Originally published on ip-watch.org 10 May 2013 By Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch While diplomats are trying to find consensus on an international instrument to protect traditional knowledge at the World Intellectual Property Organization, some countries are establishing systems to protect their traditional knowledge domestically. South Africa will be launching on 24 May its National Recordal [...]

Call for Abstracts: FEL XVII – Endangered Languages Beyond Boundaries Ottawa, Canada – October 2013 The Seventeenth Conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages in association with Carleton University: School of Canadian Studies and School of Linguistics and Language Studies Ottawa, Canada Dates: 1-4 October 2013 The 2013 FEL Conference will be held in Ottawa, [...]

This conversation, hosted by New Tactics in Human Rights, took place between November 16-22, 2011. Conversation Summary From the New Tactics website: Thank you for joining New Tactics, Rising Voices, Indigenous Tweets, and other practitioners for an online dialogue on Using Citizen Media Tools to Promote Under-Represented Languages*. The United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural [...]

About Coded Stories From the Coded Stories website: “An indigenous people, struggling to preserve their traditions. An artist, looking to merge the oldest creative traditions and the newest technologies, while calling attention to the indigenous of his native country. The Coded Stories Project will use an artist’s unique work to look at this little-known group [...]

imagineNATIVE is an international Festival that celebrates the latest works by Indigenous peoples at the forefront of innovation in film, video, radio and new media. Each fall, the Festival presents a selection of the most compelling and distinctive Indigenous works from Canada and around the globe. The works accepted reflect the diversity of the world’s [...]

About the Event Saturday April 13, 2013 9:30am – 3:30pm Sty-Wet-Tan Hall UBC First Nations Longhouse 1985 West Mall RSVP to this Language Gathering FREE and open to the public Pay parking available in the Fraser River Parkade Please join us for this exciting event that will bring together language advocates, community members, policy makers, [...]

Written by Lisa Gregoire, published on Wednesday, 20 March 2013 [source] OTTAWA — About 25 kilometres southeast of Arctic Bay, on the northern shore of Adams Sound, there is a place called Qajuutinnguaq. It means “Hill shaped like a chisel.” You wouldn’t find it on most official maps because official maps of Nunavut contain huge [...]

Canadian First Nations communities outside of major centers remain underserved by Internet providers, receiving minimum service at a maximum price. Due to their isolation and small populations, many First Nations rely on Internet to deliver critical services from health to education and administration to their community. But distant decision-makers removed from community needs often institute policies [...]

A paper by Elisam Magara, Makerere University, Uganda (2007) [source] Abstract Ugandans aspire for positive cultural values for the promotion of socio-economic development and equal opportunities for all – a heritage that is free of negative cultural values, practices and traditions. However, the major constraint of developing countries has been the absence of community-based information [...]

Arctic Frontiers conference presentation Rachael Petersen, Ethnos Project collaborator and independent researcher, recently gave the presentation below on indigenous internet access at the Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromsø, Norway. The presentation, titled “Decolonizing the Digital North: Roadblocks to a greater Arctic indigenous internet presence,” focuses on the structural and cultural barriers to Inuit-centric engagement with the internet. [...]

Phil Cash Cash, who runs the Indigenous Language and Technology listserv at the University of Arizona, sent this out today… Can the digital age save the Cherokee language? The halls of Facebook, Google and texting Written by Becky Johnson, published on Wednesday, 30 January 2013 [source] Excerpt: “Susan Gathers was kicked back in the student [...]

A few days ago, Jennifer Wemigwans with Invert Media sent me a message suggesting a resource for the Ethnos Project Resource Database: Four Directions Teachings. Thought I’d step it up a notch and dedicate a post to the site. Four Directions is a vibrant and interactive online experience with an accompanying teacher resource kit and [...]

The article below was originally published on the Christensen Fund website on September 5, 2012 by Ken. Olisarali Olibui carries a Kalashnikov rifle in one hand and a camera in the other. A member of one of Ethiopia’s most isolated tribes – the Mursi – Olibui knows his culture’s way of life is in danger [...]

Wouldn’t you know it! Soon after Rachael Petersen joined up with the Ethnos Project, she turned the proverbial microphone on me and conducted a proper interview. I hope this is not perceived as shameless self-promotion, but I thought I would provide a link from here to the interview posted on Rachael’s site www.globalnativenetworks.com. Cheers, Mark [...]

The Arviat Film Society Arviat is a predominantly Inuit city in the high western Arctic, and the third largest in Canada’s newest province, Nunavut. For more than two years, a group of volunteer Inuit youth in the community has dedicated time and energy to create multi-media projects aimed at investigating, documenting, and broadcasting local history [...]

I am excited to announce that Rachael Petersen is now part of the Ethnos Project! Allow me to introduce her to you… About Rachael Rachael is a 2012-2013 Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellow investigating indigenous peoples’ use of technology around the world. Her current year-long research has taken her to the Canadian Eastern Arctic and [...]

