philbu's blog

“An anthropology of the internet” by Keith Hart

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:41:00 +0000

Is an anthropology of the internet possible? If so, what would it look like? I will attempt a provisional answer here, building on my book about the consequences of the digital revolution for the forms of money and exchange. People, machines and money matter in this world, in that order. Most intellectuals know very little about any of them, being preoccupied with their own production of cultural ideas. Anthropologists have made some progress towards understanding people, but they are often in denial when it comes to the other two; and their methods for studying people have been trapped for too long in the 20th-century paradigm of fieldwork-based ethnography. I do not advocate a wholesale rejection of the ethnographic tradition, but rather would extend its premises towards a more inclusive anthropological project, better suited to studying world society, of which the internet is perhaps the most striking expression. For sure, we need to find out what real people do and think by joining them where they live. But we also need a global perspective on humanity as a whole if we wish to understand our moment in history. This will expose the limitations of the modern experiment in the social sciences — their addiction to impersonal abstractions and repression of individual subjectivity.

more: http://thememorybank.co.uk/2010/02/06/an-anthropology-of-the-internet-2/

US Congress Increases Funding for Native American Language Programs

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:44:00 +0000

from Cultural Survival News:

Date: 01/14/2010

Hundreds of Native language advocates convened on Capitol Hill this past May, asking Congress to approve a minimum of $10 million in additional federal support for the Esther Martinez Act, which funds Native American language immersion schools, master-apprentice programs, and other revitalization projects. Native language advocates have made the $10 million request in earnest since 2007, and the new administration heard the call. In May during the Cultural Survival and National Alliance to Save Native Languages summit, Congressional appropriators welcomed the language revitalization funding request from Code talkers, fluent speakers, and novice learners alike in nearly three dozen meetings with key members of Congress and their staffers. A $12 million increase for the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act of 2006 was signed by President Obama on December 16, 2009 as part of the omnibus fiscal year 2010 appropriations bill (HR 3288, which included HR 3293). The $12 million in increased funds for Native languages will be administered in a competitive grants program by the Administration for Native Americans within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Article: MyKnet.org: How Northern Ontario's First Nation communities made themselves at home on the World Wide Web

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:51:00 +0000

Philipp Budka
Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology
University of Vienna

Brandi L. Bell
Comprehensive School Health Research
University of Prince Edward Island

Adam Fiser
Faculty of Information
University of Toronto

Abstract

In this article we explore the development of MyKnet.org, a loosely structured system of personal homepages that was established by indigenous communities in the region of Northern Ontario, Canada in 2000. Individuals from over 50 remote First Nations across Northern Ontario have made this free of charge, free of advertisements, locally-driven online social environment their virtual home. MyKnet.org currently comprises over 25,000 active homepages and strongly reflects the demographic and geographic profile of Northern Ontario. It is thus youth-based and built around the communities’ need to maintain social ties across great distances. We draw upon encounters with a range of MyKnet.org’s developers and long time users to explore how this community-developed and community-controlled form of communication reflects life in the remote First Nations. Our focus is on the importance of locality: MyKnet.org’s development was contingent on K-Net, a regional indigenous computerization movement to bring broadband communications to remote First Nations. MyKnet.org is explicitly community-driven and not-for-profit, thus playing an important role in inter- and intra-community interaction in a region that has lacked basic telecommunications infrastructure well into the millennium.

Budka, P., Bell, B., & Fiser, A. 2009. MyKnet.org: How Northern Ontario's First Nation communities made themselves at home on the World Wide Web. The Journal of Community Informatics, 5(2), Online: http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/568/450

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

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:42:00 +0000

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

Article: Transforming learning infrastructures in the social sciences through flexible and interactive technology-enhanced learning

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:12:00 +0000

Philipp Budka and Claudia Schallert
eLearning Center of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Vienna, Austria

Abstract
The changing higher educational landscape in Europe creates new learning infrastructures and transforms existing ones. Students are thus provided with new possibilities and challenges. Through the case study of a newly developed common curriculum for the social sciences of a public university in Austria, this article discusses the interacting social agents, elements, and tools of a flexible and interactive technology-enhanced learning model. In doing so, the transnational, national, and local infrastructural conditions and challenges are critically examined from a socio-technological perspective. Selected evaluation and survey results highlight students’ learning practices, usage behavior, and suggestions to improve their learning situation. The article concludes that student-centered learning models focusing on flexibility and interactivity can support the stable implementation of a common curriculum and its technology-enhanced learning infrastructure for the social sciences at public universities with high student numbers.

