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As Indigenous communities endeavor to maintain their traditional ways of knowing, many are turning to information and communication technologies (ICTs) to sustain and stimulate their Indigenous knowledge. They are using analog and digital video and audio recording devices as well as a constellation of computer and Internet-related technologies, to capture, store, and make available to future generations important aspects of their languages, arts and understanding. Throughout this essay, I refer to these as memory technologies to distinguish their use in this manner from, say, plain recreation. The use of ICTs as memory technologies presents a contentious socio-technical problem. In many ways, the nature of digital technology is antithetical to Indigenous ways of knowing. This essay argues that the use of present ICTs to meet the needs of Indigenous communities will create persistent forms of “computer-mediated neo-colonialism” and that a new way of approaching the design of memory technologies is necessary to avoid that outcome – one that explores traditional Indigenous memory technologies as starting points for ICT design.

Defining the Problem

Western culture has its ways of remembering. Among them, we use books, film, and audio recordings to help us store information. We construct libraries, databases, and collections that house this information for future generations. Our schools and universities draw on these resources for teaching and research. When faced with preserving Indigenous ways of knowing, it seems logical to use similar techniques. And this is where the problems begin. Pacey considers technology “not only as comprising machines, techniques and crisply precise knowledge, but also as involving characteristic patterns of organization and imprecise values” (4). Memory technologies, like any cultural artifact, are imbued with the memes of the society that creates them. They are laden with cultural assumptions about what information is, what knowledge is, how they are transferred, and so on.

In general, the design of ICTs does not accommodate Indigenous knowledge, the nature of which is cast in terms not typically associated with Western knowledge: local, holistic, and agrapha (Kincheloe & Semali, 63); relational, conscious, animate and interactive (von Thater-Braan, 4); non-formal, undocumented, dynamic and adaptive (UNESCO, Best Practices); empirical rather than theoretical, negotiated, shared, distributed in fragments, situated within broader cultural traditions (Ellen & Harris, 5); and so on. Where Indigenous knowledge is situated within a human community, orally and experientially shared, and subject to change, the opposite is the case for preservation: “the prime strategy for conserving indigenous knowledge is ex situ conservation, i.e., isolation, documentation and storage in international, regional and national archives” (Agrawal, 4).

The use of video and audio recordings on magnetic data have been the bread and butter of efforts to “capture” forms of Indigenous knowledge for many years. Archivists have long struggled with the problems associated with storage and retrieval of this information: difficulties of cataloging data, guarding against media deterioration, protection of intellectual property rights, etc. With the advent of digital technologies, these issues persist and are compounded by other concerns resulting from the technology itself. Digital technologies at first seem to answer some of the problems such as cataloging (metadata can be attached to information in new ways), storage (a warehouse of magnetic data can fit onto a hard drive), and protection (passwords allow data to be secured for specific audiences).

While the move from analog to digital technologies seems a logical step to take, the new technologies still present opportunities for the same cultural dissonance: “new media reflect Western values of individualism, the privileging of texts and the commodification of knowledge – trends that run counter to and likely threaten many indigenous traditions (cf. Bowers et al. 2000)” (Landzelius, 294). Charles Ess calls the process by which Western cultural values embedded within the ICTs overshadow the values and communicative preferences of Indigenous peoples “computer-mediated colonialism.” The question of technology’s cultural neutrality or non-neutrality is critical: “specifically, the extent to which ICTs (and their attendant praxes and idioms) are assimilable into local values and lifeways; or conversely the extent to which dominant modes of thinking and doing are embedded in their very matrix, luring users into an inescapable ICT hegemony” (Landzelius, 294).

Specifically, we should question the assumption that technologies which serve to help Westernized people remember will do the same for Indigenous Peoples whose ways of knowing and remembering are far different from our own. This is true whether the technology is being used to record storytelling, oral histories or the nomenclature of medicinal plants. Barbara Johnstone notes, “It is easy to lose sight of how ideology enters into the process by which new media are incorporated into human life in the excitement about the potential of “global” technologies such as television and computers: the fact that a technology is available everywhere does not mean it will everywhere play the same roles” (Johnstone, 209).

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It is sensible for people who associate facts with knowledge to use memory technologies such as computers and databases. The relationship between Westernized concepts of the mind and of the computer are fairly clear: we view the computer as an extension of our individual minds. We store phone numbers, documents, videos, photos on our memory technologies so that we may have instant access to them should our human memory need reminding. We generate lists, files, folders, search functions, and so on as ways to organize and access this information. Yet, there is a difference between fact and knowledge, between information and understanding. And there is a difference between how Westernized cultures and most Indigenous cultures view these concepts. Let us use storytelling and oral tradition as a framework for exploration.

Oral historian, William Schneider, tells us that, “Storytelling is a key to relationships, values, and memory” (Schneider, 63). The telling of a story not only suggests the physical presence of a storyteller and an audience, but the relationship that exists between the two, the relationships between members of the audience, the relationship between humans and the land on which they live and in which the action of the story transpires, etc. It is these relationships that are important in the construct of knowledge. Whereas the writer writes for a hypothetical future audience disassociated from physical place, “the world evidenced by the audible text, considered in its entirety, includes not only the world projected by the story proper but the world of the performer and audience” (Tedlock 1983, 10). The Western information bias that sees story as text would dictate that an audio and video recording device would be sufficient to capture the telling of a story. That recording, once digitized, could easily be indexed and catalogued for use in an aural database. But in doing so, the essential components of relationship are stripped from the process.

