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Short abstract:

This contribution shows insights into sites of blueprint development projects, and contrast these with locally developed solutions. I will present the self-directed and self-maintained ecosystem of an Indigenous community, which can be seen an example of alternative futures in the active making.

Long abstract:

Grassroots innovation is a practice that challenges top-down development. Citizens operate in resource-scarce environments and develop solutions that address past, present, and future breakdowns. In this contribution I will show insights into sites of blueprint development projects that ended up as “design disasters” (Escobar 2018), and will contrast the failures with locally developed solutions. The contrast becomes clear through one particular ecosystem of a utopian ecosystem created by a community of practice and trust. This ecosystem, found in the West-Javanese mountains is self-directed, self-maintained and sustainable. It includes means of communications (a community radio and community TV) and access to information to improve the quality of life and experiment with agricultural practices (community internet). The tech stack (Bødker et al. 2016) is fuelled by renewable energy (micro-hydro plants and solar panels) and social elements crucial to the sustainability of the ecosystem, including a feeling of ownership and maintenance skills. Most importantly, alternative futures are being created not only through access to information, but also by recording knowledge and creating an example of sustainable self-directed development. Covertly, the actions also contribute to advocating for and protecting Indigenous rights. The goal of this contribution is to illustrate how grassroots communities reinvent development from the bottom-up to sustainably democratise and enable citizen participation to create self-directed progress in a postcolonial manner (Irani et al. 2010).