Introduction From the document embedded below: “This booklet is part of a broad strategy called ‘Speaking for Ourselves’. It recognises, that while the African perspective on the digital divide is underrepresented in the context of the World Summit on the Information Society, the people most directly affected by the digital divide have the best ideas, [...]

Cape Town, South Africa, 2-6 September 2013 INTERACT 2013 solicits submissions addressing all aspects of human-computer interaction. The conference theme, “Designing for Diversity”, recognizes the interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and intercultural spirit of human-computer interaction (HCI) research and practice. The conference welcomes research and reports of practice that acknowledges diverse disciplines, abilities, cultures and societies, and that [...]

Third IUI4DR Workshop in Conjunction with IUI 2013 Santa Monica, California, USA 19 March 2013 Visit the IUI4DR website This workshop aims to look at interaction from the viewpoint of users in developing regions.  We will identify  interesting research challenges and usability obstacles experienced by this user population at the workshop. Related workshops were conducted [...]

Originally posted on rising.globalvoicesonline.org by Eddie Avila on 30 November 2012 Rising Voices Note: Rising Voices is pleased to be collaborating with this upcoming event in early 2013. This is a translation of the original website in Spanish at the Living Tongues blog. Enduring Voices: Digital Media Workshop for Speakers of Endangered Languages in Latin America Dates: January 7-11, 2013 [...]

From The Daily News (Kamloops): Nintendo scores for native language “With as few as 150 fluent Secwepemctsin speakers remaining, most of them over age 65, the Secwepemc Cultural Education Society has come up with software for preserving the language. Nintendo DSi software that teaches Secwepemctsin to young children is in the final stage of development, [...]

From the Mukurtu website: Mukurtu CMS (mentioned before on this site) makes it possible for you to share your digital cultural heritage using a set of innovative traditional knowledge licenses and labels specifically designed for the unique needs of Indigenous cultural materials. Mukurtu CMS provides several TK license options for Indigenous creators, custodians and beneficiaries [...]

Dalida Maria Benfield, artist, activist, and Berkman Center fellow … speaking at The Berkman Center Luncheon Series, a weekly series of informal luncheons and other meetings, providing students, fellows, faculty, and anyone who reserves a seat opportunities to discuss issues relevant to their work and to engage other leading thinkers and practitioners. Tuesday, April 17, [...]

Ma! Iwaidja app on iTunes The Ma! Iwaidja app is an initiative of the Minjilang Endangered Languages Publication project (also known as Iwaidja Inyman), based on Croker Island in Northwestern Arnhem Land in Australia’s Northern Territory. This ‘touch and listen’ app includes: a 1,000 entry Iwaidja-English dictionary a 400-entry Iwaidja-English phrase book a WordMaker with [...]

About the Project From the project website: “The World Oral Literature Project is an urgent global initiative to document and disseminate endangered oral literatures before they disappear without record. The Project supports local communities and committed fieldworkers engaged in the collection and preservation of all forms of oral literature by providing funding for original research, [...]

The folks at Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages have put together a fine list of language archives and online resources dealing with endangered languages. Here is the intro from their website: “People often approach us seeking information about the world’s most endangered languages. Students ask us, “I want to help with language documentation – [...]

“The question persists and indeed grows whether the computer will make it easier or harder for human beings to know who they really are, to identify their real problems, to respond more fully to beauty, to place adequate value on life, and to make their world safer than it now is.” Norman Cousins – The [...]

eBario Sdn Bhd operates the eBario project, which is a multi-award winning initiative that brought computers and the internet to the isolated communities of Kelabit people living in the remote highlands of northern Sarawak, one the East Malaysian States on the island of Borneo. It is located in the ecologically important area known as the Heart of Borneo, [...]

Two recent papers provide insights into the trends and changing field of ICT4D. The first is a 2011 paper by Ricardo Gomez, Luis F. Baron, and Brittany Fiore-Silfvast: The Changing Field of ICTD: Content analysis of research published in selected journals and conferences, 2000-2010 In this study, we report the results of a content analysis [...]

A presentation by Dr. Roger Harris (2011) The eBorneo research project is being undertaken by eBario Sdn Bhd in partnership with the Centre of Excellence for Rural Informatics at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and the assistance of research interns from the College of Business at the City University of Hong Kong. Be sure to visit the [...]

In July of last year I highlighted an organization called IICD (worth a visit if you haven’t see it). IICD has quite a few projects in their database, but this one is of particular interest to me and so I thought I’d share it here. Summary From the project page on the IICD website: In [...]

A 2011 policy brief by the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education Introduction Article 15 of the WSIS Declaration of The World Summit on the Information Society states “In the evolution of the Information Society, particular attention must be given to the special situation of indigenous peoples, as well as to the preservation of [...]

The Journal of Material Culture is concerned with the relationship between artefacts and social relations irrespective of time and place and aims to systematically explore the linkage between the construction of social identities and the production and use of culture. Special Edition edited by Amiria Salmond and Billie Lythberg Introduction Digital Subjects, Cultural Objects: Special [...]