This manner of recording runs against a fundamental aspect of Indigenous tradition – that of repetition. As a performance, the telling of a story interacts with prior tellings remembered by the audience and is infused with embellishments and improvisations that are in tune with the relationships established during the performance. Tellings of a story are not rendered identically. Unlike texts, which are identified by versions and variations of an original copy, stories are dynamic. There is no “original” story – only the tellings which have come before and those which will be told after. As a product of memory, shared orally, the first telling of a story is simply a shadow – an indicator of form and content, not a guide set in stone:

“Thus, memories are created by repeated reenactments or re-visitations of events, tales, histories, or occurrences. Repetitive storytelling of the past re-creates, solidifies, and even creates the veracity of events and individuals. Continual retelling allows individuals to emphasize certain elements of a history and to magnify and sometimes distort certain passages of one’s life, causing the narratives to become integral components of the teller’s and audience’s life and determining factors in the negotiation of identity” (Green, 30).

Without the tapestry of memory woven through retellings, any recording of an oral performance will be lacking its most salient aspects. The recording will be an empty shell which may do more harm than good as a memory piece: “taking a story so far from its initial or native context that the meaning the original teller and primary audience intended is lost or its portrayal in a new setting embarrasses or exposes them in an uncomfortable way” (Schneider, 137). To fully understand the meaning of a story, “we must hear it many times and place it within the context of other stories and other types of information” (Schneider, 25).

Storytelling and oral tradition are not simply about the transfer of knowledge. They involve the negotiation of knowledge. This process entails not only the art of constructing meaning, but also the subtle art of forgetting. Schneider points out that, “Over time, oral tradition provides a key to what and how people remember, forget, and form new understandings” (54). As storytellers choose the words which will create a backdrop for meaning, they are also choosing which words not to use:

“As a politically charged medium, retelling memories is not a simple chronological recounting of all that transpired, but is the result of a very specific, agenda-based series of choices made by the teller, who manipulates the raw material to create a narrative to serve his or her own purpose. To this end, what is left unsaid is as important as that said. Forgetting or leaving out is just as important” (Green, 51).

Capturing the performance of a story then is not as simple as pressing record on a video camera. How does one use technology to translate the socially negotiated meanings brought to life through relationships and repetition, shaped by both recalling and forgetting? This question calls attention to the shortcomings of present day ICTs in serving as memory technologies for Indigenous peoples. Instead of throwing ICTs out completely, however, we might approach the problem from a different angle. Instead of attempting to bend ICTs to accommodate Indigenous knowledge, we will explore how Indigenous knowledge might dictate new modes of technology. This next section considers how the implementation and design of ICTs might be inspired by past and existing Indigenous memory technologies.

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In considering how ICTs can be used in regard to processing Indigenous knowledge, Barbara Schoenhoff poses this question: “Still, how do you incorporate this on a computer system? By computerizing the proverbs or proverbializing the computer system” (99)? As the past conversation has illustrated, the first suggestion – computerizing the proverbs – is not effective. The second suggestion, however, if not taken rhetorically, leads us to a strange place. To imagine technology that operates in a manner that responds to the nature of Indigenous knowledge is to imagine a new mode of technological practice. This requires us to adopt a new paradigm, one that acknowledges that, “indigenization means not just enlisting ICTs to do things with tradition, but enlisting tradition to do things with ICTs. In keeping with the general tenet of human-machine relations, indigenous ICT users may tend to cognize and manipulate these tools differently based upon and in accordance with indigenous idioms” (Landzelius, 296). Let us next explore how such Indigenous idioms might inform the design of ICTs.

Indigenous Memory Technologies: Lukasa, Wiigwaasabak, and Wampum

Indigenous peoples not only employ stories and oral tradition to remember, but many have used physical memory technologies as well. This section will present three such technologies as we prepare to explore their implications for ICT design: The lukasa of the Luba, the wiigwaasabak of the Ojibwa, and the wampum of the Haudenosaunee.

Lukasa, or memory boards are hand-held wooden objects covered with beads, pins, cowrie shells and carvings, “that present a conceptual map of fundamental aspects of Luba culture. They are at once illustrations of the Luba political system, historical chronicles of the Luba state, and territorial diagrams of local chiefdoms” (Nooter, 58). They were traditionally interpreted and read by members of the Mbudye, a kinship society rigorously trained in the secret knowledge passed on through the lukasa. The boards served as evocative mnemonics – far from being stable texts, they served to assist the Mbudye in their performances by providing a coded interpretative framework for embellishment. These people – these keepers of memory – advance “through a series of stages within the society as they master successive levels of arcane knowledge. Only those at the apex of the association can decipher and interpret the lukasa’s intricate designs and motifs” (Memory Board, 1).

Like the lukasa, the wiigwaasabakoon of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) – and also the Abenaki, Wampanoag, and Nipmuc peoples, among others – were used as memory technologies. Instead of wood, beads, and shells, these items were scrolls made of birch bark etched with pictographs. A wiigwaasabak was used by members of the Medewiwin (Grand Medicine Society) to recall songs and stories. Quoting Colonel Garrick Mallery’s paper “Recently Discovered Algonkian Pictographs” written in 1888, Walter Hoffman writes:

“The devices are not only mnemonic, but are also ideographic and descriptive. They are not merely invented to express or memorize the subject, but are evolved therefrom. To persons acquainted with secret societies a good comparison for the charts or rolls would be what is called the tressel board of the Masonic order, which is printed and published and publicly exposed without exhibiting any of the secrets of the order, yet is not only significant, but useful to the esoteric in assistance to their memory as to degrees and details of ceremony” (288).

Note that even though an individual might gaze upon one of the scrolls, unless they were initiated into the mysteries of the Medewiwin, they would not be able to interpret the meaning. As in the case of the Lukasa, the meaning is negotiated in performative interpretation by people trained in the art.

Lastly, let us consider some aspects of the wampum belts of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). These belts were constructed with beads made from quahog shells, “in which the various designs of beads denoted different ideas according to a definitely accepted system, which could be read by anyone acquainted with wampum language, irrespective of what the spoken language was” (Sidis). The belts were used for treaties, commemorative purposes, tribute, ransom, marriage proposals, burials, and other important occasions. Unlike the Luba and the Ojibwa, the Haudenosaunee did not keep secret the language of the wampum, although with every law that was passed by the Iroquois Council, “the treaty or law that went with the wampum was memorized by certain trained individuals” (Tehanetorens, 12). Because of their central location within the Six Nations, the Onondaga Nation is recognized as the official keepers of the wampum belts.

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From lukasa, wiigwaasabakoon, and wampum belts, we can begin to extrapolate certain characteristics of Indigenous knowledge germane to the design of ICTs used as memory technologies. The Indigenous technologies are coupled with a practice that is often sacred or protected, ritualized, negotiated through social relationships. They are flexible and symbolic, rather than static and literal, involving active interpretation which has as much to do with remembering as it does re-creating and forgetting. As such, “there is no one-to-one correlation of sign to signified; readings may change, depending on the setting, the participants, and the text’s purpose. And the secrets themselves are always changing, for they depend on their social context” (Nooter, citing Barth 1975). They are situated within other cultural traditions such as oral performance and require special custodial care from people trained in special practices. They are also works of art, crafted from local materials tied to the land and history of the people to which they belong.

These characteristics stand in stark contrast to the ICTs presently used in cultural conservation efforts. Many modern ICTs used as memory technologies tend to foster individualism (i.e. computers are designed for single users), ex situ conservation, literalism (i.e. facts stored in databases, removed from narrative or proverbial structures), and are housed in ways that are not conducive to communal sharing. They are mass-produced from materials that hold no special value as cultural artifacts, and often maintained by people who may not have a direct cultural stake in their maintenance. Because of the desire in Westernized cultures for precision in storing information, ICTs are ill-equipped to handle vague, associative, purposefully obfuscated, context-dependent cultural knowledge.

What then must ICT design be like to reflect the nature of Indigenous knowledge? That question was the focus of a 2007 workshop convened by the Native Science Academy. During the workshop, a group member who was a 5th generation carver created a Pukea – a spirit caller, a long trumpet-like instrument. The participants perceived an “animate” quality about the Pukea, something intangible that separated it from other mundane objects such as a laptop or cell phone. They recognized that Indigenous technologies, such as the Pukea “have intrinsic value because we know their ancestry, where they came from, we know their place in our world and we know they will transform and return to the realms of the energies.” In other words, the Pukea “will not find itself discarded in a landfill, replaced by something sleeker and faster” (von Thater-Braan, 7).

Implicit in the realization the participants had is the connection between the human and the creation of the technology. This is not to suggest that Indigenous peoples must build their own modern ICTs by hand out of natural materials, but their participation in the development of new technologies is important to consider. Von Thater-Braan notes that “an Indigenous Information Technology is one in which the tools are in proper relationship with the community, the tools function correctly in the community ecology, and support the community’s future. Design, management and use of technology is a conscious relationship” (15). That conscious relationship should not start at the introduction of a computer terminal into a learning center, but in the design phase of the ICT. Indigenous technologies serve specific functions within the community. Those functions could serve to steer the kinds of interactions a particular technology offers. Instead of creating a database on a computer system in an attempt to meet the needs of a particular culture, the people of a particular culture should be informing the process of system design as a whole from conception.

This idea runs counter to the methods by which technology is created in Westernized cultures. We expect that, say, a cell phone will serve a mass audience – and its design is meant to have the broadest appeal and offer the widest functionality possible. We don’t build a cell phone to meet only the specific needs of a 300-member Indigenous tribal group in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We might tailor a database in an attempt to to meet a group’s needs, but we don’t design a special computer just for them. Yet, this kind of localized development would begin to field some of the concerns addressed above. By placing the emphasis of the human computer interaction on the human first, the development of memory technologies stands a greater chance at minimizing the implicit cultural hegemony addressed at the beginning of this essay. On one level, the idea of a sacred computer seems odd – yet consider the potential for true cultural conservation efficacy if such a system were created: an ICT memory technology that is not concerned with Western ways of knowing, that is responsive to layered social relationships, one imbued with the animate nature of a Pukea.

This new direction for design is necessarily speculative. So many factors weigh against it: cost, present design practices, shortcomings of human cultural understanding, etc. And yet, with the advent of semantic web technologies, universal Internet and mobile network access, virtual technologies, and Indigenous familiarity with modern ICTs, it is possible to begin seeing the creation of memory technologies that are responsive to and designed according to Indigenous knowledge – and which move away from computer-mediated colonialism toward computer-mediated liberation for people working to sustain and stimulate their culture.

Works cited:

Agrawal, Arun. “Indigenous and scientific knowledge: some critical comments.” IK Monitor. Vol. 3, Issue 3, 1995.

Best practices on indigenous knowledge. UNESCO. Accessed at http://www.unesco.org/most/bpindi.htm on 3 November 2009.

Ellen, Roy and Harris, Holly. Concepts of indigenous environmental knowledge in scientific and development studies literature: A critical assessment. Accessed at http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/Rainforest/SML_files/Occpap/indigknow.occpap_5.html on November 5, 2009.

