[CWN-Summit] Community Wireless Networking and Social Justice -- JoCI CFP.

[Sascha Meinrath]

FYI:  Please forward.

--Sascha

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    Wireless Networking and Social Justice: CALL FOR PAPERS.

    New wireless networking breakthroughs have inspired communities to
    build their own communications infrastructures and develop
    innovative applications and services. Around the world, these
    projects have developed, appropriated, and integrated emerging
    wireless technologies to provide access to local media, promote
    digital inclusion, solve communication problems, and promote civic
    engagement. In India community-based wireless projects are
    "leapfrogging" over expensive wired communication infrastructure. In
    the United States, community wireless networking (CWN) projects have
    demonstrated that local telecommunications networks can be produced
    and provisioned inexpensively at the local level. These success
    stories are contributing to the global explosion in the number of
    municipal WiFi projects and are having important impacts on the
    social fabric of civil society.

    Yet these local projects are rarely discussed in their wider
    context. This special issue of the Journal of Community Informatics
    takes a global perspective on Community Wireless projects, aiming to
    broaden our understanding of the technologies, organizational
    structures, and policy implications of projects developed by
    communities around the world. This issue assembles reflections,
    works in progress, and analysis of CWN projects. In addition to
    academic articles that describe and analyze the political and social
    implications of community wireless, we welcome "Field Notes" from
    practitioners that introduce local projects to a new and interested
    audience.

    This special issue broadens the discussion of Community Wireless in
    two ways: first, by opening a space to exchange "best practices" and
    "instructive failures" between practitioners; and, second, by
    soliciting academic articles that empirically or theoretically
    discuss the cultural, social, economic, and policy impacts of
    Community Wireless projects. Academic discussion of these projects
    has evolved over the past several years, along with the projects
    themselves, and Community Wireless Networking has arguably become
    accepted as a form of community networking. Yet what are the
    long-term impacts of community wireless projects? How do they fit
    into the wireless industry now that governments at various levels
    are investing in connectivity via WiFi? What is the relationship
    between community wireless networks and wireless markets in
    different locations? Where do CWNs contribute to the policy-making
    process? What are the policy decisions that effect them -- and how
    do policies differ?

    500 word abstracts of submissions to this special issue (both
    academic papers and field notes) should be sent to
    joci at saschameinrath.com by April 15, 2007 and include the author's
    affiliation and contact information. Full paper submissions are due
    by June 1, 2007.

    Full Paper Details:

    Field notes should be between 500 and 1500 words, written for an
    informed but non-technical audience and describing community
    wireless projects in progress (project descriptions, technical
    specifications, etc).

    Academic papers should be no longer than 8000 words, and include a
    100 word abstract and a 25-word biography of the author including
    affiliation and e-mail address. They should treat a social,
    cultural, or economic aspect of Community Wireless Networking. The
    Journal of Community Informatics uses the APA reference style.

    Alison Powell Department of Communications Concordia University
    Montreal, Canada

    Sascha Meinrath Institute for Communications Research University of
    Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA