← Return to the living network

A field guide / learn it together

From a connection
to collective power.

An international community resource for BDS, divestment from US empire and the work of ecological repair.

Follow a record. Gather a circle. Make a demand. Build the shared capacity to sustain what comes next.

Choose a place to begin
01Evidence02Power map03Solidarity04Access & care05Governance06The levy07Living systems08Data & archives09Infrastructure10Reflection
Ten connected practices. Begin where your group has a question; return when your work changes.

How to use this resource

Make a practice.
Keep it shared.

This is a set of connected practices for neighbors, workers, students, growers, artists, land stewards and existing solidarity groups. Each workshop produces something your group can use: an evidence card, a decision map, a campaign brief, a governance charter or a care plan.

Start with a question you can act on. Read or listen together, do one activity, compare what you found and decide what to revisit. Adapt language, access, timing and institutional context to where you live.

The workshops are original educational material. Gray Area’s Beyond Big Tech is a benchmark for pairing hands-on learning with community power, data sovereignty and stewardship. No affiliation or endorsement is claimed.

Ten practices / many routes through them

Build your own
learning path.

0/10

practices marked explored
This page session only.

01Follow the record · about 35 min

Turn a claim into a record.

Make a public claim another person can independently check.

The network is a route into records, not a substitute for them. Separate a government budget, announced sale, contract ceiling, obligation and payment. Preserve the year, currency and accounting basis before comparing amounts across countries.

Do this together

  1. Choose one connection in the atlas. Open its source and write a single sentence describing only what that document establishes.
  2. Record the publisher, publication date, retrieval date, relevant page or passage, parties, amount, currency, period and transaction status. Record an explicit “not stated” wherever information is missing.
  3. Ask a second person to reproduce the claim from the source. Note corrections and disagreement in the record before sharing a graphic.
  4. Compare the claim with a different type of source. A company statement, procurement record and campaign position answer different questions.

Pause & discuss

  • Does this amount describe a ceiling or a payment?
  • What would disprove or narrow our claim?
  • Does the arrow describe a transaction, an alliance, a campaign demand or our own proposal?

Leave with

One source-linked evidence card with a named review role and a correction date.

Open the working template
Claim:
Parties and relationship:
Record URL + page:
Published / retrieved:
Amount / currency / period / status:
What this establishes:
What remains unknown:
Reviewed by role / review date:
02Follow the record · about 40 min

Find a decision you can reach.

Connect an international relationship to an accountable local institution.

A global map should help people in Saudi Arabia, Australia, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and elsewhere locate their own point of influence. Do not assume identical political conditions or treat every resident as responsible for their government. Follow the actual institution and the particular record.

Do this together

  1. Select a university, council, workplace, union, cultural venue, bank or pension institution you already have a relationship with.
  2. Draw three circles: who decides, who advises that decision and who is affected. Connect the circles using documented authority, membership or contracts.
  3. Find one practical decision point: a contract renewal, investment review, budget hearing, land lease or annual meeting. Add its date and the relevant public documents.
  4. Map your group’s existing relationships and missing voices. Ask affected people how they want to participate before assigning them a role in a public campaign.

Pause & discuss

  • Who can approve the change, and what evidence proves that authority?
  • Which people carry the cost of either continuing or ending this arrangement?
  • What can we realistically influence together?

Leave with

A local power map with one decision-maker, one decision date and one route for collective input.

Open the working template
Institution / country or region:
Decision sought:
Responsible body / evidence of authority:
Decision date:
Affected communities:
Existing allies and relationships:
Missing information:
First achievable request:

Background & source notes

03Build collective power · about 40 min

Build a focused solidarity campaign.

Choose a concrete collective demand grounded in Palestinian-led BDS priorities.

BDS seeks an end to occupation, equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian refugees’ right of return. Its strategic guidance emphasizes collective campaigns with achievable targets. This resource supports that movement and makes its own wider argument for divestment from US imperial power.

Do this together

  1. Read the movement’s live target guidance with a Palestinian-led or allied local group. Note the specific campaign category and demand rather than copying an undifferentiated boycott list.
  2. Use your power map to compare two possible campaigns. Discuss evidence, coalition capacity, influence over the decision and a credible path to success.
  3. Write the request in one sentence: “We ask [decision-making body] to [specific action] by [decision point], and to publish [verifiable evidence of completion].”
  4. Plan a first approach, a public learning event and a review point. Agree how you will decide subsequent nonviolent collective actions and respond to a partial concession.

Pause & discuss

  • Does our demand follow the relevant movement guidance?
  • What would count as a substantive win?
  • Whose participation makes this campaign stronger and accountable?

Leave with

A one-page campaign brief, agreed collectively, with a checkable demand and next meeting.

Open the working template
Campaign / live guidance checked on:
Target institution and documented relationship:
Demand:
Decision-maker:
Coalition and accountable roles:
First approach:
Evidence of success:
Review meeting:
04Build collective power · about 30 min

Make participation possible.

Build a group people can contribute to without having unlimited time, money or energy.

A community resource needs room for shift workers, disabled people, caregivers, people in different time zones and people who cannot safely appear publicly. Offer small tasks, asynchronous contributions and a route back after an absence.

Do this together

  1. Ask privately and optionally about access needs. Offer written, spoken and asynchronous ways to contribute; avoid making camera use, public identity or personal disclosure a condition of participation.
  2. Divide the next task into facilitation, research, translation, note-taking, access coordination and follow-up. Describe the time needed and the option to share or pause each role.
  3. Agree a meeting rhythm, breaks, a shared agenda and a way to challenge exclusion or harassment. Decide who receives concerns and how conflicts of interest are handled.
  4. Budget interpretation, transport, childcare, connectivity and paid labor where needed. Publish unmet needs alongside the campaign plan.

Pause & discuss

  • Who cannot use our current meeting format?
  • Which supposedly voluntary tasks are becoming unpaid jobs?
  • Can someone say “not this week” without losing their place?

Leave with

A one-page participation agreement and a sustainable role rota.

Open the working template
Meeting and asynchronous options:
Languages / access arrangements:
Roles / time commitments / backups:
Expenses and paid work:
Boundaries and concerns process:
How to pause or rejoin:
Review date:
05Build collective power · about 45 min

Write the rules for shared control.

Turn “community-led” into decision rights, transparent records and ways to challenge decisions.

A fund or cooperative is not community-controlled simply because it consults residents. Specify who can propose, vote, administer money, inspect records, appeal and remove a representative. Include the people doing the work and those living with its consequences.

Do this together

  1. Describe who belongs to the decision-making community and how new or excluded participants can join. Distinguish resident, worker, land-steward and technical advisory roles.
  2. Practice deciding a fictional grant. Set a decision rule, quorum, conflict-of-interest process, accessible discussion period and a documented appeal route.
  3. Assign distinct approval, payment and review responsibilities. Establish public minutes and budgets while protecting personal information.
  4. Define representative rotation, recall, evaluation and what happens when a decision cannot be reached. Test the rules with a disagreement rather than only an easy vote.

Pause & discuss

  • Can people affected by a decision actually change it?
  • Who controls the account, land title, passwords and meeting agenda?
  • How do we prevent funders or technical specialists from capturing decisions?

Leave with

A draft governance charter tested against one difficult allocation decision.

Open the working template
Community and membership:
Decision rights:
Decision rule / quorum:
Conflict-of-interest and recusal:
Public records / private records:
Payment authorization and review:
Appeal / recall / rotation:
Charter review date:
06Fund living systems · about 45 min

Make repair a funded obligation.

Develop the mandatory AI and data-center levy into a transparent policy proposal.

The original proposal requires AI companies and data centers to finance permaculture, regenerative agriculture, agricultural research, verified carbon removal and lasting paid ecological work. This is a proposed obligation, independent of BDS policy. Divestment changes holdings; a levy collects revenue. Neither automatically delivers the other.

Do this together

  1. Write the policy boundary: which activities and operators are covered, which jurisdiction collects the levy, which base is assessed and who can inspect the assessment. Identify gaps rather than inventing a revenue forecast.
  2. Specify binding reductions in emissions, water demand and other harms alongside payments. Do not let funding substitute for preventing avoidable damage.
  3. Use the allocation lab with clearly hypothetical figures. Protect multiyear wages, maintenance, research and independent evaluation before promising a new project.
  4. Draft a public ledger format: assessed amount, amount received, allocation decision, recipient, paid labor, outcomes, conflicts of interest and corrections. Define how communities can contest an award.

Pause & discuss

  • Who pays, and who might bear costs passed through by the operator?
  • How is the fund protected from corporate influence and ordinary budget diversion?
  • What happens if revenue falls while a restoration project still needs care?

Leave with

A levy design brief and an explicitly hypothetical community budget.

Open the working template
Covered activities and jurisdiction:
Assessment base / proposed rate / rationale:
Collection and independent audit:
Binding impact reductions:
Community decision rights:
Paid work and long-term maintenance:
Revenue uncertainty and reserve:
Public reporting and appeals:
07Fund living systems · about 45 min

Start with a place and its people.

Build a place-based ecological plan with paid care and distinct measures of success.

Permaculture and agroecology connect food, soils, water, habitat and social organization. The pamphlet cites research rather than a universal sequestration promise. A soil-carbon stock comparison does not give an annual removal rate, and one successful site cannot establish results elsewhere.

Do this together

  1. With the people who use and steward a site, map land rights, food needs, water flows, existing habitats and previous land use. Seek permission before recording or sharing local or Indigenous knowledge.
  2. Choose a small intervention suited to that place: for example a nursery, perennial planting trial, soil-cover comparison, water-retention study or community compost practice. Document why it fits.
  3. Establish a baseline and a monitoring plan for soil, water, biodiversity, food production, working conditions and access. Keep each measure separate; include who measures it and how often.
  4. Budget training, tools, wages, seasonal maintenance and possible failure. For carbon claims, define the boundary, measurement uncertainty, additionality, duration, leakage and reversal risks with qualified independent review.

Pause & discuss

  • What do local land stewards already know?
  • Who will maintain the work in five years, and will they be paid?
  • Could a carbon target harm biodiversity, food access or land rights?

Leave with

A site-care plan with a baseline, a paid maintenance commitment and a public learning question.

Open the working template
Site / consent / land rights:
Community-defined need:
Intervention and rationale:
Baseline and comparison:
Soil / water / habitat / food / employment measures:
Monitoring role and schedule:
Wages / maintenance / training:
Uncertainty, risks and review:
08Steward the commons · about 40 min

Keep a commons people can leave.

Make community knowledge portable while keeping people in control of sensitive material.

A useful archive needs consent, context and caretakers. Open access is appropriate for some evidence and inappropriate for personal records, restricted community knowledge or details people did not agree to publish. Choose what to retain before choosing where to host it.

Do this together

  1. Sort a fictional campaign folder into public research, internal working notes, restricted personal information and material that should not be collected. Explain each choice.
  2. Give each retained item a title, date, creator or responsible role, source, permission, access level, review date and deletion rule. Keep consent records separately from the public archive.
  3. Export a small sample as Markdown, CSV, JSON or ordinary media files. Ask another participant to open it without the original platform or account.
  4. Practice restoring a backup and responding to a withdrawal request. Assign a successor for archive stewardship; document which copies you can and cannot recall after publication.

Pause & discuss

  • Who has authority to share this material?
  • Can contributors correct or withdraw it?
  • What remains accessible if a platform disappears or an administrator leaves?

Leave with

An archive inventory, access agreement and tested portable export.

Open the working template
Item / source / context:
Responsible steward:
Permission and authority:
Public / internal / restricted:
Retention and review date:
Correction or withdrawal route:
Export format / backup location:
Restore test / successor:
09Steward the commons · about 35 min

Choose infrastructure you can care for.

Compare practical hosting choices by community needs, maintenance and exit options.

Decentralization is a question of power and responsibility as well as network design. A modest public site, a shared archive or a community-run service may meet different needs. More servers or a blockchain do not automatically create shared control, privacy or resilience.

Do this together

  1. Write the minimum service your group needs. Separate public reading, editing, private discussion and archival preservation; these need not live on one platform.
  2. Compare an offline bundle, a static hosted site, a community-managed server and a federated service using the decision table below. Record administrator time, costs, backup, updates, accessibility and export.
  3. Try one reversible experiment: export a public page and open it offline, restore a backup to a spare folder, or share a small public collection with a trusted community host.
  4. Write an operations handover: two responsible roles, update schedule, backup restoration, domain or account ownership, incident contact and an exit procedure. Avoid launching a service no one has capacity to maintain.

Pause & discuss

  • Who can shut off access, and who can restore it?
  • What does this service require of the least-resourced participant?
  • Can we migrate without losing our records or community relationships?

Leave with

A one-page infrastructure decision with a reversible trial and a maintenance commitment.

Open the working template
Minimum service and audience:
Public vs restricted information:
Option selected / alternatives considered:
Ownership and administrator roles:
Cost / time / energy considerations:
Updates / backup / restore:
Accessible and offline route:
Export and exit plan:
10Build collective power · about 30 min

Return, revise, share the learning.

Evaluate changes in institutions, ecosystems and collective capacity without mistaking activity for results.

A campaign can produce new relationships before a formal win. It can also consume people’s energy without changing a decision. Keep track of both, preserve disagreement and make an explicit choice to continue, change course, pause or finish.

Do this together

  1. Compare the initial demand with documentary evidence of what changed: a published contract decision, investment record, budget or revised policy. Record partial results and unresolved claims.
  2. Ask participants about workload, access, new skills, exclusion and trust. Offer a private route for feedback and do not publish personal accounts without agreement.
  3. Review the ecology and paid-work measures separately from campaign reach, clicks or attendance. Ask whose conditions improved and who still bears costs.
  4. Update the evidence cards and archive. Agree one next decision, who owns the task and when to revisit it; publish a short lesson others can adapt.

Pause & discuss

  • What changed outside our own communications?
  • Which assumption did we get wrong?
  • What should another group learn from our success, disagreement or failure?

Leave with

A public learning note, a corrected record and a sustainable next decision.

Open the working template
Original demand / date:
Documented change / source:
Unresolved questions:
Participation and workload:
Ecological and employment outcomes:
Corrections and lessons:
Continue / change / pause / finish:
Next decision / responsible role / review date:
A shared learning session

Bring a few people together.

Choose a question worth working on together. Build an agenda around one to three modules, with time to arrive, reflect, and decide what happens next.

Choose one to three modules

0 of 3 selected. Modules appear in the guide’s learning order. Uncheck a module to replace it.

Your agenda will appear here. Start with a module that meets a question your group is already asking.

Choose one to three modules to build an agenda. Your choices stay in this page.

Local to this page. No storage or server uploads; download a copy if you want to keep or share the plan.

01 / A plan you can carry

Build a campaign worksheet

Turn a connection on the map into a shared, bounded task. Start with the people and time you have; return to the unresolved questions as you learn.

No server uploads. Entries stay in this page unless you choose to save them in this browser or download a copy. A saved browser copy is not encrypted and may be accessible to others using this browser profile.

A university, council, pension fund, workplace, neighbourhood group, or other body you can influence.

Name the place and level of authority. Procurement, pensions, and public records follow different local rules.

What should change, who can change it, and by when? Define the contract, investment, purchasing policy, or community proposal.

Add source URLs, record dates, currencies, financial measure, and what remains unverified. Keep proposals separate from documented relationships.

Which office or committee holds authority? Record its public process, meeting date, and the formal route for submitting a request.

Leave blank if unknown; finding the date can be an early task.

Who will research, facilitate, translate, make contact, document, and support access? Use role names if you do not need personal names.

Plan for interpretation, remote participation, disability access, transport, childcare, paid time, and ways to contribute asynchronously.

Who has a voice and a vote? How will you record decisions, declare conflicts, rotate roles, handle disagreement, and let people step back?

For each action, name an owner or role, a date, and an observable result. Include a step that can be completed with the capacity you already have.

Set a review date. What counts as progress? What would change your approach? Where will the next group find the sources, decisions, and unfinished work?

Draft is held in this page only. Nothing has been saved.

02 / Fund the work of repair

Make the obligation concrete

Model a mandatory levy on a defined AI and data-centre revenue base. Decide how a protected, community-governed fund could support permaculture, regenerative agriculture, research, and lasting paid work.

An independent proposal. The starting values are editable examples, with no connection to reported company revenue. Every amount below is arithmetic, not a forecast.

Enter the annual revenue you propose to tax, in the selected currency. Changing the currency relabels the scenario; it does not convert the amount. Define coverage and jurisdiction before using a real-world figure.

Hypothetical annual gross fund USD 20,000,000

USD 1,000,000,000 × 2%

Decide where it goes

100% / 100%

These shares are a starting point for discussion. Communities set their own priorities. Keep wage budgets and project costs distinct so the same expenditure is not counted twice.

Reliable wages, training, access support, and worker-led care of living systems.