Ess, Charles. “Questioning the Obvious? Ethical and Cultural Dimensions of CMC and ICTs.” Springfield: Drury University, 2004. Accessed at URL http://funredesw.org/LC/documentos/Questioning_the_obvious.pdf on 1 May 2009.

Goucher, Candice, et. al. In the Balance: Themes in World History. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998.

Green, Rebecca L. Ancestral dreams: re-living the past, re-creating the future. D. Eber & A. Neal (eds.), Memory and Representation: Constructed Truths and Competing Realities. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 2001.

Hoffman, Walter James. The Mide’wiwin or “Grand Medicine Society” of the Ojibwa. Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1891.

Kincheloe, Joe L. and Semali, Landislaus. What is indigenous knowledge?: voices from the academy. Ed. by Ladislaus M. Semali and Joe L. Kincheloe. New York : Garland Pub., 1999.

Johnstone, Barbara. Discourse Analysis. 2nd Ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008.

Landzelius, Kyra. Postscript: Vox Populi from the Margins? K. Landzelius (ed.), Native on the net: Indigenous and diasporic peoples in the virtual age. London & New York: Routledge, 2006.

Memory Board (Lukasa) [Democratic Republic of Congo; Luba] (1977.467.3). In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. Accessed at http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ahis/ho_1977.467.3.htm on 1 December 2009.

Nooter, Mary H. Secrecy, African Art That Conceals and Reveals. The Visual Language of Secrecy. New York: Museum for African Art, 1993.

Pacey, Arnold. The Culture of Technology. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983.

Sidis, William James. The Tribes and the States. Unpublished manuscript. Accessed at http://www.sidis.net/TSChap3bw.htm on 2 December 2009.

Tehanetorens, Ray Fadden. Wampum Belts of the Iroquois. Summertown, TN: Book Publishing Company, 1999.

Verran, Helen, Christie, Michael, Anbins-King, Bryce, Van Weeren, Trevor and Yunupingu, Wulumdhuna , (2007) ‘Designing digital knowledge management tools with Aboriginal Australians’, Digital Creativity, 18:3, 129 – 142

von Thater-Braan, Rose. Is it possible to have Information Technology that reflects Indigenous Consciousness? Native Science Academy: 2007.

A brief overview of the socio-technical problem space

Indigenous cultures across the planet are disappearing. In 2007, Wade Davis, a Harvard-trained ethnobotanist, presented at the TED conference on the subject of endangered cultures (http://tinyurl.com/wadedavis). He said, “When each of you in this room were born, there were 6,000 languages spoken on the planet . . . and of those 6,000 languages, as we sit here today in Monterrey, fully half are no longer being whispered into the ears of children. They are no longer being taught to babies. Which means, effectively, unless something changes, they’re already dead.” Arguably, when the language dies, so do other aspects of the culture: ways of knowing, history, stories and other aspects of ephemeral culture that wither if not actively nurtured. Of the many reasons for this cultural scenario, modernity – with its interest in technology – has played a large part. Modern transportation draws people away from the villages while telephones and televisions bring the outside world in. Information and communication technologies invite new practices into the cultural terrain that violate or replace traditional protocol. A curious socio-technical problem space emerges when one considers how technology instead might serve to sustain and stimulate traditional indigenous ways. Specifically, this conceptual investigation will focus on technological solutions for storing Indigenous knowledge.

In terms of Indigenous knowledge management, typical database structures often do not work for storing cultural knowledge. For instance, when recording oral traditions, the usual metadata tags regarding ownership (author, copyright data, publishing information, etc.) do not apply. Primarily oral cultures that do not ascribe ownership of knowledge to individuals, that do not recognize the ‘right to copy’ in the way Western cultures do, and that do not publish but rather perform their stories, histories, and ceremonies, would find little use for such metadata. Knowledge management is made more complex by the very nature of orality. The term oral “indicates both speech and reception, and implies face-to-face interaction. With its coloration by tradition, oral also indicates a degree of informality. It does not refer to scripted expression, but rather unscripted expression, marked by improvisation and characterized by variation” (Tangherlini, 136). How does one catalog unscripted expression? How does one account for the possibilities of variation? Similarly, for cultures that understand the power of images differently than Western cultures do, the storage and retrieval of photographs (especially of ancestors) is problematic. A guiding question that informs this investigation then is how does one construct a knowledge management system that respects the various ways in which Indigenous peoples interact with their own sense of cultural memory?

Implicated Human Values

Friedman, et al offer a list of human values with ethical import that are often implicated in system design (364). Several of those values become implicated when considering the ways technology can be used to facilitate the traditional processes of Indigenous peoples. Among them, human welfare, ownership and property, privacy, trust and identity rank high. Martin Nakata lists other issues that arise within the frame of this discussion as well: “the classification of information about Indigneous peoples’ collection, storage, retrieval, access, copyright, intellectual property, the sensitivities of culturally different clients and communities, the politics, funding, distance issues, networking issues, the concerns about historical texts – and the list can go on” (281).

The value this investigation focuses on, and one which contains and overlaps a few of those listed, is that of respect for cultural ways – that is, the explicit consideration of how a proposed technological solution adheres to the cultural practices and ways of knowing endemic to the Indigenous population using that technology. Respect in this context might mean honoring traditions having to do with gender, role, or ceremony for example. Some knowledge is meant only for particular audiences under specific circumstances. As in the example from above, some knowledge artifacts contain power, such as photographs. Storage, retrieval and access of photographs must respectfully factor in these cultural attitudes.

