Obama's commitment to Native Americans

Remember what you promised Mr. President:

"Indigenous Peoples Knowledge Society: Transformations and Challenges"

KCTOS-Conference:
Knowledge, Creativity and Transformations of Societies

Report of and Introduction to the Section:
"Indigenous Peoples Knowledge Society:
Transformations and Challenges"

Philipp Budka
Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna
Vienna, Austria
E-Mai: ph.budka@philbu.net

Adam Fiser
Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada
E-Mail: adam.fiser@gmail.com

This introductory text and a collection of papers, which were presented at the workshop in December 2007, will be accessible online in the 17th issue of TRANS: Internet Journal for Cultural Studies.

Of the more than 300 million Indigenous People recognized by the United Nations, a growing minority is actively shaping indigenous visions of a knowledge-based society (e.g. UNHCHR 2001, 1997). These visions are not simply indigenous responses to global mainstream debates over post-industrial development or techno-scientific culture, etc. More importantly, they articulate the actual deployment of new media and information communications technologies (ICTs) by indigenous communities to forward their own policies and practices. They frame how indigenous communities are mobilizing over the internet and on the web to communicate their lived experiences and extend their local networks to global audiences, including and most importantly, a global indigenous audience.

For academics in the field, Indigenous Peoples are opening up spaces of inquiry beyond the digital divide by actively co-creating online communities and transforming their cultural experience through ICTs. Questions about resources, knowledge, power, and access continue to be important, but they have become more complicated by issues of networking and social life, virtual reproduction, and information policy.

Knowledge production within the knowledge society is not only closely related to new forms of communication and technologies, it is also the basic principle of research and academic work. Research with Indigenous Peoples has been changing dramatically over the last forty years, particularly because more and more members of indigenous communities have become actively involved in shaping research policy and undertaking research projects. There is also a heightened sensitivity that research with Indigenous People and communities can be a conflict-ridden endeavour, as Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2005: 2), a Māori researcher, notes when she identifies research as “... a significant site of struggle between the interests and ways of knowing of the West and the interests and ways of resisting of the Other”. The Other in her example, and in our section, represents the position that Indigenous Peoples take as marginal forces within the mainstream currents of the global knowledge society.

In the history of contact between Europeans and Indigenous Peoples, knowledge and the production of knowledge rapidly became commodities to be exploited by the European colonizers. Only the recent global decolonization movement of Indigenous Peoples allowed for the creation of an indigenous research agenda. According to Smith (2005: 115-118) this global indigenous research agenda consists of four main “conditions and states of being through which indigenous communities are moving”: survival, recovery, development, and finally self-determination. The ultimate goal of the indigenous research agenda is self-determination, which not only becomes a political goal, but also a goal of social justice (Smith 2005: 116).

Smith (2005: 142-162) continues her inquiries into (social) research and knowledge production within the indigenous context by identifying several potential indigenous research projects, of which some nicely resonate with the papers and presentations discussed within our section:

• Claiming: making claims about the rights and dues of Indigenous Peoples (Muhamad-Brandner, O’Connor, Guitérrez Vega)
• Celebrating Survival: celebrate successfully retained cultural and spiritual values and authenticity of Indigenous Peoples (Greyling, Chester & Neelameghan)
• Connecting: relate Indigenous People to other people and the environment (Lomosits & McCaslin, Menezs de Souza & Andreotti, O’Connor)
• Representing: representation as political concept and as voice and expression of Indigenous Peoples (Chester & Neelameghan, Greyling)
• Reframing: taking control over the ways indigenous issues are discussed and handled (Lomosits & McCaslin, Muhamad-Brandner, Guitérrez Vega)
• Networking: building and disseminating knowledge through networks (Neelameghan & Chester, Menezes de Souza & Andreotti)
• Sharing: sharing knowledge as a collective benefit and a form of resistance, which becomes a responsibility of research with Indigenous Peoples (O’Connor, Menezes de Souza & Andreotti)

Smith (2005) concludes that Indigenous Peoples have their own research needs and priorities, which can but need not agree with the interests of non-indigenous researchers.

Guided by the insightful structure of Smith’s indigenous research program, the papers collected in our conference section address a variety of new social, political, and cultural forms of indigeneity (The concept of “indigeneity” refers in this context to the global construction of indigenous identity, often facilitated through new ICTs (Forte 2006).) Each paper makes reference to one or more of four broadly thematic questions posed by the conference section chairs:

• How can social sciences describe and explain local indigenous knowledge production in a potentially global knowledge system?
• How do indigenous communities integrate new media practices and ICTs into processes of local media production and networking to participate in socio-cultural life, political movements, economic development, healthcare, education, and so forth?
• How might indigenous communities’ uses of new media and ICTs reflect challenges for diversity, conflict, global ethics, pluralism, gender, youth and heritage?
• What best practices have indigenous organizations developed around the inter-linkages of knowledge production, new media, ICTs, and local/global community networks?

