Reflections on Sustainability from a Quilombola Women Led Community Networks
| Autor | Bruna Zanolli |
| Páginas | 121-127 |
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Reflections on Sustainability from a Quilombola Women Led CN
9 Reflections on Sustainability from a Quilombola
Women Led Community Networks
Bruna Zanolli68
9.1 Abstract
The community network (CN) in the Ribeirão Grande/Terra Seca
quilombo has been operating since 2020, most of its time during the
pandemic. Hence, its sustainability has been tested during the many
adversities the Covid-19 pandemic has imposed. This essay shares
some reflections about how family agriculture and traditional ways of
living, local economy, feminist organizations and a CN can feedback on
each other. This specific CN is analysed as a part of the local economy,
therefore facing similar difficulties and successes as the community,
instead of being something unattached to it. This paper also shares
reflections on how a CN can help increase the local economy and at
the same time – mutually – be economically sustainable.
9.2 Introduction
In the rural area of Ribeira Valley – São Paulo, Brazil – there is an
Agroecological Network of Women in Agriculture (RAMA) composed
by quilombola
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women. They have been the key in articulating and
sustaining a CN that started being planned in the second semester of
2019, was implemented in March 2020 and got Internet connectivity in
January 2021. Thus, it has existed more in pandemic than in “normal”
times, which we believe is proof of its sustainability in adversity.
The project that helped to implement this CN is a partnership between
feminist organization Sempre Viva Organização Feminista (SOF,
translates to “Always Alive Feminist Organization”), RAMA, quilombo
residents, independent activists and FIRN (Feminist Internet Research
Network), from APC (Association for Progressive Communications).
68 Activist and Community Media Consultant; Member of the Feminist Internet Research Network.
69 According to Daiane Araújo, the quilombos emerged as refuges for black people who escaped
repression during the entire period of slavery in Brazil, between the 16th and 19th centuries.
The inhabitants of these communities are called quilombolas. After the abolition, most of them
preferred to continue in the villages they formed. With the 1988 Constitution, they gained
the right to own and use the land they were on. Today Brazil has more than fifteen thousand
quilombola communities. Available at:
bell-hooks-and-paulo-freire-construction-community-networks>.
122 Community Networks: Towards Sustainable Funding Models
The CN fostered by the “Action-research on Feminist Autonomous
Networks”
70
project came to address a lack of connectivity that
imposes more barriers than the already historical ones faced by
RAMA quilombola women, in a region marked by the scarcity of
mobile signal, affordable broadband and other basic human rights.
RAMA is a group of women farmers living in 7 different quilombos
separated by mountains. It is in the quilombo Ribeirão Grande/Terra
Seca where the CN is currently operating and providing connectivity
for 15 families, including RAMA members. Previously, they had to
go to the highway and “fish for 3G signal” to be able to connect
to the internet and enable their agroecological products sales in a
cooperative way – receive the purchase orders for their agroecological
products from the city, communicate with their buyers, supporters
and distribution transport and also among themselves to coordinate
collective sales – in order to provide a living to their families.
The CN in this quilombo has been operating for a very short time
and we can’t yet have conclusive observations on the sustainability
of this CN to share, thus, this essay aims at sharing some reflections
about how community networks, family agriculture, traditional ways
of living, feminist organization and local economy can feedback on
each other. It’s about seeing the CN as a part of the local economy
and therefore facing the same difficulties and successes as the
community and how the CN can help to increase the local economy
and at the same time – mutually – be economically sustainable.
Below we share some of the principles of Ribeirão Grande/Terra
Seca CN that we particularly believe are important for their economic
resiliency and sustainability.
9.3 Family agriculture and traditional ways of living
We have witnessed powerful and resistant ways of life from our
time with quilombola people – that have been communicating,
resisting and surviving despite more than 300 years of slavery and
its consequences. Their logic of sustainability is much more collective
than the neoliberalist status-quo of “every man for himself”.
70 The project was lead by Bruna Zanolli and the research was lead by Débora Prado, with the
participation of Daiane Araújo, Carla Jancz, Natália Lobo e Gláucia Marques.
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For instance, the CN connectivity project came through RAMA
and was shaped to benefit RAMA women farmers to help their
selling of agroecological products. The only ISP that attends the
region is satellite-based and only sells retail individual packages,
and not wholesale internet. The project was able to provide a year
of a monthly 30 gigabytes data cap package that, after exceeding
the initial allotment, is reduced to a speed of only 1 Mbps, sharing
it through their mesh network implemented using Libremesh.71 The
local ISP reseller was not happy with our project, but fortunately
agreed to look the other way.
