Nomad

Technolgical development in the recent past has redefined social relations and transformed society. Today, control over technology and knowledge determines the way society is organised. Re-appropriating the knowledge of technology and developing alternative technical solutions can enable us to re-think and transform our social relations.

But this implies relating technical developments to other social practices and uses for which the tools are developed. The user must be at the starting point and not only at the end of the production process. This is why the actors of Nomad, an international network of people committed to putting essential technologies into the public domain, link their technological developments to other practices (in translation, art, media, agriculture...). Nomad activists from across the globe have been working towards developing alternative technologies aimed at general empowerment of people.

Nomad was created in September 2003 through the development and setting up of the NIFT (Nomad Interpretation Free Tool) for the 4th World Social Forum in India (Mumbai). The NIFT is a translation transmission tool developed in collaboration with the international interpretation network: Babels .

The aim of Nomad is to extend the GNU perspective to other technological issues, including the re-appropriation of knowledge and the control, by users, of technologies in their digital, electronic and analogical forms. At present, Nomad's sphere of activities ranges from communication to renewable energy.

The issue of re-appropriation of knowledge is closely linked to the political perspective of developing local production in an economy based on solidarity. The Nomad network is not a technical service provider but a political network run on a voluntary basis.

Nomad defends the position that technological development involves not only a production of finalised tools but also needs to take into account, in the process of production, the ecological, economic and social consequences of the tools of production. This is why technical development must be linked to specific practices determined by specific ecological, economical and social contexts. Each context is to be considered as a new situation in which to experiment and invent.

Nomad is a space of experimentation for these technical and political issues. It sees the Social Forums as an experimental ground for the development of alternative technical solutions and alternative modes of organization (inside the process of the Forum itself and in relation to economic issues and aspects of knowledge transmission).

Nomad at WSF 2005:

The Nomad Interpretation Free Tool is a system composed of two parts: digital and hardware. The digital part, Targ, is a piece of software which allows the recording and real-time transmission of speeches and their different translated versions. The hardware part includes FM transmission, magnetic loop transmission and analogical transmission. These are all solutions that have to be tested and that can become an alternative to the infra-red systems common to most commercial translation equipment, which are very expensive and difficult to make or reproduce. This NIFT system enables us to multiply the numbers of languages translated. It is a ‘free tool' in the sense that NIFT has no copyright: the software is under GNU General Public License and the hardware is cheap and easy to reproduce and to set-up.

The NIFT system will be set up in 36 rooms at the WSF 2005 in Porto Alegre : 12 large rooms, 12 medium-sized rooms and 12 small rooms. In Mumbai the NIFT was only installed in large rooms. What became apparent then was that the small rooms, the workshop rooms, also needed a translation transmission system to facilitate exchanges and discussion between people from different parts of the world. Also, the political position of Nomad defends a vision of the Forum as a space of practical exchange and not a spectacular space, a form of music festival, as it seems to have become in its last editions.

Since Mumbai, Nomad and Babels have defended the position that the setting up and building process of the Forum must be carried out by activists. The activists cannot remain the consumers of alternative speeches in a framework produced by capitalist groups. Activists should apply their vision of “another world” in the setting up of the Forum itself. From this perspective, the extension of the workshop spaces becomes fundamental. The WSF 2005 in Porto Alegre has started a shift towards this perspective. The process of building the Forum has being confined to five working groups (architecture, translation, sustainability, communication and culture) composed of activists who will try to apply the alternative principles of the “other world” we defend in the construction of the Forum itself.

Nomad participates mainly in the translation group through the setting up of the NIFT. But the Nomad perspective is broader then this issue of translation. We would like to work on other projects during the Forum, such as a project of radio networking, by showing and setting up with Porto Alegre communities some hertzian and web-radios, linking these local radios through the net.

Nomad Manisfesto

Some basic principles of Nomad can be seen from its Manifesto 0.1 (Mumbai version). The Nomad Manifesto is an evolutive text (on the model of the writing of a software – 0.1, 0.2, etc...) rewritten after every important collective experience.

