Technology as adaptation

Oaxacan indigenous communities in Sierra Juárez disrupt the image of them as remote, undeveloped places when one learns about the ways they use technology.

The neoliberal model of politics was introduced in Mexico about 40 years ago. Communication technologies entered even hardly accessible places along with it. For indigenous communities, it was an opportunity to adapt the tools and benefit from technology in a way that they chose.

Radio stations that represent indigenous people

On a rainy evening, Maria Magdalena Andrade invites us to the offices of Estéreo Comunal, one of two radio stations ever established in Guelatao.

The office has a few rooms; one of them is a studio, the walls sound-proofed with egg crates. In its best times, the program of the station reached forty communities in the region. "Community radios are an opportunity to reflect on the issues that are not of interest to commercial stations, such as the day-to-day life of communities, necessities, celebrations, including funerals, local music. On a commercial radio, you will never be able to listen to  traditional music for an hour or two," Andrade explains.

According to her, community radios also help to enforce the concept of communality. "Since the radios entered the region, they have been used to spread information about collective work, issues that need to be discussed at the community level, protection of the forests or demonstrations against a mining company."

From resistance to adaptation

Academics studying the use of technology by indigenous communities in Oaxaca as well as local intellectuals consider radio and other communication technologies as tools that have been used for historical resistances in Oaxaca. Different radio stations across the state were established under circumstances in which communication was required to battle a certain cause. This is how the first indigenous radio in Oaxaca, XEGLO La Voz de la Sierra was established in 1990.

It was in the 80s, when  indigenous communities were fighting to get back control over their forests, that they expressed their need to have an - indigenous - radio station to the Indigenous National Institute (nowadays National Commission for Development of Indigenous Peoples - NCDIP). One of the arguments was that the coverage by commercial stations was not satisfying enough.

Another reason though was that they did not feel represented and that the radios did not offer programs of their interest. "People in the mountains realized that radios were very powerful at selling things, or politicians. That was the reason why radios were present in the communities. It was a wide penetration - imposition from outside. Once they realized it, they knew they could not change the programs of the stations and they refused it," explains Arturo Guerrero who was for years active in various radio stations established in communities across Oaxaca.

Guerrero points at the fact that resistance in Oaxacan communities has a different context than the one of the Zapatistas in the neighboring state of Chiapas. It remains a metaphor; people in Oaxaca are not fighting at all times. On the contrary, while refusing the capitalist system in many different ways, they also adapt what serves them. This process, according to Jaime Martínez Luna, usually has three steps. Something from the outside is imposed on the communities. They resist and eventually they choose how to use the imposed thing for their own benefit. Radio ise an example of an adaptation of a technology introduced to other parts of the world first. "Communities have used the technology of foreign origin in a different sense. It was not to promote politicians anymore but to discuss ways how the villages can walk together. This is when the adaptation happened," Guerrero adds.

Participation as a keyword

The radio station XEGLO La Voz de la Sierra produces programs in Zapotec, Mixtec, and Chinantec languages, including Spanish, and it is still administered by the NCDIP.

Tens of other stations are in the hands of indigenous communities and general assemblies decide about their functioning. Many of the stations were operating without permission or concessions, which was also a way to declare their autonomy. With the 2013 reform of the Mexican Constitution, the right to operate their own communication media is included in Article 2 that guarantees various rights to the indigenous population across the country. A year later, the right became a part of the Law of Telecommunications and Broadcasting.

The majority of the indigenous community radio stations would not work if it were not for the participation of community members. "The microphones were open to everybody to prepare their program on any topic," Magdalena Andrade says about Estéreo Comunal. She used to produce several programs about violence on women and reproductive health of women. However, this becomes one of the challenges, too, as people usually worked in radios without remuneration, making the functioning of many stations unsustainable.

For 16 years, Estéereo Comunal was working thanks to a specific model. The station got money support from local businesses in the village of Guelatao in exchange for advertisement in a program dedicated to it. The businesses used to decide on their own how much they wanted to contribute. In other cases, it is the assembly of the village that supports activities of community media. Others search for resources from grants from government or international organizations.

However, Estéreo Comunal, established 18 years ago, closed down some time ago. The recording set and microphones have been untouched due  to the lack of funding.

Even though the destiny of community radios is riddled with financial problems, their importance for communities is undeniable.

As Magdalena recalls a few moments of work in the studio where we talk to her, she stresses one of the most important projects that happened in a small room of maybe 6 square meters: "Hundreds of traditional bands from the region passed through this studio and we recorded their music. Like freshly baked bread, Estéreo Comunal together with XEGLO were broadcasting the music to more than 300 communities. It was an extraordinary thing for those bands that, until then, only exchanged music when playing at community celebrations," Magdalena sighs. The music was also recorded here to preserve it for future generations.

Yet, now the question is what will be the future radio stations like Estéreo Comunal? "Young people involved are excited about the possibility of broadcasting through the internet. But many of the communities that we serve do not have internet connection yet," Andrade says.

However, there are many more radio stations in the region, some of them having an easier situation as they are bigger.

You do not provide telephone signals? We create our own

Similarly to radio stations, some communities created their television programs and their own mobile phone networks. In Talea de Castro, they did not receive mobile services from commercial operators. After asking the companies repeatedly to provide mobile signal, community members decided to take the solution into their own hands. They established their own connection, Telefonía Celular Comunitaria (Community Cell Phone Company), with the help of the U.S. organization Rhizomatica that promotes new technologies.

Since the beginning in 2009, the network is owned by the association Telecomunicaciones Indígenas Comunitarias A.C. (Indigenous Community Telecommunications) formed by the community members from participating communities.

The model is similar to a social enterprise. Users send text messages and make phone calls within the communities without paying any fee; outside of their communities, the cost of services is very low. Instead of making a profit, the association just needs to cover the expenses for running the network and the rest of the money made goes to social projects in the communities. Apart from creating a communication opportunity by adapting an existing technology, this was also an act to resist corporations who set the prices to make as much profit as possible.

Now, the association holds the first indigenous, social use concession to provide telecommunication services granted in 2016 by the Federal Institute of Communications.

Yet, as it happens anywhere else in the world, technology, apart from serving a purpose for communication also tends to disrupt social structures when it is not used with common sense. Arturo Guerrero tells us a story from Talea when the telephone company was introduced. "The authority in Talea realized that when phone calls were unlimited, people were glued to their phones and they stopped meeting each other. They were becoming further from each other. Technically, the device had the capacity to serve everybody without limitations but the authority decided to set up the machine so that phone calls were cut off after five minutes. Do you want to speak more? Go and visit your neighbor," Guerrero speaks about political limits to tools set by communities themselves. "It is about meetings in person, about technology serving the purpose it is supposed to serve," he adds.