indigenous media – Philbu's Blog

Paper: Media anthropology & the archives

2023/11/07 philbu No Comments

Budka, P. (2023). Media anthropology and the archives: On exploring and reconstructing sociotechnical life, histories, and biographies. Paper at EASA Media Anthropology Network Workshop: “Theorising Media and Time”, Copenhagen, Denmark: University of Copenhagen, November 9-10.

Screenshot of MyKnet.org records in the Internet Archive.

Abstract

This paper looks into digital archives and how they not only serve as facilities to collect, store, and categorize media content and artifacts, but how they mediate between the past and the present. How archives potentially contribute to the future projecting and envisioning of media as well as related technologies and practices. For that the paper explores the role of archival work in media anthropological research. It builds on material from my project on the Kuh-ke-nah Network (KO-KNET), an organization established by the tribal council Keewaytinook Okimakanak (KO) to connect remote First Nation communities in Canada’s Northwestern Ontario to the internet (e.g., Budka, 2019). I was particularly interested in exploring and reconstructing the sociotechnical life of the platform MyKnet.org (1998-2019), which was set up exclusively for First Nations people to create personal homepages within a cost- and commercial-free space on the web. By tracing the rise and fall of MyKnet.org, this paper adds to the steadily growing body of research into missing and marginalized internet histories (Driscoll & Paloque-Berges, 2017).

Besides considering historical and sociocultural contexts of First Nations’ life, it critically reviews theoretical accounts and conceptualizations of change and continuity that have been developed in an anthropology of media and technology (e.g., Pfaffenberger, 1992; Postill, 2017) as well as in postcolonial technoscience (e.g., Anderson, 2002). During fieldwork many people told me stories about their first MyKnet.org websites in the early 2000s, how they evolved, and what they meant to them. People vividly described how their homepages were designed, structured, and linked to other pages. To deepen my interpretation and understanding of these narratives, I used the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to recover archived versions of these websites whenever possible. Thus, the Wayback Machine became an archaeological tool for my anthropological research into the sociotechnical life and history of MyKnet.org and the digital biographies of its users.

References

Anderson, W. (2002). Introduction: Postcolonial technoscience. Social Studies of Science, 32(5–6), 643–658.

Budka, P. (2019). Indigenous media technologies in “the digital age”: Cultural articulation, digital practices, and sociopolitical concepts. In S. S. Yu & M. D. Matsaganis (Eds.), Ethnic media in the digital age (pp. 162-172). New York: Routledge.

Driscoll, K., & Paloque-Berges, C. (2017). Searching for missing “net histories”. Internet Histories, 1(1–2), 47–59.

Pfaffenberger, B. (1992). Social anthropology of technology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 21, 491–516.

Postill, J. (2017). The diachronic ethnography of media: From social changing to actual social changes. Moment. Journal of Cultural Studies, 4(1), 19–43.

Article: Indigenous media

2022/10/10 philbu No Comments

The Routledge Companion to Media Anthropology

Budka, P. (2022). Indigenous media: Anthropological perspectives and historical notes. In E. Costa, P. G. Lange, N. Haynes & J. Sinanan (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Media Anthropology. New York & London: Routledge.

Abstract

Indigenous people have been appropriating media technologies for decades to communicate within and outside their communities, to resist outside domination and for self-determination. This chapter traces developments in the anthropological study of Indigenous media, particularly since the 1990s when research in this field co-contributed to the widening area of media anthropology.

After reviewing conceptualisations of cultural activism and social change in the context of Indigenous media engagements, it analyses the Indigenization of media by considering locally specific practices of media appropriation, global processes of identity-making and the technological and infrastructural dimension of media projects.

By drawing on ethnographic examples from the anthropological literature and from the author’s fieldwork in Canada, the chapter argues that there is a strong sense of sociopolitical activism and agency in Indigenous people’s collective engagements with media. At the same time, Indigenous people’s media practices are related to mundane necessities of everyday communication, social networking, family bonding or individual self-expression.

