A modest proposal to save the world
Metadata
Highlights
- This form of collaborative effort has ancient roots. To many peoples in Mexico, it is known as tequio (from the Náhuatl tequitl) or, farther south, as faena, kol, or minga. Through tequio, schools have been built, potable-water systems have been installed, and art has been made. Tequio has also become a strategy for meeting everyday needs. Just as the modern-day technology of free, open-source code has enabled collective progress in the digital sphere, the communal labor of tequio raises the possibility of resistance in Abya Yala — and survival of the world at large. (View Highlight)
- Abya Yala’s technological struggle also extends to the vindication of material sovereignty. In Mexico, Community Cellular Technology, through which cell phone systems are locally owned, administered, and operated, has been built against a backdrop that has started to crumble: As proprietors of their own cell company, these communities defy the slogan of the conglomerate that controls 70% of the country’s mobile communication services: “All of Mexico is Telcel territory.” The response from these communities is No: Not all of Mexico is the territory of Carlos Slim, one of the wealthiest men in the world. They strive for technological sovereignty. (View Highlight)
- There is a serendipitous affinity between the logic of collective effort and free cooperation that defines open-source software like Linux and the philosophy of many indigenous communities who built structures to survive the harshness of colonial rule. Both rely on mutual support and small-scale, community-level labor linked into a circuit of larger tasks. Such tequio is an essential “social technology” common across Abya Yala. (View Highlight)
- An alternative, offered by Abya Yala, lies in separating economic development and the development of new technologies from consumerism. This would place technological creation and ingenuity once again at the service of the common good, not of the market. Technology as tequio; technological creation and innovation as a common good. A kind of open-source software we can all participate in (View Highlight)
title: “A modest proposal to save the world”
author: “Yasnaya Elena Aguilar Gil”
url: ”https://restofworld.org/2020/saving-the-world-through-tequiology/”
date: 2023-12-19
source: reader
tags: media/articles
A modest proposal to save the world
Metadata
Highlights
- This form of collaborative effort has ancient roots. To many peoples in Mexico, it is known as tequio (from the Náhuatl tequitl) or, farther south, as faena, kol, or minga. Through tequio, schools have been built, potable-water systems have been installed, and art has been made. Tequio has also become a strategy for meeting everyday needs. Just as the modern-day technology of free, open-source code has enabled collective progress in the digital sphere, the communal labor of tequio raises the possibility of resistance in Abya Yala — and survival of the world at large. (View Highlight)
- Abya Yala’s technological struggle also extends to the vindication of material sovereignty. In Mexico, Community Cellular Technology, through which cell phone systems are locally owned, administered, and operated, has been built against a backdrop that has started to crumble: As proprietors of their own cell company, these communities defy the slogan of the conglomerate that controls 70% of the country’s mobile communication services: “All of Mexico is Telcel territory.” The response from these communities is No: Not all of Mexico is the territory of Carlos Slim, one of the wealthiest men in the world. They strive for technological sovereignty. (View Highlight)
- There is a serendipitous affinity between the logic of collective effort and free cooperation that defines open-source software like Linux and the philosophy of many indigenous communities who built structures to survive the harshness of colonial rule. Both rely on mutual support and small-scale, community-level labor linked into a circuit of larger tasks. Such tequio is an essential “social technology” common across Abya Yala. (View Highlight)
- An alternative, offered by Abya Yala, lies in separating economic development and the development of new technologies from consumerism. This would place technological creation and ingenuity once again at the service of the common good, not of the market. Technology as tequio; technological creation and innovation as a common good. A kind of open-source software we can all participate in (View Highlight)