Nesta dissertação são descritas as diferentes práticas culturais que compõem a comunidade brasileira de Software Livre e de Código Aberto com o objetivo de demonstrar como são criados os laços entre agentes para a constituição de redes. Com base no trabalho de dois anos e meio de pesquisa, assumimos o ângulo das práticas culturais e do reconhecimento de agentes para problematizar a oposição binária que domina grande parte do debate sobre altruísmo e interesse próprio em economias da dádiva. Ao centrarmos o foco nas redes de trabalho e prestígio, procuramos demonstrar quão heterogênea é a malha de redes da comunidade F/LOSS brasileira. As orientações teóricas e metodológicas da antropologia do dom de Caillé e da antropologia da tecnologia de Ingold e Pfaffenberger foram combinadas para a investigação da conformação da comunidade brasileira em três domínios experienciais: o técnico, o político e o cultural. O trabalho de pesquisa foi conduzido nos encontros nacionais da comunidade brasileira, bem como através das listas de discussão, wikis, blogs, portais de notícias e conversas informais na rede IRC Freenode. O desenvolvimento da pesquisa aponta para o surgimento de uma nova cultura tecnopolítica no Brasil, produto de práticas políticas e técnicas intimamente relacionadas ao Software Livre e de Código Aberto. / In this thesis, I turn to various agents in the Brazilian Free and Open Software community - developers, evangelists, politicians, and users - in order to discuss how gift economy works to shape commitments among them for the building of networks. Drawing on two and a half years of research, I take the angle of cultural practices and prestige to problematize the binary opposition between altruism and self-interest that dominates much of the literature. By focusing on social networks and the production of prestige, I am able to demonstrate how heterogeneous the composition of social networks are for the Brazilian economy of F/LOSS sharing. The theoretical and methodological orientation of Caillé's "Anthropologie du Don" and Pfaffenberger's and Ingold's "Anthropology of Technology" were combined to describe the community of Brazilian agents, engaged in three experiential domains: technical (producers), political (agents that promote F/OSS in the federal government), and cultural (artists whose work is empowered by F/OSS and the concept of Free Culture). The research work was conducted during the gatherings of F/OSS community in Brazil, as well as in electronic mailing lists, wikis, Internet sites and informal discussions via IRC. The development of the research points to the emergence of a new technical and political culture in Brazil, embodied by the "free software movement" therefore articulating political, cultural and technological practices.

Nesta dissertação são descritas as diferentes práticas culturais que compõem a comunidade brasileira de Software Livre e de Código Aberto com o objetivo de demonstrar como são criados os laços entre agentes para a constituição de redes. Com base no trabalho de dois anos e meio de pesquisa, assumimos o ângulo das práticas culturais e do reconhecimento de agentes para problematizar a oposição binária que domina grande parte do debate sobre altruísmo e interesse próprio em economias da dádiva. Ao centrarmos o foco nas redes de trabalho e prestígio, procuramos demonstrar quão heterogênea é a malha de redes da comunidade F/LOSS brasileira. As orientações teóricas e metodológicas da antropologia do dom de Caillé e da antropologia da tecnologia de Ingold e Pfaffenberger foram combinadas para a investigação da conformação da comunidade brasileira em três domínios experienciais: o técnico, o político e o cultural. O trabalho de pesquisa foi conduzido nos encontros nacionais da comunidade brasileira, bem como através das listas de discussão, wikis, blogs, portais de notícias e conversas informais na rede IRC Freenode. O desenvolvimento da pesquisa aponta para o surgimento de uma nova cultura tecnopolítica no Brasil, produto de práticas políticas e técnicas intimamente relacionadas ao Software Livre e de Código Aberto. / In this thesis, I turn to various agents in the Brazilian Free and Open Software community - developers, evangelists, politicians, and users - in order to discuss how gift economy works to shape commitments among them for the building of networks. Drawing on two and a half years of research, I take the angle of cultural practices and prestige to problematize the binary opposition between altruism and self-interest that dominates much of the literature. By focusing on social networks and the production of prestige, I am able to demonstrate how heterogeneous the composition of social networks are for the Brazilian economy of F/LOSS sharing. The theoretical and methodological orientation of Caillé's "Anthropologie du Don" and Pfaffenberger's and Ingold's "Anthropology of Technology" were combined to describe the community of Brazilian agents, engaged in three experiential domains: technical (producers), political (agents that promote F/OSS in the federal government), and cultural (artists whose work is empowered by F/OSS and the concept of Free Culture). The research work was conducted during the gatherings of F/OSS community in Brazil, as well as in electronic mailing lists, wikis, Internet sites and informal discussions via IRC. The development of the research points to the emergence of a new technical and political culture in Brazil, embodied by the "free software movement" therefore articulating political, cultural and technological practices.