This chapter concludes that media technologies have become an important part of Indigeneity, as a global idea and as a relational practice of collective identity formation, which coexists with the sense of belonging to a distinct local Indigenous community.

Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) Headquarter, Winnipeg, MB, Canada. (Photo by Philipp Budka)

Wawatay – Native Communications Society, Sioux Lookout, ON, Canada. (Photo by Philipp Budka)

Article: Indigenous Media Technologies in “The Digital Age”

2019/03/19 philbu No Comments

Introduction
Indigenous engagements with digital media technologies have been analyzed from different angles and by discussing a variety of issues, from technology access and literacy, to language, culture, and politics (e.g., Dyson, Grant, & Hendriks, 2016; Dyson, Hendriks, & Grant, 2007; Landzelius, 2006a). By drawing on a literature review and on an ethnographic case study, I am providing an anthropological perspective on the relationship between indigenous people and digital media technologies that focuses on digital practices related to the mediation of culture and the formation of (cultural) identity. Within this mediation process, cultural elements of the dominant, non-indigenous societies are recombined with elements from indigenous cultures. “Indigenized” media technologies promote thus an open and dynamic understanding of culture in “the digital age.” But when it comes to characterizing and understanding non-Western media phenomena and processes, terms such as “the digital age” or “the network society” have their conceptual weaknesses. These concepts are inherently ethnocentric, that is, Euro-American centered, implying an evolutionary world view that tends to ignore culturally different ascriptions of meaning to digital realities. I am following here Ginsburg (2008), who states that these concepts are rather reinforcing the imaginary of “the other,” existing in “a time not contemporary with our own” (p. 291). Thus, this chapter presents an anthropologically informed approach to the relationship between media technologies, culture, and politics that advocates the significance of non-Western perspectives and realities in conceptualizing and understanding the diversity of digital life.

Paper: Indigenous articulations in the digital age

2018/05/29 philbu No Comments

Budka, P. (2018). Indigenous articulations in the digital age: Reflections on historical developments, activist engagements and mundane practices. Paper at International Communication Association 2018 Pre-Conference “Articulating Voice. The Expressivity and Performativity of Media Practice”, Prague, Czech Republic: Hilton, 24 May. Full Paper (PDF)

The relationship between indigenous people and digital media technologies is ambivalent and enthusiastic at the same time; reflecting individual experiences and expectations as well as collective sociocultural contexts and developments. Considering indigenous people’s colonial history and colonization’s continuing effects on indigenous communities, it is not surprising that many indigenous representatives are particularly concerned about issues of power, control, and ownership related to digital technologies and new ways of knowledge production, circulation, and representation (e.g., Ginsburg, 2008).

There is a strong sense of sociopolitical activism and agency in indigenous people’s collective engagements with digital media technologies which are closely connected to the (re)construction and mediation of cultural identity, cultural articulation, social intervention, and self-determination. At the same time, indigenous people’s digital practices are related to mundane necessities of everyday communication, social networking, family bonding, or self-expression. To understand indigenous articulations in the digital age, the collective and the individual dimension need to be considered.

Screenshot: Idle No More Twitter Account, 2018

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Seminar: Indigenous Media 2018

2018/05/08 philbu No Comments

For the 4th time I am organizing the seminar “Indigenous Media” for the MA Program Visual and Media Anthropology at the Free University Berlin.

In this course, students are introduced to indigenous media technologies by actively discussing in 10 units/sessions different questions, issues and problems:

How do indigenous people produce, distribute and utilize audiovisual media?
How has ethnographic and anthropological film making changed through indigenous media?
What role do politics, power, globalization and (post-)colonialism play in the production, distribution and consumption of indigenous media?
How do indigenous people utilize media to construct and negotiate their individual and collective identities?
How are indigenous cultures and languages represented through media?
How do indigenous people appropriate and (co-)develop digital media technologies?

