From October 2017 to June 2018, in the framework of the Heteropolitics ERC COG (2017-2020) Research Project, we conducted ethnographic research in Elassona, where over the past nine years eleven villages have built, run and maintain a Wireless Community Network (WCN), sarantaporo.gr. The aim of our research is to contribute to the debate on Commons through feedback from the field where such ventures take place. More specifically, the aim of Heteropolitics is to highlight alternative, self-organised communities of Commons. In the case-study of sarantaporo.gr, we have focused on the community created around a Digital Commons and the perceptions emerging from participation in the WCN concerning the infrastructure, which is provided by all participants to all the inhabitants of the villages that belong on the network, either they are participants or not. The following narratives (in Greek) from interviews we held answer questions such as:
- How do the Commons emerge as everyday politics?
- How do the Commons differ from bureaucratic state policies?
- How do the subjectivities of participants emerge and get transformed in the contexts of such endeavours?
- How do participants understand their role in the endeavour and in the wider society they belong to?
You can read the full interviews (in Greek) here.