Digital Colonization and Virtual Indigeneity: Indigenous Knowledge and Algorithm Bias

A growing body of research examining the role of technology in indigenous knowledge production and distribution has helped define the new ways that communities are connecting to each other and organizing around the world. At the same time, social justice activist focus in the United States has turned to the […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Archival Aspirations and Anxieties: Contemporary Preservation and Production of the Past in Umbumbulu, KwaZulu-Natal

This paper explores the contemporary preservation and production of the past in Umbumbulu, near Durban in KwaZulu-Natal. It examines the Ulwazi Programme, a web initiative run through the eThekwini Municipality that uses the existing library infrastructure, new digital technologies and municipal residents to create what its advocates term a collaborative, […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Telling our Stories: Aboriginal young people in Victoria and Digital Storytelling

This project worked with Aboriginal youth under the age of 25 – an age group that forms the majority of the Aboriginal population in Victoria and is among the highest users of mobile phones, actively engaging in social media and other online platforms. With the advent of Web 2.0 technologies, Aboriginal […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Empathic Negotiations through Material Culture: Co-designing and Making Digital Exhibits

This article introduces a case study undertaken in the indigenous Penan community of Long Lamai, Upper Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia. In this community, there is concern about the negative image other cultural groups hold of the Penan. This case study explores co-design as a means to invite community members, together with […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Indigenous New Media Symposium

February 21, 2014 | New York City | School of Media Studies at The New School The Indigenous New Media Symposium brings together Native American and First Nation media makers and creative activists to discuss how new media platforms are being used in the indigenous community to educate, organize, entertain, […]

 •   •   •   •   •   • 

Globalization, Negotiating Technology, and Indigeneity in Nepal

This paper explores how indigenous peoples negotiate with their state and mainstream narratives by glocalizing indigenous political and cultural identities through virtual spaces offered by digital technology or information and communication technology (ICT). The first section makes an announcement of its concern about how globalization and indigeneity at some points […]

 •   •   •   •   •   • 

Friend or Foe? Locating ICT Within the South African Governmental Discourse on Indigenous Knowledge Systems

The paper uses grounded theory to analyse the discourse on Indigenous Knowledge Systems within the South African government. Within this discourse, ICT is perceived both as a threat to African identity, through its potential facilitation of homogenisation and a potential ally, through its perceived potential to assist in the recording […]

 •   •   •   •   •   • 

Managing Identities and Diversities in the Age of Internet and Virtual Networks

A Case Study of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin In the current age of the internet and knowledge networking it has become possible for communities to consolidate themselves through virtual networks cutting across geographical borders and reaching out seamlessly to their diasporic identities spread out globally. While […]

 •   •   •   •   • 

Traditional Knowledge and Indigenous Peoples

Traditional knowledge is an important element of the intellectual and cultural heritage of indigenous peoples. It reflects their social and historical identity and significantly contributes to the future well-being and sustainable development of these peoples. In 2007, the L’auravetl’an Information & Education Network of Indigenous Peoples (LIENIP) organized a series […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Technologies of Indigeneity: Indigenous Collective Identity Narratives in Online Communities

This thesis examines contemporary constructions of collective indigenous identity. It specifically focuses on the offline and online interactions among the members of Bibaknets, an online community for indigenous peoples from the highlands of the Cordillera Region, Philippines. The study explores the relational and positional nature of collective indigenous identity as […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

New Media and Self-Determination: Publicly Made and Accessible Video and Remote and Rural First Nation Communities

Abstract This working paper explores the potential for New Media to provide a means for members of remote and rural First Nations communities to challenge problematic mainstream representations of First Nations identity. Video on public access sites such as YouTube and Google Video, as well as on websites that act […]

 •   •   •   •   •   • 

Narrating Aboriginality On-Line: Digital Storytelling, Identity and Healing

Introduction In Taking Back Our Spirits , Jo-Ann Episkenew (2009) writes of the significance of indigenous literature as a “medicine” in healing the wounds of “colonial contagion.” This healing process, according to Episkenew, is articulated through the spoken and written words of Aboriginal writers. These counter-narratives challenge what she terms the master […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Intellectual Property Rights: an Enabling Tool for Development with Identity

This paper deals with a subset of indigenous knowledge systems called ethnobotanical knowledge. It reports some creative ways in which documentation of ethnobotanical knowledge can be carried out without losing community ownership over intellectual property rights. It also presents the general findings of the documentation, current and future uses of […]

 •   •   •   •   • 

Indigenous Cultures and Globalization Wiki

The impact of globalization on indigenous cultures can be viewed as both positive and negative. The growth of globalization has brought new opportunities to people around the world but at the same time has impeded the ability of indigenous peoples to retain their cultural practices and indigenous knowledge. Globalization has […]

 •   •   • 

Challenging Traditions: Sámi Folklore and Internet (Coppélie Cocq’s blog)

Introduction From the website: My name is Coppélie Cocq. I grew up in France (Flanders) and moved to Umeå, Sweden in 1997. I have a PhD in Sámi Studies from Umeå University, and my research interests are Storytelling, Folklore and Minority Studies. I am currently a postdoctoral fellow in digital […]

 •   •   •   •   •   • 

Race and ICT4D: exploring the relationship between technology, development & race

A blog developed by Kui Kihoro Mackay, a student at Royal Holloway University who is undertaking an MSc in Practising Sustainable Development (ICT4D Specialism). The blog’s focus is race and ICT4D. From the blog: “At the moment there is not much out there in terms of research and discussion on […]

 •   •   •   • 

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 […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Coded Stories: weaving bar codes, Mapuche textiles, and digital identities

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 […]

 •   •   •   •   •   • 

Special Issue of the Journal of Material Culture: Digital Subjects, Cultural Objects

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 Issue of the Journal of Material Culture 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. Digital Subjects, […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Digital Identity: The Construction of Virtual Selfhood in the Indigenous Peoples’ Movement

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 globe represented stuck, […]

 •   •   •   • 

The Ulwazi Programme

The Ulwazi Programme is an initiative of the eThekwini Municipal Library to preserve the indigenous knowledge of local communities in the greater Durban area. This innovation, developed and implemented by the Software Applications Section of the Libraries, is based on a bottom-up model through which online indigenous knowledge resources are […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Organization Highlight: Living Cultural Storybases (LCS)

Nurturing the oral heritage of minority cultures in a digital world The following text is from the Living Cultural Storybases website: http://storybases.org/ Misson LCS seeks to nurture the oral heritage of minority cultures by developing respectful methodologies accompanied by appropriate technological solutions. We aim to enable indigenous communities to share and […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Living Cultural Storybases (LCS)

Nurturing the oral heritage of minority cultures in a digital world The following text is from the Living Cultural Storybases website: http://storybases.org/ Misson LCS seeks to nurture the oral heritage of minority cultures by developing respectful methodologies accompanied by appropriate technological solutions. We aim to enable indigenous communities to share and […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Colonization and cultural reclamation as seen through the lens of Octavia E. Butler’s Dawn

A reflection on colonization and cultural reclamation as seen through the lens of Octavia E. Butler’s Dawn Imagine a fixed moment in time, suspended, frozen. It is the moment when a tadpole becomes a frog; that point of transformation at which the doors to the past are locked. The object […]

 •   •   •