We start our seminar with the contextualization of indigenous media within an anthropology of media. In the second unit students are introduced to selected debates about the meaning and relevance of (mass) media for indigenous people and their sociocultural life worlds. We then discuss ethnographic film making and visual anthropology in the context of indigenous people’s changing role from “objects” for ethnographic films to partners in (collaborative) media projects. The fourth unit deals with (post-)colonialism and decolonization and their implications for indigenous media. This discussion leads us to the self-controlled production of indigenous media and its relevance for issues such as (self-)representation, appropriation, control and empowerment. Globalization, modernity and related questions of collective indigenous identity construction are the topics of the sixth unit. The following three sessions are closely connected, discussing aspects of identity, community, networking, ownership, activism, empowerment, aesthetics, poetics and popular culture in relation to indigenous media. In the final unit, students learn about the significance of digital technologies and infrastructures for indigenous people.

Through several case studies, students are introduced to the similarities and differences of indigenous media projects throughout the world. These case studies take us to different regions, countries and continents: from Nunavut, Canada and the United States to the Caribbean, Guatemala, Mexico and Brazil, to Nigeria, Myanmar, Australia and Finland. The seminar’s assignments include the preparation of an essay at the end of the seminar and short weekly literature and film reviews/critiques as well as an active contribution to discussions during the online sessions, which are organized with the online conference tool Adobe Connect.

Seminar: Indigenous Media 2017

2017/05/06 philbu No Comments

Seminar “Indigenous Media” for the MA Program in Visual and Media Anthropology at the Free University Berlin.

Course Description

“Indigenous media matters because indigenous people do.”
(Wortham 2013: 218)

Indigenous media can be broadly defined as media and forms of media expression conceptualized and produced by indigenous people. From an anthropological perspective, indigenous media can be understood as cultural product and process that are both closely connected to the construction, expression and transmission of identity. Reflecting thus indigenous people’s history as well as contemporary sociocultural and political situations. By (strategically) inserting their own narratives in the dominant media landscape – may this be accomplished through films, TV and radio programs, or websites – indigenous people also utilize media technologies as means for social change and political transformation. Indigenous media-making practices have thus become part of the “ongoing struggles for Indigenous recognition and self-determination” and can therefore be understood as a form of cultural activism (e.g., Ginsburg 2000: 30).

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Seminar: Indigenous Media 2016

2016/05/04 philbu No Comments

Again, I have the pleasure to teach the Seminar “Indigenous Media” for the MA Program in Visual and Media Anthropology at the Free University Berlin. Find below a brief description of the course.

In the seminar “Indigenous Media” students get an introduction to indigenous media technologies. In ten seminar units selected questions, issues, and problems are discussed: How do indigenous people produce, distribute, and utilize audiovisual media? How has ethnographic and anthropological film making changed? What role do politics, power, globalization, and (post-)colonialism play in the production and use of indigenous media? How do indigenous people utilize media to construct and negotiate their individual and collective identities? How are indigenous cultures and languages represented through media? And how do indigenous people appropriate and (co-)develop digital technologies in times of increasing globalization?

We start with the contextualization of indigenous media within the framework of an anthropology of media. In the second unit students are introduced to selected debates about the meaning and relevance of (mass) media for indigenous people and their culture. We then discuss ethnographic film making and visual anthropology in the context of indigenous people’s changing role from “objects” for ethnographic films to partners in media projects. The fourth unit deals with the phenomena of (post-)colonialism and decolonization and their implications for indigenous media. This discussion leads us to the self-controlled production of indigenous media and its relevance for issues such as (self-)representation, appropriation, control, and empowerment. Globalization, modernity, and related questions of collective indigenous identity construction – “indigeneity” – are the topics of the next unit. The following three sessions are closely connected and discuss aspects of identity, community, networking, ownership, activism, empowerment, aesthetics, poetics, and popular culture in relation to indigenous media. In the final unit students learn about the importance of digital technologies and infrastructures for indigenous people, their activist projects, and networking initiatives.

