Technology-Enhanced Language Revitalization

This is the second edition of our TELR training manual. The changes are primarily seen in the updating of specific technology and the addition of a tutorial on Publisher. These materials are designed for the true computer beginner who is also an indigenous language practitioner, teacher, student or advocate. In […]

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The potential of ICTs in collecting, preserving and disseminating indigenous knowledge in Africa

This paper gives an outline of the importance of African indigenous knowledge. After that it gives the definition of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and indigenous knowledge. It then goes on to highlight examples in which information communication technologies have been used to preserve IK successfully. The paper further list […]

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New Technologies and Contested Ideologies

About the Tagish-Tlingit FirstVoices project – published in the American Indian Quarterly, Winter & Spring 2006, Vol. 30, Nos. 1 & 2. The website discussed in the article is featured below: http://www.firstvoices.ca In December 2004 representatives of the Yukon government and the First People’s Cultural Foundation of British Columbia signed […]

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The Challenges Faced by African Libraries & Information Centres in Documenting & Preserving IK

African libraries and Information centres are faced with a plethora of challenges in the documentation of indigenous knowledge. Among the challenges is the lack of legal frameworks at national and international level to support the library efforts. Financial, human capacity and technology shortages pose a challenge to the documentation of […]

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Communication for Social Change Anthology: Historical and Contemporary Readings

An engine for social change that would improve all our lives has been popping up in different forms for a long time. But now, The Communication for Social Change Anthology looks at an essential ingredient that has usually been left out of the fuel for such an engine. And that […]

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Digitizing Traditional Culture: WIPO Training Program for Indigenous Communities

Indigenous cultures the world round have seen their ritual ceremonies, music, symbols and creative arts imitated, reworked, copied and sold without acknowledgement or authorization, and often without respect for their cultural and religious significance. Many communities feel that enough is enough. They are now actively exploring how best to protect […]

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Empowering the Poor: ICT for Governance & Poverty Reduction – A Study of Rural Development Projects in India

This publication systematically analyzes 18 projects in India that uses information and communications technology (ICT) for the benefit of poor people, and provides recommendations on how ICT can be applied to the massive, widespread and seemingly intractable problems of poverty. The publication also ranks the projects by their relevance, service […]

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Phil Borges: Documenting our endangered cultures

In this Phil Borges keynote, the world traveler and photographer talks about the rapid decline of indigenous cultures and languages. There are over 6,000 languages in the world and roughly 3,000 of those languages are not spoken by the children of those cultures. This means that roughly every two weeks […]

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Community memory and ICT in a developing economy

Abstract The implementation of ICT in Africa pales in comparison with developed economies. Data of the use of landline phones, cellular phones and internet connectivity indicates that the most equipped African countries, of which there are only a handful, are worse off than the poorly connected countries in developed regions […]

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Ethiopic at the End of the 20th Century

Abstract As globalization and modernization come to bear on Ethiopia, cultural and linguistic survival increasing depends on the adaptation of technology to local needs. The pervasiveness of electronic communication technology is forcing societies world wide to face the challenge of cultural preservation with an immediacy never before seen. Societies that […]

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Cultural Differences, Technological Imperialism and Indigenous GIS

Summary Do all people, from all cultures and all languages, think about geographic space and geographic processes in more or less the same way? Or are there significant cross-cultural variations in how different peoples conceptualize and reason about geographic processes, features and places? Dr. David Mark of the State University […]

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Indigenous, ethnic and cultural articulations of new media

This article extends a lineage of research that reveals possibilities by which indigenous and ethnic communities have appropriated media technologies to serve their own cultural, political and social visions. This article focuses on networked and database-driven ‘new’ media and information systems, and the possibilities and potentialities these hold within cultural […]

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Knowledge Translation (KT) for Indigenous Communities: a Policy Making Toolkit

We have put together this kit of information to provide practical assistance to community policy makers and those who assist them (policy analysts, etc.) in development of Knowledge Translation (KT) policy. The specific focus is on health related knowledge translation. The toolkit has been developed for use at the First […]

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Culturally Situated Design Tools: Ethnocomputing from Field Site to Classroom