Direct and Indirect Stakeholders

I. Direct Stakeholders

Members of an Indigenous community. This category is shaped by subsections that will differ among the communities concerned. For example, in the Haudenosaunee tradition (the Six Nations of the Iroquois in and around New York State) there are the customs of the Long House which apply only to men. Men would then constitute a subgroup whose knowledge must remain accessible only to those who by traditional rights, and under specific circumstances, should have access to it. In this sense, access is tied to the notion of respect, since violations of this protocol would have critical cultural repercussions. A knowledge management system for sustaining Amur oral tradition in China, should respect the fact that, “the majority of traditional storytellers are women, a reflection of their long history as carries of oral tradition” (Van Deusen, xxi). Also, in many cultures, oral traditions carry knowledge that has age limits – some stories are not meant for young children. To remain respectful of this, the knowledge management system must take into account what subjects and forms of knowledge are appropriate for audiences at different ages.

II. Indirect Stakeholders

Future generations of the Indigenous community. Part of the idea of creating Indigenous knowledge management systems, is maintaining traditions at risk of being lost for future generations to enjoy and derive benefit. This group of stakeholders will be topologically similar to the subgroups listed above for any specific Indigenous community. In other words, whatever system design considerations are put in place for the present population will necessarily apply to the future generations of users.

Ancestors. This subgroup doesn’t make much sense to the Western mind, however, since knowledge implies a historical context, respect for the past and the people who lived in it is a subject of concern for many Indigenous populations. In this sense, respect may have to do with maintaining historical accuracy, preserving reputations, protecting spirits, honoring the dead, and so on. A popular caveat on Australian aboriginal historical resource websites reads with variation: “Warning! This site contains images of indigenous people now deceased!” Taking this idea further, respect for ancestors might take the shape of being able to “specify temporal access restrictions, either for a set duration from a start time or recurring (on a monthly or yearly basis). This functionality has been provided to support customs such as sorrow business, in which photographs or video recordings of recently deceased people are inaccessible for a mourning period” (Hunter, 118).

The ‘outside’ world. The outside world is a broad category including any non-Indigenous audience. From the perspective of the direct Indigenous community stakeholders, of special concern are outsiders whose interest in the Indigenous knowledge would be disrespectful or exploitative.

Works Cited

Friedman, B., Kahn, P. H., Jr., & Borning, A. “Value Sensitive Design and information systems.” In P. Zhang & D. Galletta (eds.), Human-Computer Interaction in Management Information Systems: Foundations, (348-372). Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2006.

Hunter, J. “The Role of Information Knowledge Management.” In M. Nakata & M. Langton (eds.), Australian Indigenous Knowledge and Libraries, (109-124). Canberra: Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 2005.

Nakata, M. “Indigenous Knowledge and the Cultural Interface: underlying issues at the intersection of knowledge and information systems.” IFLA Journal, Vol. 28, No. 5-6, 281-291 (2002).

Tangherlini, T. “Oral Tradition” in a Technologically Advanced World.” Oral Tradition Vol. 18, No. 1, 136-138 (2003).

Van Deusen, K. The flying tiger: women shamans and storytellers of the Amur. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, March 2001.

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Another major concern for indigenous communities adopting ICT for cultural revitalization projects is the fear that the knowledge they seek to save – some of which is sacred, proprietary, or meant for particular audiences – will be misappropriated or decontextualized. The prevalence of biopiracy worldwide illustrates that the fear of exploitation is justified. Several of the suggestions above offer solutions to this concern: ensuring that the indigenous community has authority over the governance of the cultural material, storing the information in the language of the community, and establishing an ideology that guides the project implementation. Other solutions involve proper resource crediting and securing the database with passwords, digital signatures, watermarks, etc.

Proper crediting of knowledge will vary among indigenous peoples depending on their traditions and often will not fit within the structures of international copyright law. For example, some knowledge may be the provision of special keepers (women, Shaman, a clan or moeity, etc.). A particular telling of a story may have been handed down through an identifiable lineage. A process for curing food for a specific celebration may belong to an entire community. The crediting schema for the ICT employed for the project should be constructed to reflect the needs of each group being served.

Resistance to ICT can be reduced by assuring the community that their knowledge will be respected and protected from misuse. The simplest means for protecting information stored in a database is to created a password system that allows insertion and retrieval access only to certain individuals who hold the appropriate key. The password system can be built around the social structures in place within the community “so that only women can access women’s business, men access men’s business, etc.” (Dyson and Underwood, 70). Other distinctions that might affect level of access to the database include membership, status, role, gender, and the relationship of the user to people, animals or objects depicted in the resource (Sen, 375). The Wangka Maya Pilbara Language Centre in Western Australia doesn’t use passwords, but has implemented a security protocol by which users can search a database via web, but must order copies of the material on CD-ROM from the head office (Dyson and Underwood, 70). Information cannot be downloaded directly from the site.

Conclusion

Successful ICT-based cultural revitalization programs ultimately must do more than classify, catalog, and store information, they must aid in what Fishman calls re-vernacularization – the reintegration of the knowledge into community: “Vernacularization is the opposite of institutionalization. Re-vernacularization requires not only inter-generational language transmission, but societal change” (171). It is that change that represents the greatest challenge for indigenous communities, especially when ICT are involved. Community resistance to ICT is natural, justified, and to be expected. Cultural change is difficult to bear even when one’s traditions are not at risk of disappearing. The addition of technology to the process of change can compound the concerns of indigenous people and raise questions that are difficult to answer. The solutions outlined in this essay are not exhaustive and are meant to suggest starting points by which indigenous communities might begin to address the complex challenges they face in their cultural revitalization efforts.

