Digital Solidarity Networks is an online shared listing of tools, practices and readings for digital solidarity, conviviality and togetherness. It is a resource for individuals, groups and organisations that want to break out of the suffocating webs of Big Tech in their everyday life and cultural work.

The initiative emerged in March 2020, a moment in which, due to the global pandemic crisis, many of our activities, work and life were suddenly forced into online formats. In response to complex infrastructural dynamics that emerged, Varia started a collective space on an Etherpad, to share materials that we abruptly and urgently wanted to stay close to, even closer than we already were.

The set of gathered materials started with free software tools, such as alternative tools for video conferencing, chat, e-mail, etherpads, VPNs or file sharing, hosting providers, online cultural initiatives, forms of collective self-help and theoretical readings. Over time, more and more individuals, groups and organisations started to use and edit the pad as a resource for digital mutual aid strategies and online social closeness.

Even though this initiative appeared in a particular moment in time, it is important for us to acknowledge that the interest in alternative tools, free software and collective practices is part of multiple, longer timelines which have been shaped by different individuals, groups and organizations, working on ways to be entangled with digital infrastructures under their own terms.

More than one year later, Varia decided to carry forward the conversation around non-extractive software and digital infrastructures. In May and June 2021, three public sessions were organised which aimed to create a conversational space in which to collectively relearn how digital tools co-shape our everyday life and cultural events. Collective relearning is a practice that emerges from an interest in shared learning environments with as many teachers as there are students.

The three sessions were:

Session #1 — How can we reconfigure digital networks across timelines and communities?

Session #2 — What are lessons learned from alternative, decentralised or federated infrastructures?

Session #3 — How can we rethink digital infrastructures in terms of capacity and care?

With guests Dušan Barok, LURK, and The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest.

This publication is a documentation of the collective learning moments. You can find it here.

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Digital Solidarity Networks is a shared trans-local initiative of different people, groups and organisations. The activations in 2021 were taken care of by Cristina Cochior, Lídia Pereira, Julia Bande, Manetta Berends and Jara Rocha.
Fonts: Fluxisch Else & Mayenne-Sans-Regular by Open Source Publishing (OSP)
Printing: unEasy Repro, Varia
License: GNU Free Documentation License