[ecrea] CfP Journal of Peer Production: Alternative Internets

States are attempting to consolidate their control over the Internet, 
turning it into an instrument for minute surveillance, whilst a handful 
of tech-corporations seek to use it as a means to manipulate human 
behaviour toward their own objectives and siphon off the wealth from 
local and national markets. In response, alternative technologies have 
arisen, aiming to restore the Internet’s initial values of net 
neutrality, distributed control, freedom of speech, and 
self-organization. Community networks, offline networks, darknets, 
peer-to-peer systems, encryption, anonymization overlays, digital 
currencies, and distributed online social networks appear today as 
examples of alternative technologies aiming at emancipation, 
redistribution, and maximal autonomy. However, these tools are as 
ambiguous as the contradictory values and claims that have been invested 
in them. We can therefore expect alternative infrastructures to be 
appropriated for ends deemed illegitimate, such
 as tax evasion or arms trading, thus renewing the calls for restoring 
“law and order” on the Internet.

Can we learn from the past and avoid the transformation of the utopian 
promises of these technologies into a dystopian future as, arguably, is 
happening to the promises of the early Internet?

In order to address such concerns, this special Journal of Peer 
Production issue seeks to document and critically assess past and 
ongoing efforts to alter the commercial development process of 
mainstream Internet technologies in order to build viable alternatives. 
What are the futures awaiting these alternatives, which contradictions 
and ambiguities will they undergo, and which steps can be taken today to 
avoid failures and disappointments?

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

•Technical, social, political, economic and legal hurdles faced by 
alternative projects.
•The evolution of utopian imaginaries when mediated through 
socio-technical artifacts and the conflicting interests of multiple 
stakeholders.
•The strategic trade-off between “voice and exit”: going off-grid, 
developing offline and online alternative networks, or engaging in the 
public sphere on mainstream platforms.
•The politics of self-organization: actors, local and global 
institutions, trust, design, regulation, ambiguities. What is an 
“alternative” imagined to be, how is it concretely realised?
•Lessons learned from the history of the Internet and other communcation 
networks.
•Utopias, dystopias, and pragmatic imaginaries of the future Internet 
and its role in society.
•How market or state actors develop their own visions of alternative 
Internets to foster business interests (e.g. the proposition for a 
tiered Internet by dominant telecom operators) or facilitate social 
control (e.g. Iran’s “halalnet”).
•Hijackings and détournements of existing infrastructures to serve 
purposes other than those first intended.
•The environmental challenges raised by communications technologies and 
possible responses for ensuring their sustainability and resilience in 
the face of the mounting ecological crisis.

Submission abstracts of 300-500 words are due by February 8, 2015 and 
should be sent to (alternets /at/ peerproduction.net). All peer reviewed papers 
will be reviewed according to Journal of Peer Production guidelines. 
Full papers and materials (peer reviewed? papers around 8,000 words; 
testimonies, self-portraits and experimental formats up to 4,000 words) 
are due by June 31st, 2015 for review.

While the issue will be mainly comprised of academic papers, we also 
welcome 1-page poster-like “visual”, more or less artistic, submissions, 
without format restrictions, on stories from the past (alternatives to 
the current Internet that didn’t survive), today’s alternative 
technologies, real-life experiences and case studies, as well as future 
imaginaries. These contributions which could range from diagrams and 
cognitive maps to paintings, photos, installations, even poems, will be 
included as an appendix to the main volume. The deadline for submission 
is June 31st, 2015.

Editors: Félix Tréguer (EHESS), Panayotis Antoniadis (ETH Zurich), Johan 
Söderberg (Göteborgs Universitet)


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