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Expansion of the Technological Frontier: Connectivity and Community in Rural and Indigenous Areas of Colombia and Brazil

Faced with the processes of violence and social exclusion in rural areas, community networks offer a viable alternative to guarantee access to communication and dignity.

In one of the most isolated areas of Brazil, 300 km from the city of São Luis, the Bairro Novo palenque in Penalva was able to connect to the internet for the first time after the development of a community and self-managed connectivity project. Their community ties have become resilient with the installation of cables and internet routers. In Colombia and Brazil, these community internet access initiatives allowed community leaders to continue to raise their voices in defense of the territory and to denounce violence against them. Their comrades without internet access had a different fate, as they were killed in the jungle while uncommunicated. The Palenqueros of Bairro Novo have been disconnected from the internet, as the companies providing connectivity services prefer to invest in the installation of a single antenna in the large city of São Luis, which possibly means a significant number of users paying for the network, rather than an antenna for a small community. Without internet access, the Bairro Novo community could not access the Pix – Brazil’s instant payment method, the social payments of the Bolsa Familia Program – Brazil’s social income transfer policy – and children in the communities often faced difficulties in completing school work. 

The connectivity project in Bairro Novo highlights the dramatic scenario of digital exclusion, land conflict and armed violence shared by rural territories in Brazil and Colombia, the two most dangerous countries for environmental leaders in the world. This digital exclusion is explained, at least in part, by the lack of electricity in some territories and topographic features that are not very favorable for the installation of cables or antennas. For companies to invest resources to promote Internet access conditions for a community of 2,000 people does not seem like good business. This shows that economic groups forget that they are providing a public service and are making use of a good to which everyone should have access: the electromagnetic spectrum, which allows communication. The State has also shown no interest in assessing compliance with the goals of expanding Internet access in these territories, deepening the already existing digital divides.

In Brazil, in 2023, 85% of households in urban areas of the country had internet access and only 74% in rural areas. In Colombia, these gaps are no smaller. While 67.5% of households in urban areas had Internet access, only 32.2% had it in rural areas. And so the history of isolation and disconnection repeats itself. In the past with the lack of roads, and today with the lack of cables and internet antennas.  

Beyond Internet access: solidarity and networked autonomy  

From the territories, the communities have found in their collective ties a powerful tool to face digital exclusion, organizing themselves to identify suitable places to install cables and Internet signal captors, make the installation and, eventually, share the Internet costs. They also seek resources for training people in the community itself so that they can solve technical problems of disconnection in case of rain or other events in the territory.  For example, in the Colombian Amazon, leaders of the indigenous reserves of Panuré and El Refugio in the municipality of San José del Guaviare are betting on communication strategies through the Poo’se Ajponũcarõ network (Red-construir Dabucury in the Tucano language) to weave the dream of female financial autonomy and confront the threats of forgetting their dances, ancestral medicine and original language. Supported by Colnodo, 13 women leaders and 5 community leaders have collaborated to map locations of connection nodes where hills, valleys and trees can interrupt the signal. They also conducted workshops on multimedia communication, internet maintenance and digital security so that the communities can navigate the internet safely.  

Other experiences have also sought to promote the technological sovereignty of indigenous communities by developing web pages to share content and traditions of local culture. The Mocambos network in Brazil operates Baobáxia, a page where the community shares and accesses news and knowledge about samba and regional poetry, allowing the community to self-determine and choose the uses of connectivity in the territory.

Unlike commercial Internet providers, community initiatives for the development and installation of cables and antennas, deployed and managed autonomously by community associations, are not limited to providing connectivity, but also generate opportunities for innovation and creativity based on the strengthening of solidarity ties. By offering affordable network access and building individuals’ technical and digital literacy skills, community network models offer marginalized populations hope for collective empowerment. 

In conflict-affected rural regions, where a history of exclusion, violence and poverty has driven internet operators away from the territory, organizing collectively to connect communities to the digital world seems to pave a path to social and economic inclusion and peace. The INC Community Network in the municipality of Buenos Aires, Cauca, Colombia, is a good example. The self-initiative of indigenous, Afro-Colombian and peasant leaders to access the internet signal has generated opportunities for communities to develop small businesses or sell their products on social networks and represents a hope for alternatives to the informal and illicit sources of income linked to illicit crops in the Cauca region.

Despite the dream of autonomy over their territories that is built along with technological sovereignty in the thread of community networks, indigenous, peasant and palenquero populations in Brazil and Colombia remain dependent on commercial technologies to connect. In the indigenous reservation of Panuré and in the INC Network, for example, Starlink satellite technology is used. Starlink’s presence in these territories, often the only network available at affordable prices, high quality and with a presence in 90% of the cities in the Brazilian Amazon, brings into debate the limits of technological and territorial sovereignty. The giants Google and Meta have also launched themselves to offer connectivity in underserved regions and threaten to extend their monopoly in the connectivity applications sector. 

Challenges for the implementation of community networks

Despite their potential, there are insufficient efforts to implement community network policies in a way that addresses the real needs of the territories in either country. Local and national policy makers do not reach the communities and continue to develop norms applicable to rural populations from their offices in the big cities.  

In Colombia, although legislation has incorporated the recognition of community networks as part of the national digital connectivity strategy and the Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies has designed a policy of connectivity communities, it is limited to encouraging fixed connections, ignoring the fact that 84% of broadband connections are made by mobile devices in low and middle-income countries such as Colombia. In addition, the disregard for mobile connections prevents communities from having connectivity when they go out to take care of the land and carry out their daily activities. So far, the regulations do not establish differentiated conditions for these communities to be subject to soft regimes of contributions and considerations.  

In Brazil, although legislation seeks to provide facilities for the provision of service to a specific group of users, the State has failed to provide financial resources for these complementary associative models to flourish. The regulatory frameworks do not determine differential conditions or access facilities to the Telecommunications Universalization Fund for community Internet services compared to large companies. While the inefficient management of the fund neglects community networks by not providing specific criteria for them to access funding, the territories struggle to empower themselves and make them thrive as a rural connectivity strategy.

Faced with the processes of violence and social exclusion in rural areas, community networks offer a viable alternative to guarantee access to communication and dignity, promoting the autonomy and active participation of peoples in the exercise of their territorial, cultural and environmental rights. However, for these initiatives to be sustainable and effective, it is crucial that public policies recognize their particular characteristics and objectives in comparison with traditional market agents.  

 

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