Gentrification in the mesh?

Abstract

The paper offers a critical perspective on practices of construction and consumption of wireless mesh networks in urban environments. It narrates Open Wireless Network (OWN) in Deptford, at a time when this inner borough of London was undergoing an intense gentrification process. Drawing on critical urban theory, the ethnography frames OWN as a sociotechnical assemblage deeply entangled with everyday city life. It argues that gentrification poses challenges to a grassroots wireless network like OWN, because it risks reducing it to an individualised utility and an aesthetic provision. The initial findings suggest the communitarian construction of this wireless network has helped to maintain a commitment to reciprocity, potentially offering-for its users, developers and participants-pockets of resistance against their cultural displacement. Although providing free wireless broadband to many, the paper argues that wireless communication became of secondary importance to the locals who joined the network. For years in fact, OWN contributed to face-to-face interventions, local knowledge exchange and transfer of competences, becoming a relatively known presence in the area. The research operates on a multidisciplinary level evoking hackers, technology and the production of urban space. It wants to stitch back together some of the literature on socio-technical assemblage and on the 'right to the city'.

Commoning the Smart City: A Case for a Public Internet Provision

“…Here, there is room for ethical hackers and community organisers with strong technical skills to mobilize knowledge transfer and try to limit digital divides, and for people to get actively involved in the making or maintenance of technologies in social space. But smart city innovations risk to foster exclusionary outcomes, because city space itself -the spaces of social reproduction and production of the commons -is increasingly divided by 'rent', which displaces both communitarian hacktivists and local residents (Cardullo 2017).…”

“…vi It was a mesh of independent radios (nodes) which, by talking to each others and via ad-hoc gateways, provided extended broadband access to the immediate neighbourhood or passers-by in the reach of its wireless signal. Soon after its establishment, OWN peaked to almost 100 nodes and over 400 users at any one time, but in the last few years the project went through a period of decline since, with smartphone data network access as standard and a wider public provision in libraries and cafés, "some of the passion for independent Wi-Fi infrastructure building has fallen away" (Cardullo, 2017).…”

“…The mesh of nodes particularly suited transient and migrant people, students and temporary workers, but also less wealthy locals, who did not have the capability to enrol in any official provision (for lack of residential documentation or money). My research on the development of Open Wireless Network (2013-15) revealed that maintaining a mesh of hardware, patching the software, and training people to use it was possible only with a large amount of stewardship from trusted community advocates who themselves had strong technical skills (Cardullo, 2017). We can call them 'ethical hackers', people able to mobilise a good degree of social and technical skills, voluntary work, and some occasional funding.…”

Living labs and vacancy in the neoliberal city

“…This sort of LL, sometimes a hacker-space or art-space, is hosted in either vacant public or private space, but often seeks to maintain the characteristics of an "independent space": in both cases, rent can be a crucial factor for the sustainability of the project (Bresnihan & Byrne, 2015). 10 Typically, these LLs undertake a rolling set of projects that seek to address specific problems, such as Wi-Fi connectivity (Cardullo, 2017), civic apps (Perng & Kitchin, 2016), or planning applications (de Lange & de Waal, 2016). Examples of such initiatives in Dublin are Tog, a maker-space that includes digital projects, and Code for Ireland that meets monthly to develop civic apps, though it has no permanent space, its meet-ups migrating between the corporate offices of Google, Facebook and LinkedIn (see Perng & Kitchin, 2016).…”

“…An example of this is the Open Wireless Network (OWN) in innercity London, where wireless communication was indeed of secondary importance to the locals who participated (Cardullo, 2017). More importantly, for years OWN contributed to community-building, local knowledge exchange, and some instances of anti-gentrification activism.…”