This internet package would already be scarce for the 6 RAMA
women that live in the Ribeirão Grande/Terra Seca quilombo, but
they insisted that the internet should be open to all the 15 families
that live in the surrounding area.
Needless to say, it was much less than ideal and the data cap package
usually ended on the first 2 days of the month. However, their
communal ethics spoke louder and they prefered a low connectivity
that is communal (and allows whatsapp for all) to a better connectivity
that is individual. Their communal logic, which has been characteristic
for centuries and already applied to the exchange of agroecological
products among themselves and mutual help, was extended to
network connectivity with the arrival of the internet via CN.
In adversity, communal solutions arise, so in order to derive the best
out of their connectivity they have set up a creative way to be able
to do their organizational meeting of the RAMA board online. Since
video conferencing platforms for all participants simultaneously
is not a reality yet due to their internet restrictions, they set up a
day and time for all of them to be online in an whatsapp group and
discuss their agenda via text and audio, being able to manage the
sale of their agroecological products in a much more comfortable
and secure way than trying to “fish” 3G signal on the highway.
They all agree there is a lot of space to make the CN and internet
connectivity better but they want to do it in a way that benefits the
whole community and are more interested in first reaching all the
71 See:
Reflections on Sustainability from a Quilombola Women Led CN
124 Community Networks: Towards Sustainable Funding Models
families from the quilombo so they can come together and organize
themselves to buy a better internet package.
9.4 CN and the local economy feedback
When we think of sustainability in this CN context, the key question
is far from “who will pay the bills?”. Rather, it is “how are people –
and CN – going to stay alive in the midst of an economic and health
crisis?” This means that a social sustainability that can be strong
enough to deal with multiple adversities and able to promote their
economic resilience is what they really need to keep themselves –
and CN – alive.72
So we’re starting to think about the many ways in which CN and the
local economy feedback. What first comes to mind is that the CN
project came from a local economy initiative that has been working for
4 years, the RAMA women farmers group. They expressed to SOF how
the internet and connectivity could improve their sales, expanding
their communications with each other, the groups that market their
products and their business contacts in general. Connectivity has
facilitated and kept their income generation process even during
the pandemic and can help them expand their sales for new buyers
and local fairs – being able to communicate better through the CN
and diminish intermediaries in the process. Because their economic
sustainability is more stable with the presence of connectivity, a small
part of it can return back to the sustainability of the CN (payment
of internet bills and keeping a CN fund for improvements, already
planned and soon to be implemented).
In addition, the internet makes it possible to make individual video
calls or participate in lives, so that RAMA councilors and other
political leaders for the defense of the land can participate in
regional and national political decision-making spaces, such as the
National Articulation of Agroecology, the National Meetings of the
Quilombos and Environment Councils. In these meetings there are
many discussions, advocacy and policies that help to maintain their
72 More about the importance of local knowledge and sovereign on building CNs in Débora Prado’s
article at Gender It “Community networks and feminist infrastructure: reclaiming local knowledge
and technologies beyond connectivity solutions”, available at:
talk/community-networks-and-feminist-infrastructure-reclaiming-local-knowledge-and>.
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local economy: in order to guarantee their right to land and without
invasions; fight agribusiness and the extensive use of pesticides;
engage in collective agroecological sales to government and major
buyers; so they can explore community-based tourism activities; and
guaranteeing basic human rights – all of this has been very challenging
in the current chaotic Brazilian political scenario, with constant
threats to quilombolas and even a racist ultra-right conservative
as director of the Brazilian federal foundation for the promotion of
Afro-Brazilianity, Palmares Foundation.73
9.5 Feminist organization
Last but not least, we highlight how feminist approaches and practices
help with the sustainability of the CN.74 To begin with, there was
a careful process of reflecting on not-to-do’s75 in order to avoid
reproducing prejudices and patriarchal approaches to technology
and CNs. Women have historically been the ones responsible for a
house’s sustainability but yet they tend to be the least heard when
talking about sustainability projects.
Thinking of that, we have fostered some actions to make sure the
environment was inviting for women, like shifting the focus from the
technical to the human components; respecting the community time
and sovereignty; working to have as much gender representativity as
possible; using learning methodologies that are inclusive and inviting,
such as Popular Education76 and having all the support needed for
women to be able to attend – childcare, meals for them and their
cared ones, transportation and family talks to explain the project so
73 See: ; and
74 More about feminist perspectives on CN on the thematic report “Feminist infrastructures
and community networks”, of the 2018 GisWatch, available at:
infrastructure/feminist-infrastructures-and-community-networks>.