Forums as experimentation ground

The Forum is not an end in itself. The Forum is a place to meet and share political views:

  a place to share different technical solutions: it is not necessary to build technical systems, but to share knowledge about various technical solutions. A new system will only be developed when there is a gap that needs filling (e.g. Targ);

  the Forum makes resources available for testing and validating technical solutions. The Forums can become a platform for the reappropriation of knowledge;

  Nomad is not seeking to be an exclusive network. In fact, if other participants at the Forums have the same goals, Nomad would like to be able to work in parallel or in partnership with them.

 The Nomad organization method: the network and the question of representativeness

Nomad is not a political organization but functions as a network. The activists participating in Nomad are involved within it as individuals, and if they are involved as part of a structure (e.g. Babels or Apo33), this structure will be considered as an individual group within, or associated with, the Nomad network. In no case can there be an elected representative of Nomad, nor can there be any elected representative of another group within Nomad. A Nomad activist is someone who is involved practically in the Nomad project while respecting the project's principles. Practical involvement and respect for the project's principles are the only legitimate criteria that allow people to speak as a Nomad actor. This indicates a critical position as regards to the electoral system: when we designate a representative, this has the almost automatic result of shattering the network dynamic, destroying the development of ties within a star configuration. When someone is elected, all ties tend to converge towards this single elected person (the representative), and the end result is a kind of idolization of the delegate.

 Involvement in the Nomad project: the question of volunteers

Participating in the Forums as part of Nomad can only be on a voluntary basis. The purpose of the notion of voluntary participation is to clarify the basis on which someone is involved in the Nomad project. People involved on a volunteer basis are also involved on a political basis: they control their own contractual obligation. They are neither subordinate nor dependent on an employer or any economic necessity. Outside of the context of the Forums, a Nomad activist may be compensated, but only for specific technical tasks. The precept of voluntary participation also has a political aim: involving volunteers, rather than calling upon a service company affirms that the Forum actors must participate in the process of creating the Forum, and not just use the content of a Forum created by others in a consumerist mode. It aims to question the division of labour between producers (subject to management and dependent on that management because of their salaries) and deciders. This implies that Nomad and a commercial system cannot coexist within the Forums, i.e. we cannot have both unpaid volunteers and paid employees of a service company. It is indeed possible to hire a technical system when we cannot build it ourselves (then it would be better to choose an organisation that is part of an alternative economic perspective), but it is unfair and against the principles of the Nomad project to call upon a service company for these kind of technical questions and at the same time to get volunteers involved. When these situations occur the technical providers are completely free to use the tools developed by Nomad but cannot claim to be Nomad.

 The economic question: what does it mean to develop local production?

If Nomad develops and offers alternative technical solutions, this does not mean that it is going to bring new tools to the different countries it is involved with. The objective sought, on the basis of knowledge sharing, is the development of a parallel economy that allows everyone to develop his or her autonomy of production. This parallel economy will be specified by the term “local” economy in a specific sense: local means that it is the users themselves who define their own needs and tools. The term “local” thus has a double meaning: a geographic meaning (allowing for the autonomy of producers and local users) and an ethico-political meaning: it has to do with an area located within a microeconomy, a knot in the worldwide network of an alternative economy.

For example, for the Social Forum at Porto Alegre , we will start by looking for local producers to develop the necessary communications tools for the translation system. However if the only local (geographically) producers that we find operate according to capitalist principles, we will favour foreign alternative producers (local in the ethical sense).

 What do we mean by alternative technology?

It is a technology whose documentation (that makes the free reproduction of the tool possible) can be accessed free of charge. Technologies exist that in themselves are alternative (for example, the GNU-Linux information system that opposes the Windows system) and there are alternative ways to use already existing technologies (e.g. re-use of the magnetic loop): the technology is only truly alternative if it is associated with an alternative practice.

A technology is alternative when we can develop/follow different paths for using it: it opens up the possibility of using it in different ways based upon the context. A technology is not alternative if it has only one possible application. This concept aims to question the unilateral functioning imposed by the commercial system and the corresponding position of the user. A technology is alternative when the user is as responsible as the producer for the consequences of using the tool.

Sophie Gosselin

For more information see: http://nomad.apo33.org or contact: info@apo33.org