Nesta dissertação são descritas as diferentes práticas culturais que compõem a comunidade brasileira de Software Livre e de Código Aberto com o objetivo de demonstrar como são criados os laços entre agentes para a constituição de redes. Com base no trabalho de dois anos e meio de pesquisa, assumimos o ângulo das práticas culturais e do reconhecimento de agentes para problematizar a oposição binária que domina grande parte do debate sobre altruísmo e interesse próprio em economias da dádiva. Ao centrarmos o foco nas redes de trabalho e prestígio, procuramos demonstrar quão heterogênea é a malha de redes da comunidade F/LOSS brasileira. As orientações teóricas e metodológicas da antropologia do dom de Caillé e da antropologia da tecnologia de Ingold e Pfaffenberger foram combinadas para a investigação da conformação da comunidade brasileira em três domínios experienciais: o técnico, o político e o cultural. O trabalho de pesquisa foi conduzido nos encontros nacionais da comunidade brasileira, bem como através das listas de discussão, wikis, blogs, portais de notícias e conversas informais na rede IRC Freenode. O desenvolvimento da pesquisa aponta para o surgimento de uma nova cultura tecnopolítica no Brasil, produto de práticas políticas e técnicas intimamente relacionadas ao Software Livre e de Código Aberto. / In this thesis, I turn to various agents in the Brazilian Free and Open Software community - developers, evangelists, politicians, and users - in order to discuss how gift economy works to shape commitments among them for the building of networks. Drawing on two and a half years of research, I take the angle of cultural practices and prestige to problematize the binary opposition between altruism and self-interest that dominates much of the literature. By focusing on social networks and the production of prestige, I am able to demonstrate how heterogeneous the composition of social networks are for the Brazilian economy of F/LOSS sharing. The theoretical and methodological orientation of Caillé's "Anthropologie du Don" and Pfaffenberger's and Ingold's "Anthropology of Technology" were combined to describe the community of Brazilian agents, engaged in three experiential domains: technical (producers), political (agents that promote F/OSS in the federal government), and cultural (artists whose work is empowered by F/OSS and the concept of Free Culture). The research work was conducted during the gatherings of F/OSS community in Brazil, as well as in electronic mailing lists, wikis, Internet sites and informal discussions via IRC. The development of the research points to the emergence of a new technical and political culture in Brazil, embodied by the "free software movement" therefore articulating political, cultural and technological practices.

This dissertation examines the strategic practice of virtual racial embodiment, as a case study of African Americans attempting to complicate current constructions of race and social justice in new media. I suggest that dominant racial constructions online teeter between racial stereotypes and the absence of race. Virtual racial classification and racial stereotypes of criminality and limited interaction with communication technologies prevalent in the digital divide literature frame the dominant online culture, which purports a Universalist ideal that avoids race through which racial hierarchy is nevertheless articulated. Based on qualitative and quantitative analyses—fieldwork, interviews with Black website founders, and an online survey—this case study provides an analytical framework that situates African Americans’ negotiations of race within everyday online discourse. I suggest that the strategy of racial embodiment has a sociohistorical and cultural basis in the racial and political strategies of offline African American communities. This study approaches these matters by locating political message board members’ agency in creating a safe space for daily critical discussions of race. Virtual safe spaces allow users to address social injustices, parse popular constructions of race, project respectability, and explore complex definitions of blackness. Ethnographic material drawn from the observation of four mainstream Black websites’ political message boards within the time frame of 2007–2008 provides information to discuss the unofficial message board practices I identify as safe house practices. I introduce the conceptual metaphor of safe house based on the physical and symbolic safe house of enslaved Africans of the antebellum era and their twentieth- and twenty-first-century successors—neighborhood meeting places, barbershops, and book stores. As a result of the analysis of the ethnographic material, I suggest racial embodiment is the transference of offline practices steeped in historic political and cultural practices of the Black community into online interactions. I use the Bourdieuan concept of the habitus to conceptualize the historical significance of the African American community’s virtual racial embodiment. I propose that this racial embodiment evidenced in the safe house practices exemplifies a dynamic Black habitus wherein black people exercise the ability to redefine black identity and community.