Works Cited

Agrawal, Arun. “Dismantling the Divide between Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge” Unpublished essay, 1994.
Bowker, G. C., and S. L. Star, S. L., “Sorting things out: Classification and its consequences.” Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1999.
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Dyson, Laurel E., “Cultural Issues in the Adoption of Information and Communication Technologies by Indigenous Australians.” Sudweeks, F., and C. Ess, eds. Proceedings Cultural Attitudes Towards Communication and Technology (CATaC). Karlstad, Sweden, 27 June – 1 July 2004. Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA. pp. 58-71. Available at: http://www.staff.it.uts.edu.au/~laurel.
Dyson, Laurel E., and Jim Underwood. “Indigenous People on the Web.” Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2006).
Ess, Charles. “Questioning the Obvious? Ethical and Cultural Dimensions of CMC and ICTS.” Unpublished essay, 2004.
Fishman, Joshua, “Maintaining Languages: What Works? What Doesn’t?” Cantoni, Gina, ed. Stabilizing Indigenous Languages. Flagstaff: A Center for Excellence in Education Monograph, Northern Arizona University, 2007.
Holland, et al., “Using information technology to preserve and sustain cultural heritage: the digital collective.” World Culture Report 2000: Cultural diversity, conflict and pluralism. France: UNESCO, 2000.
Moore, Patrick, and Kate Hennessy. “New Technologies and Contested Ideologies: The Tagish FirstVoices Project.” American Indian Quarterly Vol. 30, Nos. 1 & 2 (2006).
Olson, Hope A. “Mapping Beyond Dewey’s Boundaries: Constructing Classificatory Space for Marginalized Knowledge Domains.” Library Trends 47, no. 2 (Fall 1998): 233-255.
Ranganathan, Arvind. “Using ICT to place Indigenous Knowledge Systems at the heart of Education for Sustainable Development.” Paper presented at the Education for a Sustainable Future – International Conference, Ahmedabad, India, January 18-20, 2005.
Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. United Nations. The Report of the Global Forum of Indigenous Peoples and the Information Society. Geneva, Switzerland: World Summit on the Information Society, 2003.
Sen, Bharati. “Indigenous knowledge for development: Bringing research and practice together.” The International Information & Library Review 37 (2005): 375-82.
“Communication for Development and Poverty Reduction.” Weigel, G. and D. Waldburger, eds. ICT4D – Connecting People for a Better World: Lessons, Innovations and Perspectives of Information and Communication Technologies in Development. Berne, Switzerland: Swiss Agency of Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP), 2003.

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In any kind of media translation, there is a loss of nuance. For example, consider the four ICT typically used to populate a digital archive: an audio recorded conversation resides out of context, a photograph lacks motion, text lacks nonverbal cues, and video – which addresses some of the deficiencies of the last three examples – lacks spacial dimension. Even though the technologies used for collecting these forms of media has improved in quality over time, they are still imperfect cataloging tools, especially in regard to capturing sophisticated social experiences such as a storytelling performance comprised of songs, anecdotes, aphorisms, nonce words, and so on. One may possess a high definition digital video recording of a performance, but much of what makes the performance culturally valuable is lost in translation from live action to digital media. For example, unless special instructions are given to the camera operator to record the reaction of the audience, viewers may miss out on important social cues (what is surprising, disdainful, humorous, etc.). Also, without a knowledge of present affairs, community history, the local environment, social status of the storyteller, circumstances under which the story is being performed, and other factors, a recording of an oral performance – even if it is in high definition – may look good, but won’t be particularly useful as part of a functional digital archive used for passing on a full range of cultural knowledge.

The argument above identifies one of the shortcomings of employing ICT in cultural revitalization efforts and begs the question of their efficacy. Add to this argument the problem of interfacing the database (ICT are often text based and written in a language that is foreign to the indigenous end user). Supposing these obstacles could be overcome, the effectiveness of ICT is still hampered by the nature of the hardware used to access the information. How does one access information stored in a digital archive when the keyboard employs a foreign alphanumeric system.
Indigenous communities and their program partners can minimize obstacles by implementing carefully considered systemic safeguards. The first order of consideration is the nature of the technology and to what degree it will interact with the knowledge system to be cataloged. To continue with the example of a storytelling performance, one might begin by conducting an assessment of the complex relationships visible in the cultural infrastructure surrounding the performance of a story and of the suitability of the technology chosen to record it. This involves “recognising the depths of interdependence of technical networks and standards, on the one hand, and the real work of politics and knowledge production on the other” (Bowker and Star, 34). For instance, a database that uses Western-style metadata tags such as author, title, and copyright may not be the most suitable for documenting oral performances. A system that allows for flexibility depending on the cultural and informational needs of the community would be more appropriate. Doing so recognizes that “classification remakes and alters information by constructing a particular context for it — gathering, scattering, and juxtaposing topics in relation to each other,” (Olsen, 233) and puts the indigenous community in charge of how that new knowledge gets constructed. One such system is the Text, Audio, Movies, and Images (TAMI) fluid file management and database system, “which bears with it no western assumptions about knowledge or the ecology, and which maximises the possibility for the user to creatively relate and annotate assemblages of resources for their own purposes.”

Although TAMI puts the indigenous community in control of classification, the database is still text driven which, as noted above, can cause access problems. A possible solution involves using a Unicode font substitution and key layout replacement.