Keywords
Higher education - Learning - Infrastructure - Social sciences - Austria

Budka, P., & Schallert, C. 2009. Transforming learning infrastructures in the social sciences through flexible and interactive technology-enhanced learning. In: Learning Inquiry, 3(3), 131-142.

Ontario Asks Canada To Reconsider Un Declaration On The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:47:00 +0000

Let's see if it works...

Official Press Release Government of Ontario, December 22, 2009

As part of Ontario's continued efforts to enhance cooperation, and to build strong relationships with Aboriginal people based on mutual respect, Premier Dalton McGuinty has asked the Government of Canada to reconsider its position on the United Nations' Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Ontario supports a review of Canada's position on the Declaration as a means to demonstrate its commitment to improving the lives of Aboriginal people throughout Canada. Reconsideration of the Declaration would demonstrate Canada's willingness to foster an open dialogue to improve the lives of Aboriginal peoples.

more: http://media.knet.ca/node/7607

U.S. Will Settle Native American Lawsuit for $3.4 Billion

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:06:00 +0000

from the NYT:

The federal government announced on Tuesday that it intends to pay $3.4 billion to settle claims that it has mismanaged the revenue in American Indian trust funds, potentially ending one of the largest and most complicated class-action lawsuits ever brought against the United States.

The tentative agreement, reached late Monday, would resolve a 13-year-old lawsuit over hundreds of thousands of land trust accounts that date to the 19th century. Specialists in federal tribal law described the lawsuit as one of the most important in the history of legal disputes involving the government’s treatment of American Indians.

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/us/09tribes.html

Declaration on ICT for Development

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:10:00 +0000

At the World Congress on ICT for Development held 10-12 September 2009 in Beijing, a declaration on ICT for development was created, which includes the following understandings and agreements:

1) Millennium Development Goal, for Remedying the Unbalancing Boat
2) Information Age, New Stage of Human Society
3) ICT, Effective Tool for Development in the New Age
4) Education, Key to the Use of ICT Tool
5) Responsibility for Governments and Citizens
6) Responsibility for International Organizations
7) Public Call

more detailed information: http://www.wcid-cic.org/home/view.php?id=137

Since some quite outdated concepts and views on sociocultural ICT practices are being deployed in this declaration, it certainly needs to consider current research projects and results e.g. from the fields of community informatics and media technology anthropology.

internet turns 40

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:38:00 +0000

from the NYT:

Goofy videos weren't on the minds of Len Kleinrock and his team at UCLA when they began tests 40 years ago on what would become the Internet. Neither was social networking, for that matter, nor were most of the other easy-to-use applications that have drawn more than a billion people online.

Instead the researchers sought to create an open network for freely exchanging information, an openness that ultimately spurred the innovation that would later spawn the likes of YouTube, Facebook and the World Wide Web.
...
more

some interesting sites on the web:
http://www.livinginternet.com/
http://www.archive.org/index.php
http://www.scientificcommons.org/

International Day of the World’s Indigenous People

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:10:00 +0000

9 August 2008, United Nations Headquarters, New York

The International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples was observed at UN Headquarters on 10 August 2009.
Video, Programme and Documents

History

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_internationalday2009.html

New forms of socialities on the web? - Paper at the Web as Culture Conference

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:33:00 +0000

Paper abstract for the Web as Culture Conference, Giessen, 16-18 July

New forms of socialities on the web?
A critical exploration of anthropological concepts to understand
sociocultural online practices.

Philipp Budka & Elke Mader

Internet technologies and the World Wide Web promised a lot of things: from instantaneous global communication and fast information gathering to new forms of politics, economy, organizations, and socialities, including a renewed sense of community. By studying these online and “virtual” communities, internet researchers initially focused on their structure and development (e.g. Jones 1995, Smith & Kollock, 1999). Social network theory then changed decisively the way communities on the web have been conceptualized and analyzed. Scholars like Barry Wellman (et al., 2002) and Manuel Castells (2000), argue that in the internet age societies, communities, and individuals all have a network character. Thus the conceptualization of community as social network, by focusing on the interactions in these communities, has become widespread in internet studies.

Community and social network as concepts of sociality have been critically reviewed by anthropologists particularly in the context and process of ethnographic fieldwork. Vered Amit (2002), e.g., states that community is, because of its emotional significance and popularity in public discourses, a rather poor analytical concept. Internet ethnographers hence have been starting to look for alternative ways of understanding online socialities by moving beyond the community/network paradigm (Postill 2008).

