Short abstract:

We explore autonomous collective infrastructure in universities, by reflecting on challenges of negotiating autonomy with large organizations favoring corporate solutions, and larger collaborative networks. Inspired by the “undercommons”, we distinguish critical thinking from critical performing.

Long abstract:

Our proposal reflects on the possibilities and challenges for autonomous collective infrastructure within the University. Following examples of feminist servers created by collectives such as systerserver, in-grid, and varia (https://systerserver.net/ATNOFS/), we maintain a server within Aarhus University. As with other collectives, the creation and maintenance of this server aims to both offer alternative services for collaboration (e.g. open software libraries or annotation services), while functioning as a learning space for collective practice and care.

The autonomy of this collaboration platform is, however, negotiated with a relatively large organisation. Many universities lean towards corporate solutions for digital services offered to students and academics, whether due to security, compatibility, or standardization reasons. We observe a need for alternative, open source, and collaborative platforms that foster experimental research, and provide opportunities beyond the ones offered by big tech players. As such, the ideation and development of our server relies on external collaborations with autonomous collectives, both for technical development and critical dialogues.

We delve into the challenges brought by the “hybridity” of our collective infrastructure, simultaneously institutional and related to extended autonomous networks, and showcase how we have navigated these issues. Following the “undercommons”, we reflect on our positionality, place, and responsibility, as critical academics, refusing to be for or against the university (Harney and Moten 2013), and distinguish between the canonical work of critical thinking and observation within the university, and the action of performing criticality that these technical systems and external collaborations allow.