One final example of how to reduce the impact of implicit Western values embedded within ICT is to shift emphasis from digitally archiving cultural resources to creating what Ranganathan calls “circles of knowledge.”  A circle of knowledge is “a relevant and expanding body of knowledge identified by the members of the circle”  (Ranganathan, 6). Similar to the TAMI, existing knowledge would be gathered using text, audio, videos, and still images. The indigenous community would select the manner of collection depending on the nature of the knowledge to be acquired. Instead of simply archiving data, however, what distinguishes this concept from the TAMI is that it assumes that “not all aspects of living traditions of indigenous knowledge can be captured as ‘artefacts’ using digital technology” (Ranganathan, 7). The shortcomings of a digital archive are overcome by building into the process a layer of social networking that allows a user to seek not only information, but living human knowledge resources.  As Gerolf Weigel states: “It can be more effective to link people with relevant knowledge directly rather than accumulating knowledge in ‘stores’” (22). A user might for example query the database to find out which local village has the relevant knowledgeable person to assist with a water purification system.

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Charles Ess warns that the use Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in cultural revitalization efforts can bring with it a “computer-mediated colonialism” or an emphasis on the Western cultural values embedded within the technology used which can overshadow the values and communicative preferences of indigenous peoples (Ess, 1). These embedded cultural memes are of great concern since they represent the history of cultural hegemony exacted upon indigenous populations that has led to the current state of language attrition. The use of ICT to sustain cultural identity “generates wide-ranging discussions concerning cultural values, modes of representation and teaching, and contrasts between Native and non-Native ideologies” (Moore, 119). The list below presents a sampling of ways that various ICT can negatively impact indigenous values and ways of knowing.

Connectivity (Internet access) on isolated communities
Promotes economic opportunity and access to information, but invites outsider values and creates opportunity for cultural exploitation
Digital archiving on social memory
Memory is stored outside of the body – no longer “indigenous.” Becomes static, not part of a dynamic social process
Videography on oral tradition
Orality no longer hearth-based or ceremonial, but situated in “tech centers” or institutional settings
Global positioning systems (GPS) on resource mapping
Helps to preserve sacred places and community resources, but also creates a virtual de facto “reservation” by setting boundaries around otherwise fluid territories
CyberTracker3 on traditional hunting
Aids in tracking animal and plant resources, but creates a reliance on non-traditional technological devices which require costly infrastructure
Radio broadcasting on language customs
Ties distant communities together, aids in areas ranging from health care to agriculture, but creates language situations that fundamentally change the nature of local communication structure
Computers on education practice
Can “level the playing field” in economics, education, etc., but places emphasis on Western modes of learning which devalue indigenous methods

Successful cultural revitalization efforts share a common approach that can help to assuage community concerns about “computer-mediated colonialism.” This approach involves establishing binding guidelines or a comprehensive ideology that sets the stage for the undeniable changes that the infusion of ICT will bring to the community. The efforts of the Tagish-Tlingit peoples of Canada and the Nyoongar peoples of Western Australia illustrate how a strong language or cultural ideology can create a healthy awareness of potential problems and provide ways to counteract or minimize the potentially harmful cultural effects of adopting ICT.

The Tagish-Tlingit established four main guidelines that “can be considered ideologies in the sense that they provide a coherent agenda for changing the existing social order to achieve language revitalization” (Moore, 133). The language ideology emphasizes community control over the development of ICT language resources by:

(1)recognizing the elders as cultural and linguistic authorities,
(2)training younger community members to document the language,
(3)making use of the potlatch and associated traditions as a prestigious model of language use and cultural representation, and
(4)making all language resources available to the local community in multiple modalities, free of charge (Moore, 124).

These guidelines constitute an act of resistance against the culturally destructive practices and policies of the teachers and leaders of the residential schools who devalued the Native languages when the Tagish-Tlingit Elders were young. The Elders, who form the backbone of the committee that created the ideology, “see themselves turning the tables by reinstating traditional practices” (Moore, 122). In this way, their rejection of Western values constructively negotiates their use of ICT by placing primacy on the cultural needs of the Tagish-Tlingit peoples. For example, although they are using cameras, audio recording devices, and computer technology – with their embedded Western memes – to digitally capture the essence of their culture, the Tagish-Tlingit have chosen to employ young people for this process. Traditionally, young people served as message runners between distant moeities. Thus, as in the past, young people serve as ambassadors, effectively making “elders out of the young people” in accordance with traditional modes of social interaction (Moore, 129).

The Nyoongar peoples of Western Australia developed an e-learning platform for Nyoongar students that is built on a similar set of guidelines. The principles they adopted recognize the students’ capacity to construct their own knowledge and call for authentic learning activities that respond to the students’ cultural and learning needs. Learning environments are student-centered, collaborative and interactive shifting the locus of control away from the teacher (Dyson and Underwood, 73). Although these principles are not unique to the Nyoongar (and may well describe some American learning environments, for example), the importance of these ideas coming from the Nyoongar themselves, as opposed to an outside organization, cannot be overstated. Along with their pedagogical ideology, the Nyoongar project also demonstrates the successful implementation of culture-specific design principles that showcase traditional motifs and use Aboriginal English terms to name various sections of the online component such as “Yarning Place” for the class discussion forum (Dyson and Underwood, 73). Unlike the Tagish-Tlingit program, the Nyoongar are not necessarily acting in direct resistance to Western influence, but their decisions clearly indicate a desire to place operational emphasis on Nyoongar traditional culture – a key factor in that project’s success.

