Retiring the Network Spokesman: The Poly-Vocality of Free Software Networks in Peru

• Published in: Science & Technology Studies
• Main Author: Chan, Anita Say
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: European Association for the Study of Science and Technology and Finnish Society for Science and Technology Studie 2007
• Subjects: First Nations
• Online Access: https://sciencetechnologystudies.journal.fi/article/view/55213; https://doi.org/10.23987/sts.55213

National legislation to mandate the use or consideration of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) in government institutions is increasingly emerging as a strategy for FLOSS advocates in Latin America and the broader developing world. Such movements for the political use and regulation of FLOSS mark a distinct turn in the objectives and work of FLOSS advocates, whose activities largely focused on the dissemination of FLOSS as a technological artifact. This paper investigates the network of diverse actors involved in promoting FLOSS legislation in Peru, one of the first nations where a movement for FLOSS legislation emerged. It emphasizes that crucial to the work of FLOSS’ network actors is not their merely technological productivity, but their cultural and political productivity – that is, their ability to produce diverse body of meaning made both evident and mobile in narratives of FLOSS use and adoption.