In her paper, Catharina Muhamad-Brandner discusses a Māori decolonization and renaissance movement and the effects it has had on New Zealand’s online identity. Her paper resonates particularly with the second and third thematic questions pertaining to new media practices and socio-cultural politics. In it Muhamad-Brandner describes how new second-level internet domains that refer to the Māori peoples have been introduced and explains how these new media practices positively contribute to the continuing indigenization of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s cyberspace. She concludes that Aotearoa’s Indigenous Peoples have taken significant steps to reclaim and represent their traditional “territory” through the world wide web.

Greg Chester and A. Neelameghan compare in their paper the ways major indigenous stories and events are covered by local mainstream news media in the USA versus online. With an eye on the second and third thematic questions Chester and Neelameghan describe situations where indigenous populations that made up significant percentages of rural American communities were underrepresented by local non-indigenous news media outlets offline. By comparison they found that specialized news media on the internet provided more local information about events relevant to the indigenous populations of those communities. Responding to the fourth thematic question Chester and Neelameghan conclude that more open communication systems such as those found on the web are needed to raise awareness for indigenous issues among no-indigenous media producers and consumers.

In her paper, Betsie Greyling introduces a virtual library model for rural communities in South Africa. Responding to the first and second thematic questions, she describes a way to make indigenous knowledge both globally and locally accessible over the web. Drawing from her experience implementing the project through an action research project, Greyling describes how digital literacy skills were transferred to community members through project based learning to help them carry on with the preservation of their local indigenous knowledge and the creation of local media contents to keep their virtual library current. Greyling concludes that through this model the whole community is integrated in ongoing processes of creating and managing knowledge that can outlive the project development phase.

A. Neelameghan and Greg Chester discuss in their second paper another device for empowering indigenous communities through new media technologies. Responding to the second and third thematic questions they describe how mobile and wireless communication is increasingly used in rural India to produce and disseminate indigenous knowledge about local environmental conditions. They conclude that the knowledge networks produced through cell phone use can benefit indigenous communities locally, while augmenting local benefits by connecting local knowledge and action with governmental, non-governmental and international organizations.

Although not featured in the collection of papers Lynn Mario Menezes de Souza and Vanessa Andreotti introduced a literacy tool to the conference section that encourages learners to appreciate a pluralistic knowledge society, one inclusive of Indigenous Peoples. In response to the fourth thematic question Menezes de Souza and Andreotti concluded that educators must be challenged to reflect upon their ethnocentrism when dealing with indigenous and multi-cultural issues in the classroom.

In his paper, Kevin O’Connor describes how people can learn from places by connecting learning, knowledge production and dissemination to local places with the support of ICTs. In response to the first, second and fourth thematic questions he critically discusses three place-based education programs in Northern Canada, which aim to promote a holistic form of education that values place, nature, and the indigenous knowledge about them. O’Connor concludes that ICTs have the potential to support educators and students to develop new perspectives on cultural events and objects, to get students together, and to share knowledge about environmental and place-based issues.

In response to the third and fourth thematic questions Helga Lomosits and Wanda McCaslin introduce in their paper a program on indigenous diplomacy and young international professionals that bridges the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous students concerned with justice and legal issues within the global knowledge society. Lomosits and McCaslin conclude that through the program young indigenous peoples have the chance to exchange ideas, learn about other cultures and regions and reframe their identities and experiences as young indigenous persons.

Finally, in response to the second and third thematic questions Pablo Gutiérrez Vega deals with the issue of “cartographic gaps”, the differences between indigenous and non-indigenous ways of tracing and mapping land. Guittérrez Vega argues that ICTs, such as geographical information systems (GIS) have the potential to support Indigenous Peoples in their self-demarcation of indigenous territories. Yet, drawing from his activist fieldwork in Venezuela, Vega concludes that forms of ICT enabled indigenous self-demarcation face real challenges concerning local community members’ access to and control over the technologies and resulting data.

Questions about what happens to Indigenous Peoples within a global knowledge society – however one wants to define this societal construct – or about how non-indigenous people experience action and solidarity with Indigenous People remain open for debate, as Adam Fiser and Veronica Alfaro remarked in the final discussion of this conference section. They reminded us that it is important not to forget that only few members of indigenous communities actually have access and the means to control new media technologies independently of the dominant mainstream societies in their regions. Yet what seems clear and exciting is that the knowledge society, with all its new ICTs and ways to locally produce and globally disseminate knowledge, provides new and positive opportunities for Indigenous Peoples to continue resisting the dominant currents of mainstream global society.