Through several case studies students are introduced to the similarities and differences of indigenous media projects throughout the world. These case studies take us to different regions, countries, and continents: from Nunavut, Canada, and the US to the Caribbean, Guatemala, Mexico, and Brazil, to Nigeria, Myanmar, Australia and Finland. The seminar’s assignments include the reading of selected articles, the watching of films and videos, and the discussion of these in small essays. The online conference tool Adobe Connect is used to present and discuss aspects of texts, films, and essays.

Paper: Indigenous audio-visual media production and broadcasting – Canadian Examples

2015/09/15 philbu No Comments

Budka, P. 2015. Indigenous audio-visual media production and broadcasting – Canadian Examples. Paper at “Eleventh Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies”, Vienna, Austria: University of Vienna, September 7-11.

Introduction

This is a short position paper that sets out to briefly discuss how indigenous audio-visual media production and broadcasting initiatives haven been developed and maintained in Canada. I am concentrating on television which still is the world’s dominant audio-visual communication medium. What are the specifics of indigenous media (production) and related practices and processes? And what does the future hold for indigenous media projects? Due to limited time at hand, I am only able to open this field of research by presenting two case studies: the national Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) (e.g., Hafsteinsson 2013, Roth 2005) and Wawatay (e.g., Budka 2009, Minore & Hill 1990), a regional communication society in Northern Ontario.

Text (PDF)

Concept map: Post-colonial technoscience

2015/05/28 philbu No Comments

This map visualizes the concept of “post-colonial technoscience” discussed by Smith, L. C. 2010. Locating post-colonial technoscience: through the lens of indigenous video. History and Technology: An International Journal, 26(3): 251-280. It was done by using the free CMap Tools (click to enlarge).

Review: Unmasking deep democracy: An anthropology of indigenous media in Canada

2015/05/26 philbu No Comments

Budka, P. 2015. Review of Unmasking deep democracy: An anthropology of indigenous media in Canada, by S. B. Hafsteinsson. Aarhus: Intervention Press, 2013. Social Anthropology, 23/2: 240-242.

In the book’s introduction Sigurjon Baldur Hafsteinsson declares that the anthropological study which resulted in Unmasking Deep Democracy will, on the one hand, challenge the anthropology of visual communication and, on the other hand, contribute to the sub-discipline’s arguments. The anthropology of visual communication, like the anthropology of media, focuses in particular on the relational aspects and characteristics of (visual) media, such as television. This volume is about indigenous television in the Canadian context. By analysing communicative and journalistic practices of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) it aims for gaining an insight into the sociocultural agency of indigeneity and its (media) politics.

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Seminar: Indigenous Media 2015

2015/05/12 philbu No Comments

Seminar “Indigenous Media” by Philipp Budka
MA Program in Visual & Media Anthropology,
Freie Universität Berlin

Course Description

In this course students get an introduction to indigenous media technologies. In ten seminar units selected questions, issues, and problems are discussed: How do indigenous people produce, distribute, and utilize audiovisual media? How has ethnographic and anthropological film making changed? What role do politics, power, globalization, and (post-)colonialism play in the production and use of indigenous media? How do indigenous people utilize media to construct and negotiate their individual and collective identities? How are indigenous cultures and languages represented through media? And how do indigenous people appropriate and (co-)develop digital technologies in times of increasing globalization?

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Paper: Indigenous futures and digital infrastructures

2014/08/05 philbu No Comments

Budka, P. 2014. Indigenous futures and digital infrastructures: How First Nation communities connect themselves in Northwestern Ontario. Paper at “13th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA)”, Tallinn, Estonia: Tallinn University, 31 July – 3 August.

