Women and the sustainability of rural community networks in the global south

Abstract

Increased advocacy and support for Community networks (CNs), or locally owned and/or operated telecommunications, reflects hopes that CNs will compensate for telecom companies' failure to serve rural areas of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). My study of six cases in Africa, Asia and Latin America responds to this political project. Rural populations in LMICs often comprise more women, and increasingly, older women; rural governance and the technoculture of CNs, however, have masculine biases. Discussions, interviews and observations involving 152 women and 172 men champions, operators, users and non-users showed that women are less likely than men to use CN services and be paid for their labour in CNs. Women manage their personal aspirations, identities and expectations about their labour in various ways, and younger women seek alternatives to connect, sometimes setting up independent enterprises. Thus, maintaining the commons ethos that sustains CNs requires attending to different women's approaches.