Abstract Ethnomathematics is the study of mathematical ideas and practices situated in their cultural context. Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDTs) are web-based software applications that allow students to create simulations of cultural arts—Native American beadwork, African American cornrow hairstyles, urban graffiti, and so forth—using these underlying mathematical principles. This article is […]

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Software for Educating Aboriginal Children about Place

In this paper I imagine how a piece of software (TAMI) that is yet to be built might contribute to learning of being in-place by Aboriginal Australian children. I take up an analytic toolkit that has been emerging in science and technology studies since the 1980s, of which perhaps the […]

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The Role of Information Technologies in Indigenous Knowledge Management

Increasingly, communities and organisations around the world are realising the value and significance of Indigenous Knowledge and the importance of preserving it for future generations. Indigenous Knowledge Centres (IKCs) are being established globally, but particularly in Australia, Africa, Latin America and Asia. The capture and preservation of Indigenous Knowledge is […]

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Ara Irititja: Protecting the Past, Accessing the Future – Indigenous Memories in a Digital Age

On October 1, 2003 the Ara Irititja: Protecting the Past, Accessing the Future—Indigenous Memories in a Digital Age touring exhibition began its nearly year and a half in-country tour at the South Australian Museum (SAM) in Adelaide.Ara Irititja’s production began in 1994 as part of the Pitjantjatjara Council’s “Return of […]

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Our original aim was the same as usual: to bring them sustainable development

A two-parter… take a moment to enjoy this sharp and satirical snapshot of development (There You Go! written and illustrated by Oren Ginzburg and published by Survival International in 2006) and then another few minutes to learn about Survival International’s work on behalf of tribal peoples worldwide. To see the […]

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There You Go!

A two-parter… take a moment to enjoy this sharp and satirical snapshot of development (There You Go! written and illustrated by Oren Ginzburg and published by Survival International in 2006) and then another few minutes to learn about Survival International’s work on behalf of tribal peoples worldwide. Click the button […]

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ICTS for Intercultural Dialogue: An Overview of UNESCO’s Indigenous Communication Project

Abstract Using ICTs to preserve and revitalize Indigenous cultures and to promote intercultural dialogue is the aim of UNESCO’s ICT4ID Project. Five pilot projects were conducted in 2004-2005 in Africa and South America to train Indigenous people in ICTs, support production of local content and assist in its distribution. Three […]

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Lokavidya goes virtual? Indigenous knowledge in the Gatesian Age

Abstract This paper attempts to address the issue of virtualizability of lokavidya. Lokavidya has been conceptualized as the vidya (value-laden knowledge) possessed by the farmers, artisans, women and tribal societies the world over and as being inseparable from their world-view and value system. Lokavidya has also been described as inherently […]

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Travelling Through Layers: Inuit Artists Appropriate New Technologies

When the time came a few years ago to find an Inuktitut term for the word “Internet,” Nunavut’s former Official Languages Commissioner, Eva Aariak, chose ikiaqqivik, or “traveling through layers” (Minogue, 2005, n.p.). The word comes from the concept describing what a shaman does when asked to find out about […]

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Indigenous Knowledge & Resource Management in Northern Australia (IKRMNA)

Indigenous Knowledge and Resource Management in Northern Australia (IKRMNA) was a three year 2003-2006 ARC Linkage Project to support and develop Indigenous databases that maintain and enhance the strength of local languages, cultures and environments in Northern Australia. The project was coordinated through the School of Australian Indigenous Knowledge Systems […]

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IKRMNA: Making Collective Memories with Computers

This post contains abstracts and links to a selection of papers written about Indigenous Knowledge and Resource Management in Northern Australia (IKRMNA). From their website: IKRMNA was a three year 2003-2006 ARC Linkage Project to support and develop Indigenous databases that maintain and enhance the strength of local languages, cultures […]

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Indigenous Knowledge Management: Software Tools, Rights Markup Extensions, and the Role of ICTs

This post is a Jane Hunter trifecta. Dr. Hunter is currently a Professorial Research Fellow & Leader of the eResearch Lab at The University of Queensland’s School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering. Software Tools for Indigenous Knowledge Management (2002) Read the paper Rights Markup Extensions for the Protection of […]

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