Introduction

“Now […] if the Aboriginal People could […], retain their tradition, take the technology and go that way in the future. That would be good.”
(Community Development Coordinator and Educational Director, Bearskin Lake First Nation, 2007)

For my first field trip to Northwestern Ontario in 2006, I decided to take the train from Toronto to Sioux Lookout instead of flying. This ride with “the Canadian”, which connects Toronto and Vancouver, took me about 26 hours and demonstrated very vividly the vastness of Ontario. At some point, I could not believe that I have been spending more than an entire day on a train without even leaving the province. But finally I arrived at Sioux Lookout, Northwestern Ontario’s transportation hub, where I would be working with the Keewaytinook Okimakanak Kuhkenah Network (KO-KNET), one of the world’s leading indigenous internet organization.

After my first day at the office, KO-KNET’s coordinator told me that he wants to show me something. So we jumped in his car and drove to the outskirts of the town where he stopped in front of a big satellite dish. Only through this dish, he explained, the remote First Nation communities in the North can be connected to the internet. I was pretty impressed, but had no concrete idea how this really works. So while the satellite dish was physically visible to me, the underlying infrastructure was not. During my stay, I learned more about the technical aspects of internet networks and connectivity, about hubs, switches and cables, and about towers and loops. And I learned that internet via satellite might look impressive, but is actually the last resort and the most expensive way to establish internet connectivity. I also began to realize how important organizational partnerships and collaborative projects are and what important role social relationships across institutional boundaries play. In short: I learned about the infrastructure which is actually necessary to finance, provide and maintain internet access and use. Infrastructure, KO-KNET’s coordinator told me “really defines what you can do and what you can’t do” (KO-KNET coordinator 2007). And this has fundamental consequences for the futures of the region’s indigenous people.

Within this paper I am going to discuss digital infrastructures and technologies in the geographical and sociocultural contexts of indigenous Northwestern Ontario. By introducing the case of KO-KNET I analyse (1) how internet infrastructures act as facilitators of social relationships and (2) how First Nations people actively make their (digital) futures by taking control over the creation, distribution and uses of information and communication technologies (ICT), such as broadband internet. This study is part of a digital media anthropology project that was conducted for five years, including ethnographic fieldwork in Northwestern Ontario and in online environments.

In media and visual anthropology, anthropologists are, among other things of course, interested in how indigenous, disfranchised and marginalized people have started to talk back to structures of power that neglect their political, cultural and economic needs and interests by producing and distributing their own media technologies (e.g., Ginsburg 1991, 2002b, Michaels 1994, Prins 2002, Turner 1992, 2002). To “underscore the sense of both political agency and cultural intervention that people bring to these efforts”, Faye Ginsburg (2002a: 8, 1997) refers to these media practices as “cultural activism”. “Indigenized” media technologies are providing indigenous people with possibilities to make their voices heard, to network and connect, to distribute information, to revitalize culture and language, and to become politically engaged and active (Ginsburg 2002a, 2002b). Particularly digital media technologies offer a lot of these possibilities to marginalized people (e.g., Landzelius 2006a).

Text (PDF)

Vortrag: Indigene Medientechnologien

2012/04/24 philbu No Comments

Gastvortrag im Rahmen der Vorlesung “Einführung in die Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie” (Sommersemester 2012, Leitung: Elke Mader): “Indigene Medientechnologien – Produktion & Anwendungspraktiken aus medienanthropologischer Perspektive“: Teil 1 / Teil 2 (PDF)

Aus dem Inhalt:

Medientechnologien aus kultur- und sozialanthropologischer & ethnographischer Perspektive
Indigene Medien:
Indigene?
Indigene IKT: „outreach“ Praktiken z.B. EZLN in Mexiko, „inreach“ Praktiken: z.B. KO-NET in Kanada
Indigene Medientechnologieproduktion: Beispiel „Internet für First Nations in Kanada“
Indigene Medienanwendungspraktiken: Beispiel „MyKnet.org: Social Networking für First Nations in Kanada“ – Identitätskonstruktion, Vergemeinschaftungsformen, ethnographische Felderforschung