References

Forte, Maximilian C. (2006): Amerindian@Caribbean: Internet indigeneity in the electronic generation of Carib and Taino identities. In Landzelius, Kyra (Ed.), Native on the Net: Indigenous and Diasporic Peoples in the Virtual Age (pp. 132-151). London and New York: Routledge.

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai (2005): Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London & New York: Zed Books. Eight Impression.

UNHCHR (2001): United Nations Guide for Indigenous Peoples. Geneva: United Nations. Online: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/racism/00-indigenousguide.html

UNHCHR (1997): Fact Sheet No. 9 (Rev.1), The Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Geneva: United Nations.

Report on the CRASSH Workshop “Subversion, Conversion, Development"

Report
CRASSH Workshop “Subversion, Conversion, Development:
Public Interests in Technologies”
Cambridge, 24-26 April

prepared by Philipp Budka
(University of Vienna)

From the workshop’s abstract:
As part of the “New forms of knowledge for the 21st Century” research agenda at Cambridge University, the workshop will explore why designers and developers of new technologies should be interested in producing objects that users can modify, redeploy or redevelop. This exploration demands an examination of presuppositions that underpin the knowledge practices associated with the various productions of information communication technologies (ICT). A central question is that of diversity: diversity of use, of purpose, and of value(s). Does diversity matter, in the production and use of ICT, and if so, why?

The report on the workshop can be accessed as PDF document:
budka_CRASSHreport.pdf

Links:
http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/71/
http://vectors.usc.edu/thoughtmesh/publish/12.php

Austrian Studies in Social Anthropology - Sonderband zu Medien und Film

Ein Sonderband zu Medien und Film für das Online-Journal Austrian Studies in Social Anthropology, der aus einem Workshop bei den 3. Tagen der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie am Institut für Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie der Universität Wien resultiert, ist fertig gestellt und kann online bezogen werden.

Aus der Einleitung:

"In den letzten Jahren unterzog sich die Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie einem großen Wandel, der auch eine Reihe neuer Themen und Forschungsfelder mit sich brachte. Zu diesen neueren Forschungsrichtungen zählen auch die Anthropologie der Medien und die Anthropologie des Films. Um einen Einblick in die vielfältigen Thematiken dieser beiden Forschungsfelder der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie zu geben, fand im Rahmen der 3. Tage der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie 2007 erstmals ein eigener Workshop mit dem Titel „Medien und Film“ statt. In zehn interessanten Beiträgen stellten die ReferentInnen aktuelle Forschungsfelder der Anthropologie der Medien und des Films vor. Eine Auswahl möchten wir in dieser Sondernummer der ASSA vorstellen."

Aus dem Inhaltsverzeichnis:

Artikel 2-7: Workshop "Medien und Film", Claudia Trupp und Philipp Budka (Hg.)
Artikel 2:
Claudia Trupp und Philipp Budka: Einleitung
Artikel 3:
Martha-Cecilia Dietrich Ortega: Indigene Repräsentation im „neuen“ venezolanischen Fernsehen
Artikel 4:
Georg Schön: Soziale Bewegungen und (Gegen-)Öffentlichkeiten in Mexiko
Artikel 5:
Sabine Karrer: Bittersüße Schokolade – Die Geschichte eines Widerstandes?
Artikel 6:
Philipp Budka: How “real life” issues affect the social life of online networked communities
Artikel 7:
Katrin Julia Brezansky: ANANCY´S WEB. Über Cyberspaces und Cyberscapes im Kontext einer universellen Rastafari-Philosophie

Canadian government apologies to residential schools' survivors

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologies to Aboriginal students and survivors of residential schools:

"Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to offer an apology to former students of Indian residential schools. The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history.
In the 1870's, the federal government, partly in order to meet its obligation to educate aboriginal children, began to play a role in the development and administration of these schools.
Two primary objectives of the residential schools system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture.
(...)"

from CBC News.

Video from Harper's Office:

More Info at: http://media.knet.ca/node/4212

Community Informatics (CI) in Vienna

Michael Gurstein held a lecture yesterday about "what is community informatics and why does it matter?" at the Austrian Computer Society in Vienna.

Gurstein states that one of the important aspects of CI is to bring researchers, practitioners, and policy makers together to work within a processual structure.

CI aims to solve real live problems of communities by integrating information and communication technologies (ICT) in different community processes. Thus, the community becomes the “user” of ICT and not the individual. This bottom-up approach should ideally lead to the empowerment of the community through ICT.

In contrary to the concept of the “digital divide”, CI is about “effective use of ICT” and not about access to ICT. Within the context of CI, ICT is to enable people to e.g. decentralize institutions or distribute local knowledge. A good example of such a decentralized institution is the Keewaytinook Internet High School (KIHS) of the KO Tribal Council in Northwestern Ontario, which enables First Nations’ students to stay in their remote communities while attending school.