In general, many of the concerns addressed above can be allayed if the indigenous communities being served by revitalization efforts have authority and governance over the management of the project. Often indigenous people have little control over the information presented through projects hosted by government or academic institutions, such as how their community is portrayed on web sites.  Proper governance of these projects “needs to explicitly acknowledge Indigenous people as the beneficiaries of the site rather than the object of discussion, and to recognize collective ownership and collective privacy in determining how information will be accessed, used or interpreted” (Dyson and Underwood, 67). This will ensure that the project reflects the interests of the community and positions the project for long-term success by increasing community-wide by-in of the process. Authority and governance is important because, as Krauss (in Fishman, 56) notes, “You cannot from the outside inculcate into people the will to revive or maintain their languages. This has to come from them, from themselves.”

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“Esdunèna keh kudoge dahkwandēʼ tedètsʼet. Neni dahtsʼadi netʼē dahkwandē tsʼèn keniden. Dahtsʼadi etʼē dahkwandēʼ. Dahkwandēʼ niʼushdèn shį̀. Dahkwandēʼ tsʼèn keniden. Dahkwandēʼ tsʼèn keniden.”

[“To all my children, we are losing our language. You are our future leaders; you must learn our language. It is the root and heart of our culture. I pass you our language. You must learn our language.” Lucy Wren, aged 91, the last remaining fluent speaker of the Tagish language (from the FirstVoices project website at www.firstvoices.ca).]

Among the obstacles indigenous peoples face when implementing technology-based language and culture preservation and revitalization programs – such as remoteness, poverty, access to training, lack of basic infrastructure, low levels of literacy, and the uncertainty of project sustainability (14-16; Khalid et al) – community resistance ranks high. Resistance results from a variety of factors that share a common source, the fear of change and cultural impact. One form of resistance comes in the form of rejecting the Western values embodied in the technology – often as a result of the lack of programatic autonomy and governance. Indigenous communities may also share the concern that the introduction of new technology is antithetical to the restoration of their traditional systems. Another fear is that sacred or protected knowledge will be misappropriated, decontextualized, and exploited by others outside of the community. Indigenous communities and their program partners can work together to reduce these forms of resistance and resolve the issues that create them by acknowledging the validity of such concerns and implementing systemic protocols that address them.

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We know that the UN has created an ICT Task Force and laid out an ambitious 8-part Millennium Development Goals proclamation. We know the history of development (in broad brush strokes) and how the current trends involve the use of ICTs in development programs. What do these programs look like when ICTs are deployed without forethought? How does one distinguish between good and bad ICT deployments? In answer to these questions, let us take a look at some case studies that will serve as cautionary tales and as exemplars.

South Africa has established Learning Centres “intended to empower indigenous peoples by helping them take advantage of the multiple potentials and capacities of ICTs” (Ess, 1). A review of the Learning Centres however shows a steady stream of failure. Why? “[I]n part, because of basic cultural conflicts. Briefly, the Centres reflect their designer’s Western emphasis on individual and silent learning – in contrast with indigenous preferences for learning in collaborative and often noisy, performative ways” (Ess, 1).  Since the technologies and social contexts of the Learning Centres favored the communication style and cultural values of the designers, “these values and preferences clash with those of the indigenous peoples the Centres are intended to serve, with almost total failure as a result” (Ess, 1).

Moving from the particular to the general, consider how the following example of conserving indigenous knowledge is doomed from the outset. According to many theorists, “the prime strategy for conserving indigenous knowledge is ex situ conservation, i.e., isolation, documentation and storage in international, regional and national archives” (Agrawal, 4). This is the least expensive and technically easiest approach. And yet, a basic understanding of the nature of indigenous knowledge should guide us to realize that the attempt to “essentialize, isolate, archive and transfer such knowledge” ex situ is an inappropriate conservation strategy.

Both of these examples show the culture blindness that can occur due both to the Western mindset embedded within the implementation of the technology and the lack of consideration practiced in the development process.  The following examples show the successful attainment of the transmodern ‘third space’ or postcolonial moment.

In the event that the tacit nature of an indigenous practice doesn’t lend itself to recording and storage within a digital archive or database, “information about locations, individuals or organizations that can demonstrate or teach a practice could be used as a pointer to the source of IK” (Sen 377). Instead of forcing the round peg of intuitive practice into the square hole of an ill-suited archival practice, only the metadata is stored for searching, retrieval, and transmission. “What is exchanged is not the knowledge itself but meta-information: Who has the relevant knowledge and how to contact them” (Ranganathan, 7). The actual knowledge transfer would happen in the traditional way, person-to-person, without the interference of development methodologies inconsistent with cultural ways of knowing and doing.

Ess provides another example of successful development practice that shows how the Malaysian government went about introducing Internet access to the Kelabit, a highland people on the island of Borneo:

“A research team – including an anthropologist originally from the Kelabit community – first developed a base-line socio-economic profile of the community in order to establish the context and content of Internet use most suited to the extant community culture and communication preferences (Harris et al, 2001).  This profile – and the subsequent success of the project – demonstrate the importance of structuring ICT content and use to meet the more collaborative and oral orientations of the community” (2).

Conclusion

So, the critics are right: misguided ICT4D implementation that doesn’t take into consideration a wide range of cultural factors and explicitly or implicitly imposes Western processes or structures upon indigenous recipients does constitute a new form of computer-mediated colonialism. And yes, the proponents of ICT4D are right: ICTs, when implemented thoughtfully and respectfully – keeping the needs of the recipients at the fore – can be powerful agents of change in the fight to reduce poverty and improve the lives of marginalized peoples in developing nations. Our friend Hodja – who represents the interstitial spaces where effective practices can be synthesized or co-created? He is right, too.

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