USD 9,000,000

Permaculture, regenerative agriculture, community land access, tools, and habitat restoration.

USD 5,000,000

Locally useful trials, open methods, independent research, and long-term monitoring.

USD 3,000,000

Carbon accounting, water and biodiversity monitoring, audits, and public evidence.

USD 1,000,000

Participatory decisions, translation, administration, grievance routes, and accessible assemblies.

USD 2,000,000
A fund is a means, not an ecological outcome.

This calculation does not model collection costs, avoidance, behavioural changes, legal feasibility, or future revenue. Measure carbon removal, soil health, water, biodiversity, working conditions, and community control separately. The levy does not replace absolute emissions reductions; plan for continuity if the revenue base contracts.

Adjust the assumptions to explore a scenario. Nothing is saved or submitted.

A decision aid / no single platform is the answer

What can your group
actually maintain?

Use these options as workshop prompts. Set a budget for people’s time as well as services. Any choice needs a portable copy of your work and a clear owner for maintenance.

OptionUseful forResponsibility to plan forTry before committing
Offline document bundleLow-bandwidth reading, printed workshops, portable evidenceVersion dates, accessible formats, how corrections reach peopleOpen the guide and its records without an account.
Static public websiteA small public archive or explainable evidence atlasPublishing access, domain renewal, source revisions, copies outside the hostExport a page and document who can publish a correction.
Community-managed serverA service with an identified need and willing maintainersUpdates, backups, restore tests, costs, access control and successionRestore a non-sensitive sample before adding real community records.
Federated serviceParticipation across separately administered communitiesLocal moderation, remote copies, account migration, administrator accountabilityTest export and ask how deletion works across participating servers.

This website remains hosted on Cloudflare. It is a public resource about collective control, not a claim that its own hosting is decentralized. The graph, sources and worksheets can be exported.

Keep the original proposal intact

Less extraction.
More collective capacity.

The aim is to reduce destructive demand and expand food, care, public knowledge and community control. A mandatory levy on AI companies and data centers must fund place-based regeneration, research and durable paid work, with affected communities deciding how resources are used.

Carbon negative means verified CO₂ removals exceed CO₂ emissions within a stated boundary and period. Broader climate claims need to account for other greenhouse gases. Biodiversity, water, land rights and employment quality need their own measures.

Do not describe a proposed fund as money already available, a contract ceiling as money spent, or an alliance as proof of a particular transaction. The network is useful when its distinctions remain visible.

Read the record / preserve its limits

Sources & further learning

Download the original 20-page pamphlet ↓

Source collection reviewed 2026-09-27. The workshops are original activities developed from the pamphlet’s organizing framework. Source links support background claims; campaign guidance and records can change.

  1. Pentagon fuel use, climate change and the costs of warNeta C. Crawford / Brown / 2019
  2. Frontier AI awards: four ceilings of $200 millionCDAO / 14 July 2025
  3. Energy and AI: investment, energy and uncertaintyIEA / 2025
  4. What BDS is and the rights it seeksPalestinian BDS National Committee
  5. Priority boycott and pressure targetsBDS Movement / live campaign guide
  6. Strategic campaigning for Palestinian rightsBDS Movement / organizing guidance
  7. Nimbus: suppliers and participating institutionsIsrael Government Procurement Administration
  8. Partial service suspension following its reviewMicrosoft / 25 September 2025
  9. Calls for boycott, contract pressure and divestmentBDS Movement / Microsoft campaign
  10. Gaza: environmental damage and recovery needsUNEP / 23 September 2025
  11. Permaculture: carbon stocks, soil and biodiversityReiff et al. / 2024
  12. AR6 WGIII, chapter 7: land-based mitigationIPCC / 2022
  13. Nature-based work and decent employmentInternational Labour Organization / 2026
  14. Agroecology: ecological and social relationshipsFAO
  15. Degrowth: a proposed economic research agendaHickel et al. / Nature / 2022
  16. Military PFAS investigations and cleanup costsUS GAO / 2025

Educational benchmark

Gray Area · Beyond Big Tech

The course combines technical practice with discussion of community networks, data sovereignty, archives and stewardship. This independent guide uses that balance as a benchmark; it does not reproduce the course or claim affiliation.

Community principles

DWeb principles

A framework for human agency, distributed benefits, mutual respect, rights and ecological awareness. Use the principles as questions to test a community’s actual governance and infrastructure choices.