A model for community participation in African libraries to preserve Indigenous Knowledge

Before you begin reading the essay, you may wish to listen to Betsie Greyling talk about the Ulwazi Programme in this video: Abstract Africa and African libraries and information centres are poorly equipped to make a meaningful contribution to the current global digital knowledge economy. The lack of management systems […]

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Discourse, ‘Development’ & the ‘Digital Divide’: ICT & the World Bank

Abstract Information and communication technology(ies) (ICT) is tipped to play an increasingly enabling role in the inclusion and exclusion of groups from participation in the discourse of ‘development’, with material consequences. In affecting how ‘development’ is framed, discussed and practised, the conception and use of such technologies itself thus becomes […]

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ETEC 521: Indigeneity, Technology and Education

One of my guilty pleasures is reading the class blog for ETEC 521: Indigeneity, Technology and Education, a course taught at the University of British Columbia in their Master of Educational Technology program. Here’s a bit about the blog (from the About page): “These weblogs provide information on the collective […]

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Building Indigenous social capital in an online world

Abstract This paper examines the nexus between social relations of mutual benefit, information communication technology (ICT) access and social inclusion. More specifically, a case study methodology is used to examine the role of ICT in facilitating the social capital of Indigenous communities. A remote Indigenous community in the Northern Territory […]

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HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

The world didn’t end on May 21st. Don’t be sad. There’s a cool new journal to check out… From their website: HAU, Journal of Ethnographic Theory, is an international peer-reviewed, open-access online journal which aims to situate ethnography as the prime heuristic of anthropology, and return it to the forefront […]

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ViTu: a system to help the Mexican people to preserve and celebrate their culture

This paper (excerpted below) by Mónica Isabel González Arribas, Emilio Sánchez Sánchez, and Edgar de los Santos Ramírez was presented at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2011) in Vancouver, BC. Abstract ViTu is the entire development of a system focused on appreciating and highlighting […]

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Re-framing HCI through local and indigenous perspectives

This post provides information about “Re-framing HCI through local and indigenous perspectives,” one of several workshops that will be held at this year’s Interact2011 Conference on Human-Computer Interaction in Lisbon, Portugal. Interact2011 Workshop on Indigenous HCI Monday, 5 September 2011 Workshop organizers Jose Abdelnour-Nocera, University of West London Masaaki Kurosu, […]

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Time Machine 1997: The Internet and Indigenous Groups

Fourteen years ago, Cultural Survival Quarterly published an issue focused on the Internet and Indigenous groups. The pieces are introduced below with links to the articles in full. It is interesting to see how many of the concerns and issues explored still persist. If you haven’t heard of Cultural Survival, […]

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Design, Development and Research 2011

Inaugural Conference on Design, Development and Research 2011 Bellville, Cape Town September 23, 2011 – September 27, 2011 Design is integral to the IT discipline, e.g. it is an important component of the software development process. There is also much activity in ICT4D; health & community informatics; business; and other […]

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