International Day of the World’s Indigenous People 2010

2010/08/09 philbu No Comments

On 9th of August the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People is celebrated at UN Headquarters in New York and around the world. The theme of this year’s Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is indigenous film makers. Thus four selected short films are screened:

Ivan and Ivan Directed by Philipp Abryutin (Chucki)

Curte-Nillas Directed by Per-Josef Idivuoma (Sámi)

Taino Indians Counted Out of Existence Directed by Alex Zacarias (Taíno)

Sikumi (On the ice) Directed by Andrew Okpeaha MacLean (Inupiaq)

More info about film makers add new dimension on Day of World’s Indigenous People

What is the history of this special day for the world’s more than 300 million indigenous people? From the website of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues:

“In 1994, the General Assembly decided that the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People shall be observed on 9 August every year during the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People (Resolution 49/214 of 23 December). The date marks the day of the first meeting, in 1982, of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations of the Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.

The UN General Assembly had proclaimed 1993 the International Year of the World’s Indigenous People, and the same year, the Assembly proclaimed the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People, starting on 10 December 1994 (Resolution 48/163). The goal of the First Decade was to strengthen international cooperation for solving problems faced by indigenous people in such areas as human rights, the environment, development, education and health.

In 2004, the UN General Assembly proclaimed a Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples through Resolution 59/174. The goal of the Second Decade is to further the “strengthening of international cooperation for the solution of problems faced by indigenous people in such areas as culture, education, health, human rights, the environment, and social and economic development, by means of action-oriented programs and specific projects, increase technical assistance, and relevant standard-setting activities”.”

more at: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/news_internationalday2010.html

Special Issue: CI & Indigenous Communities in Canada—The K-Net Experience

2010/01/12 philbu No Comments

The Journal of Community Informatics Special Issue: CI & Indigenous Communities in Canada – The K-Net (Keewaytinook Okimakanak’s Kuhkenah Network) Experience

Table of Contents
http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/issue/view/27

Editorial

The K-Net Experience: Thematic Introduction to the Special Issue
Brian Beaton, Susan O’Donnell, Adam Fiser, Brian Walmark

K-Net, Community Informatics and Service Delivery: An Evolving Paradigm
Michael Gurstein

Articles

MyKnet.org: How Northern Ontario’s First Nation Communities Made Themselves At Home On The World Wide Web
Philipp Budka, Brandi Bell, Adam Fiser

How K-Net and Atlantic Canada’s First Nation Help Desk are Using Videoconferencing for Community Development
Mary Milliken, Susan O’Donnell, Elizabeth Gorman

Out from the Edges: Multi-site Videoconferencing as a Public Sphere in First Nations
Fenwick McKelvey, Susan O’Donnell

Representation and Participation of First Nations Women in Online Videos
Sonja Perley

Implementation of Information and Communication Technology in Aboriginal Communities: A Social Capital Perspective
Javier Mignone, Heather Henley

Case Studies

Managing Changes in First Nations’ Health Care Needs: Is Telehealth the Answer?
Josée Gabrielle Lavoie, Donna Williams

Notes from the field

In Search of Community Champions: Researching the Outcomes of K-Net’s Youth Information and Communications Technology Training Initiative
Kristy Tomkinson

A Community Informatics Model for e-Services in First Nations Communities: The K-Net Approach to Water Treatment in Northern Ontario
Michael Gurstein, Brian Beaton, Kevin Sherlock

Reports

Enabling and Accelerating First Nations Telehealth Development in Canada
Valerie Gideon, Eugene Nicholas, John Rowlandson, Florence Woolner

ON-LINE RESOURCES about Keewaytinook Okimakanak, the Kuhkenah Network (K-Net) and Associated Broadband Applications
Brian Beaton

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