Emancipation Networks is a book project I am currently working on. I research and discuss the ways that communities have deployed network technologies as more than an act of resistance, but as a pathway to emancipation, self-determination, and sovereignty. I rely heavily on the work of Galloway and Thacker in their seminal text, The Exploit: A Theory of Networks. Emancipation Networks takes a different direction as it historicizes analogue networked practice, from African American quilters during the struggle for freedom, the water networks on the U.S./Mexico border, etc. and collides this history of networked struggle with recent digital, often site-specific networks, like the work of Zexe.net or my own work with Colectivo Corriente. Through interviews with the artists and community members, I analyze the benefits, shortcomings and future potential of community networks, site-specific or place based networks and mobile networks. I also focus on digital dialogical aesthetics and the various ways that autonomy and sovereignty operate in hybrid digital zones.
Emancipation Networks reveals some of the criticisms of digital media that come from working class, ethnic, and diasporic communities. Importantly, digital media is not condemned in this sense; rather it is re-configured into a new tactical model that emphasizes culture over control.
I was invited to present the introductory chapter to Emancipation Networks at ISEA 2009
in Ireland.