Call for Abstracts & Expressions of Interest to Exhibit Proposals for presenting and/or exhibiting at Puliima 2013 are now being called. An excellent reference for determining whether your proposal would be suitable for presenting would be to look at the previous presentations and activities on our wrap up pages from Puliima 2007, Puliima 2009 and Puliima 2011. Your primary [...]

Synopsis [from the Cry Rock website] Less than fifteen Nuxalk language speakers and storytellers remain in Bella Coola, British Columbia. One of these elders is the director Banchi Hanuse’s 80-year-old grandmother. In a technologically obsessed century, it would seem easier to record Nuxalk stories for future generations, but Hanuse resists. Instead, she asks whether an [...]

This free book in PDF (2009) is available through the Inter-Disciplinary Press(many good things there – definitely worth checking out). Contents Introduction Anna Maj and Daniel Riha Part I: Theories and Concepts in Digitizing Individual and Community Memory The Trouble with Memory: Reco(r)ding the Mind in Code Laura Schuster (New) Media and Representations of the Past [...]

This post was created to share a document called “Providing ICTs to Indigenous Peoples” which is part of a best practices toolkit created by the ITU’s Connect a School, Connect a Community initiative. But before I present the document, I’d like to step back and introduce it in context starting with a little about the [...]

Lisbon, Portugal | Wednesday 13th March – Friday 15th March 2013 Call for Papers This inter- and multi-disciplinary conference aims to examine, explore and critically engage with the issues and implications created by the massive exploitation of digital technologies for inter-human communication and examine how online users form, archive and de-/code their memories in cybermedia [...]

A paper by Alex Byrne, University of Technology, Sydney (2008) Abstract Indigenous cultural resources expose long memory trails which extend from understandings of origins to engagement with contemporary challenges. The tangible traces of aeons old intangible experience, they include practical and ceremonial artefacts housed in museums, sites of cultural significance, testimony and stories collected in [...]

An Aboriginal Voice Cultural Working Group Paper by Marcia Nickerson and Jay Kaufman (2005) Introduction The object of this paper is to bring a holistic perspective to the implications of ICT for Aboriginal ways of living, thinking and knowing. Is ICT the potent enabler for the promotion, renewal and enrichment of Aboriginal cultures as many [...]

A piece by Ronald Niezen, McGill University (2005) Abstract Inventions have their greatest impact when they go beyond their possible practical applications and act upon the imagination. When Martin Behaim invented the first globe in 1490, a functionally useless object consisting mostly of terra incognita, he was widely ridiculed; but somehow the ideas that his [...]

Culturally Situated Design Tools While solutions to the “digital divide” are often imagined as a one-way bridge, there are a variety of ways in which we can create a two-way bridge alternative. Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDTs) use information technology to “translate” from local knowledge and low-tech practice, to high-tech domains such as math, computer [...]

A paper by Greg Winslett and Jean Phillips, Queensland University of Technology (2005) Abstract This paper draws upon the ideas and scholarship encapsulated by a core unit at QUT in Indigenous Education. This unit was developed and written by Indigenous staff in the university’s Oodgeroo Unit and taken up for delivery for the first time [...]

This 2010 AIATSIS Research Symposium was co-hosted with the Australian National University and the National Film and Sound Archive and in conjunction with the National Recording Project’s 9th Symposium on Indigenous Music and Dance. About the Symposium Information Technology and Indigenous Communities (ITIC) explored the ever-increasing use of IT to access, create and collate tangible [...]

A plenary paper presentation by Martin Nakata, University of New South Wales (2002) Introduction I am aware as I begin this plenary paper that members of the library profession that are drawn to a presentation slotted under the theme, Indigenous Knowledge, are most likely interested in the systems and issues for managing information in that [...]

A paper by Kirsten D. Francis and Chern Li Liew (2009) Abstract This research project investigates the digital collections from selected heritage organisations, exploring how and if the rights of Indigenous peoples are being protected by policy and protocol documents on the Web. It surveys selected heritage collections across Australia and New Zealand and explores [...]

A publication by Miriam Jorgensen (2012), Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums Introduction Sovereignty, self-determination, and self-governance are primary goals of Indigenous nations worldwide—and they take important steps toward those goals by renewing control over their stories, documents, and artifacts. In the U.S., the last 30 years have been a remarkable period of reasserted [...]

A paper by Trish Evans and Kevin Wilkinson (2000) Introduction The pace of change of information technology is not in dispute. We are all familiar with the way electronic storage media become obsolete. The hardware and software combinations that use these storage devices mutate even faster and, of course, one is of no use without [...]

I recently received a note from Kasper Rodil, a PhD Fellow in Aalborg University’s Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, who shared with me a new website focused on Indigenous knowledge and technology (http://indiknowtech.org/). Below is an overview of the site and its current projects. indiknowtech.org Project Description From the indiknowtech.org site: Project background: [...]

About the ILAT discussion list The Indigenous Languages and Technology (ILAT) discussion list is an open forum for community language specialists, linguists, scholars, and students to discuss issues relating to the uses of technology in language revitalization efforts. A list of links to the ILAT archives is presented at right (up to August 2012). Interested [...]