Keeping the World Alive: An Alternative Story for Funding Community Networks

In this essay I reflect on my prior studies of rural Community Networks (CNs) in the global souths and international advocacy for CNs to consider the question “what do sustainable funding models really encourage CNs to sustain?” I suggest that current financial models bind CNs in a story that contributes to anthropogenic climate crisis because it does not value, what Stefania Barca calls, the “forces of reproduction”. Tensions emerge between local practices that sustain the commons and the market logics that shape how CNs value, locate and scale the technologies they use and the work done in maintaining them. Yet, CNs also offer an opportunity to reimagine how funding models might support collectively keeping the world alive; such as by combining CNs with financial technologies in radically different ways.