Jana Herwig wrote a nice report in German about Gurstein’s lecture and the follow-up discussion for her blog.

Michael Gurstein in Vienna

One of the founders of community informatics, Michael Gurstein, visits Vienna to introduce this new disciplin to an audience at the Austrian Computer Society. The event is co-organized by the Graduate Students' Centre of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Vienna.

frome the Wikipedia:

Community informatics (CI) refers to an emerging set of principles and practices concerned with the use of information and communication technology (ICT) for the personal, social, cultural or economic development of and within communities. CI as an academic discipline (and as a practice) is often located within Information Systems presented however, in conjunction with community development and other social academic and practice areas. It can be considered as a cross or interdisciplinary approach utilising ICTs for different forms of community action.
(...)

for more information see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_informatics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gurstein
http://www.ciresearch.net
http://ci-journal.net
http://www.communityinformatics.net

Steve Cisler passed away

Steve Cisler, internet activist and librarian passed away this month. He was a very active guy, co-editing and co-writing, e.g., one of the first publications about indigenous groups and the internet in 1998 (Cultural Survival, 21.4). Unfortunately, I met him only once at the Incommunicado Conference in Amsterdam in 2005. (Steve also wrote a nice report on this event.)

Some of his friends and colleagues collected and posted their thoughts and memories about Steve:

Steve Cisler - first Internet librarian
Steve Cisler is gone
Steve Cisler RIP
Steve Cisler Passes

Pelican Falls First Nation High School

Auf dem Gebiet der Lac Seul First Nation befindet sich die Pelican Falls First Nation High School, die ausschließlich für Schüler aus den indigenen Gemeinschaften der Nishnawbe Aski errichtet wurde. Administrativ und organisatorisch ist die Schule somit dem Northern Nishnawbe Education Council unterstellt.

Neben Fächern wie Englisch oder Mathematik werden auch Kurse angeboten, die speziell für die First Nation SchülerInnen entwickelt wurden, wie Sprachunterrricht zum Erlernen der indigenen Sprachen (Ojibwe, Ojicree und Cree) oder Werkzeugunterricht zum Erstellen von traditionellen Werkzeugen und Produkten, wie Kanus oder Tierfallen. So soll indigene Kultur und Wissen auch im institutionellen Rahmen einer Schule weitergeben werden.

Neben der Schule gibt es in Pelican Falls auch Unterkünfte in denen die Kinder in kleinen Gruppen untergebracht sind. Jedes dieser Häuser wird von speziell geschulten SozialarbeiterInnen betreut, die den Schülern helfen sollen sich in der ungewohnten Umgebung zurecht zu finden und wohl zu fühlen.

Wichtige Bestandteile dieser Unterkünfte sind Computerarbeitsplätze, die vor allem genutzt werden um mit Freunden und Familie in den Heimatgemeinschaften in Kontakt zu bleiben. Das von K-Net angebotene Homepage-Hostingservice MyKnet.org spielt dabei eine ganz entscheidende Rolle.

Lac Seul First Nation

Lac Seul First Nation (Obishikokaang) liegt etwa 40 km nordwestlich von Sioux Lookout und besteht aus den drei Gemeinschaften/Siedlungen Frenchman's Head, Kejick Bay und Whitefish Bay. Lac Seul ist das älteste Reservat im Sioux Lookout District und gehört der Independent First Nations Alliance an.

Während im Sommer Kejick Bay ausschließlich über den See - den Lac Seul - mit Booten zu erreichen ist, wird im Winter der zugefrorene See als Straße verwendet. Auch die kleinste Gemeinschaft - Whitefish Bay - ist im Winter wesentlich einfacher und schneller zu erreichen.

Bis 1929 bildeten Kejick Bay und Whitefish Bay eine gemeinsame Siedlung am Festland. Durch die Überflutung großer Teile des Festlands durch "Ontario Hydro", einen regionalen Stromerzeuger, wurde Kejick Bay zu einer Insel und viele Familien verließen die Siedlung und das Reservat. Heute leben etwa zwei Drittel der Mitglieder der Lac Seul First Nation nicht mehr im Reservat sondern beispielsweise in den Städten Red Lake und Sioux Lookout.

In Kejick Bay befindet sich im Gebäude der ehemaligen Band Office das sogenannte "Access Center", das Mitgliedern der Gemeinde Computer und Internet zur Verfügung stellt, etwa um mit Freunden und Verwandten in anderen Gemeinschaften und Regionen in Kontakt zu bleiben. Die Räumlichkeiten werden aber ebenso für Workshops und Schulungen verwendet.