategies for creating long-term structural change and empowerment through participation. They describe technical infrastructure as composed foundationally of the people whose actions produce and maintain them, and whose relationships, values, and constraints shape them. The latter two studies make extensive use of participant observation methodologies; the author argues that such reflexive methodologies can help technology developers capture and reflect on the values and ethics, collective or personal, that shape the products of design.