75 More about gender experiences and prejudices faced by women in the CN environments in
the graphic piece”Our routes: women’s node – an illustrated journey of women in community
networks”, available at:
illustrated-journey-women-community-networks>.
76 Popular Education is a form of education very present in Latin America that values the people’s
prior knowledge and their cultural realities in the construction of new knowledge. Educator Paulo
Freire was a great supporter of this approach, which encourages the development of a critical
look at education and the participation of the community as a whole, encouraging dialogue and
guided by the perspective of realizing all the rights of the people. The teaching-learning process
is seen as an act of knowledge and social transformation, recognizing the importance of popular
and scientific/technological knowledge.
Reflections on Sustainability from a Quilombola Women Led CN
126 Community Networks: Towards Sustainable Funding Models
the parents would allow the girls to participate. Also, to constantly
reflect and have conversations before, during and after the process
in order to create an ambiance of trust, support and respect for
differences, a characteristic we believe has also contributed to the
resiliency of the CN in pandemic times and to our personal growth.
So although the RAMA women were not able to participate in all
implementing activities, they have the leadership of the CN and are
considered the guardians of the CN, being the ones responsible for its
management – giving passwords, knowing where the infrastructure is
set up, doing basic troubleshooting and informing of bigger problems
with accuracy – and also for its future and sustainability – looking
not only to the financial aspects of it, but also to all the care work
needed for the CN to exist and its importance, its care work.77
Along with CN, connectivity has fostered personal relations and
increased their daily communications. Women do regular online
check-ins among themselves and have this extra connectivity tool
to look for each other; some even got more interested in the digital
world after the CN. Besides, considering how the CN also feedback
the RAMA group, it made them more visible to their own community.
They much appreciated that a women’s project brought the internet to
the community, despite the distrust of some men during the process.
9.6 Final reflection
Far from reflection on closure though, a sustainable model from
our perspective has been a model always open to change, not
watertight – because sustainability doesn’t always look the same
way. The CN economic model must be resilient, adapt to reality
and for that it needs a strong social organization that is inclusive,
diverse, flexible and well articulated, but above all, it needs to foster
and support the local economy and value the care work. To that
end, each community has their own models, strategies and forms of
doing it – they need to be heard and to be the structural basis for
77 Care work or labor of care is a feminist concept often associated with care giving and domestic
housework roles including cleaning, cooking, child and elderly care, and the unpaid domestic
labor force, it includes all tasks that directly involve care processes done in service of others. It is
usually performed by women, although essential it is most of the time invisibilized and taken for
granted. In the context of a CN it extends also to all the work performed in caring for the people,
the space and the relations needed for a CN to exist.
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its construction. So, from our perspective, to talk about a funding
or economic model for a CN is not something that can be done
objectively or quantitatively measured, like an easily scalable one-
size-fits-all model. Instead, it needs to address specificity, work
along with it and have good principles and inclusive guidelines that
can support them when adversities come – and one thing we are
certain of: adversities always come.78
78 We want to give special thanks to the inhabitants of quilombo Ribeirão Grande/Terra Seca, the
women from RAMA and the women involved in our work team:
Carla Jancz is an Information Security Specialist, who works with digital security for third sector
organizations and with free technologies and autonomous networks from a feminist and holistic
perspective. Member of MariaLab, a feminist hacker collective that explores the intersection
between gender and technology based in São Paulo, Brazil.
Débora Prado is a journalist and activist with a background in social communications, feminism
and human rights. Since 2017 she has been involved in researching feminist technologies and
knowledge to challenge androcentric and colonial norms.
Daiane Araujo dos Santos is a Brazilian activist in human rights and in the Information and
Communication Technologies field who contributes to the implementation of community
networks in Brazil, bringing discussions about critical appropriation of technology and its impact
on people’s social and community life. Living in the periphery of the south of São Paulo (Brazil),
she graduated in Geography in 2018 and, since 2010, works in social movements.
Glaucia Marques is an agronomist and is part of the SOF (Sempreviva Feminist Organization)
technical team that operates in the Vale do Ribeira region, contributing with the solidarity
commercialization and with agroecological and feminist technical assistance for the
Agroecological Network of Women Farmers (RAMA, in the acronym in Portuguese).
Natália Santos Lobo is an agroecologist and part of SOF’s technical team in Vale do Ribeira,
working with the RAMA network.
Reflections on Sustainability from a Quilombola Women Led CN
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