Knowledge Dialogue: Interview with the Tierra Común cooperative

Knowledge Dialog with Martha Esperilla and Imelda Montiel, Tierra Común Cooperative *

Good afternoon, I'm Paola Ricaurte, co-founder with Nick Couldry and Ulises Mejías, of the Tierra Común network, a space to collectively explore ways to decolonize data.

Today we launch the first episode of the series of conversations called Knowledge Dialogues or "Diálogo de Saberes“, with the purpose of collecting the testimonies of people and communities that work from different spheres in the construction of dignified and technodiverse worlds.

That is why I am very pleased that our first dialogue is with a sister organization, the Mexican cooperative Tierra Común. Martha Esperilla and Imelda Montiel from the cooperative will be with us. Hello, Martha, Imelda, it is a pleasure to be here today talking with you. To begin with, I would like you to introduce yourselves and tell us a bit about what you do.

## What is the Cooperativa Tierra Común?

We are a technological cooperative, we are dedicated to working on the implementation and training on various technologies, and although not all the technologies we work with are free, if we have focused on working with those that are; and we also seek that the little that we have developed, especially on the Web, is also with open source/free technologies.

The cooperative is formally constituted and we seek to work with the principles of cooperativism which are:

• Free membership,

• Democratic control,

• Economic participation,

• Autonomy and independence,

• Education,

• Cooperation between cooperatives, and

• Interest in the community.

• Working and organizing ourselves collectively and autonomously represented and represents for us a daily challenge.

Today's society does not train us for associated work. Working without a boss and organizing ourselves in another way also means facing new problems in decision-making, in the organization of work, in the distribution of income obtained, in the growth of the cooperative, integration of colleagues in this field, among many other issues.

## What does Tierra Común do?

We are dedicated to:

• digital security consultancies and diagnoses,

• computer security protocols,

• infrastructure installation,

• training and accompaniment in digital security processes,

• technical support,

• Web services,

• some graphic and graphic design in general.

## What is the history of Cooperativa Tierra Común?

Tierra Común was created when a group of people who met at the Rancho Electrónico hackerspace was working with an NGO providing technical support in free software, came together. Little by little, we were expanding the services we provided or deepening and specializing in all branches of our services.

We have been working for 6 years and we are currently 6 members in the cooperative. Sometimes we collaborate with other colleagues, organizations or other cooperatives.

## What were our Motivations?

The TC members met at Rancho Electrónico. Most of us have collaborated in this hackerspace. Hence the initiative to get involved in an economic project that corresponded with certain ideals and that would allow us to sustain ourselves economically, through a more horizontal way of organizing ourselves.

This form of organization that we experience in the hackerspace is very organic and horizontal. The members of what became the cooperative, we seek to continue working in a similar way, with regular assemblies, with mailing lists, with this question of assuming tasks and not imposing them, etc. In the end, the cooperative allowed us to organize ourselves horizontally and democratically, and that is why we chose that legal figure for our productive project.

The cooperative is a different way of entering the system, which does not de facto obey the conventional models of exploitation, we do not have employees, we have had collaborators but not in a systematic or regular way.

We also try to manage the cooperative in a mixture between democracy and consensus. We know that in most of the classic companies the important thing is to increase the profits for the high levels without considering the people working for it. In principle, we seek to generate benefits for both associates, knowing that what we can accumulate is for ourselves, in the form of benefits, funds, etc. But also and something characteristic of cooperatives is that they must report a benefit to society.

Another thing that we could pay in this regard is that the interest of the Tierra Común cooperative is to publicize tools for digital security through free software, for example, we have colleagues with projects like Tails, we are also interested in being part of the decisions we have regarding our relationship with the Primero de Mayo binational cooperative, for example.

Specifically, it would seem to me that the motivation is to be part of something that involves us in various processes, which allows us to propose changes from within and to be active entities in the direction we are walking as a cooperative.

## What is special about our Project?

Although we are a cooperative micro-enterprise, which also has a vertical structure, we try to hold assemblies where in principle we have the same possibility to participate, that our opinions are taken into account and the same vote for certain decisions, this is a daily challenge as we commented previously, since nobody formed us as a collective society. In addition to this, which is organizational, we also have the autonomy to decide with whom we want to work or not.

We are a technological cooperative, most of the time what we see are family cooperatives, food, craft products, agriculture or the like, and on the other hand the technologies are worked by companies that work with a capitalist vision, in that sense, we are in the middle, because if we are a company but we try to work with the cooperative principles of which we have already spoken.

## How is it possible to work with technologies from other paradigms?

We are pending and we disseminate both the software that some communities from the global south are developing, as well as projects and organizations that strengthen technological sovereignty, such as MayFirst, Libre Router, TIC-AC.

And also something that we have to decide on a day-to-day basis is not to work or to work as little as possible with hegemonic, monopolistic and centralized technologies.

## Cooperative and approach to feminism

We believe that both feminism as well as digital security is a collective and long-term process, and that it can be transformed. We as colleagues who identify ourselves as women in the cooperative, are currently training. We are trying to work on certain gender issues to feel in a space in which we can develop professionally and personally, but which is also a space in which other women can also join, feel comfortable and there are certainty that they are recognized, validated and they preserve our rights within it. Currently within the spaces in which we see that we can grow in number within the cooperative, we exclusively contemplate women within this process, and that in particular seems essential to us. It is something that the cooperative has also recognized. This does not respond to gender quotas but to a need for positive change within the cooperative. That is: to be able to diversify and de-stereotype the predominantly male discourse of technologies. In that regard, it is a concrete contribution to the recognition of us as women in this technological field. Beyond seeing it as something that we contribute, it is something that will surely enrich us as a cooperative.

*This is an excerpted version of the original interview in Spanish.