In this paper we are critically discussing the potential of alternative concepts of sociality to analyze how people are interacting on the web. In so doing, we are firstly reviewing the quite popular concept of “communitas” developed by Victor Turner to differentiate between society as social structure and society as communitas constituted by concrete idiosyncratic individuals and their interactions. In the context of the sociocultural web, the liminal experience of people switching between these two stages is particularly interesting. Secondly, we are introducing the concept of “conviviality”, coined by Joanna Overing, to internet studies. Conviviality accentuates the affective side of sociality, such as joy, creativity, and the virtues of sharing and generosity, as opposed to the structure or functioning of society. These analytical concepts and tools, derived from anthropological and ethnographic research, are finally applied to an empirical case study of Bollywood fan communities on the web and their sociocultural practices.

References

Amit, Vered (ed.). 2002. Realizing community: concepts, social relationships and sentiments. London & New York: Routledge.
Castells, Manuel. 2000. The rise of the network society. Second Edition. Malden: Blackwell Publishers.
Jones, Steven G. (ed.). 1995. CyberSociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Kollock, Peter, Smith, Marc A. (eds.). 1999. Communities in Cyberspace. London & New York: Routledge.
Postill, John. 2008. Localising the internet: beyond communities and networks. In: New Media and Society 10(3), 413-431.
Wellman, Barry, Boase, Jeffrey and Wenhong Chen. 2002. The networked nature of community: online and offline. In: IT&Society 1/1, 151-165.

NishTV

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:40:00 +0000

NishTV and its founder Richard Ogima are using new and social media services to cover Aboriginal life in Canada and in particular in the region of Northern Ontario, the Nishnawbe Aski Nation. It broadcasts positive and inspiring messages about issues that concern Aboriginal people, e.g. homelessness in Vancouver in connection with the Olympics in 2010, or the challenge of losing weight. And NishTV reports from events and happenings in the Aboriginal communities, e.g. the 2009 Pow-Wow in Thunder Bay.

from http://www.nishtv.com/about-nishtv

NishTV is Northern Ontario’s hottest website that captures the heartbeat of the Anishinabek Community. We use video-media in a youthful, trendy and positive way to give the Native experience more zest and coolness. Our aim is to represent and give exposure to those cool people who never get recognized for the things they are doing or who need a little exposure because they are stepping out in the community with arts, leadership, business or other creative projects.
....

more at:
http://www.nishtv.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/nishtv?gl=CA&hl=en

The Indigenous Online Portal

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 08:32:00 +0000

The Indigenous Portal is a direct outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society where, amongst others, the potential and utilization of information and communication technologies for the world's indigenous peoples were discussed. It derives from an initiative of the International Indigenous ICT Task Force.

The portal blends services provided by social networking sites, such as myspace or facebook, with information and resources about indigenous peoples worldwide. After registration, users are offered a wide range of applications: from personal profiles to blogs and video uploading. In addition one can access information in form of articles, audio and video files dealing with different issues: from indigenous knowledge to health, education and politics. Using an online translation service, the English content of the portal can be translated - in rather poor quality - into other world languages, such as German, French or Chinese. But there is so far no translation service into an indigenous language.

If this portal is going to become the leading indigenous space in cyberspace remains to be seen.

More info about the portal:
http://www.indigenousportal.com
http://www.indigenousportal.com/ABOUT.html

Indigener Cyberaktivismus und transnationale Bewegungslandschaften im lateinamerikanischen Kontext

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:13:00 +0000

Indigener Cyberaktivismus und transnationale Bewegungslandschaften
im lateinamerikanischen Kontext
(Cyberactivismo indígena y paisajes de movimientos transnacionales en el contexto
latinoamericano / Indigenous cyberactivism and transnational landscapes of movement in the Latin American context)

Philipp Budka & Claudia Trupp
(Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna)

In: Jens Kastner / Tom Waibel (Hg.): „... mit Hilfe der Zeichen | por medio de signos ...“ Transnationalismus, soziale Bewegungen und kulturelle Praktiken in Lateinamerika. Münster u.a.: LIT-Verlag 2009, pp. 207-226.

Abstract

Prozesse der Globalisierung beeinflussen vor allem jene Menschen, die an den Rand der Gesellschaft gedrängt werden, wie zum Beispiel ein Großteil der rund 30 Millionen Indigenen Lateinamerikas. Ausgeschlossen von politischen, soziokulturellen und ökonomischen Diskursen, wie sie über die Massenmedien geführt werden, verwenden Indigene Bewegungen im zunehmenden Maße Internettechnologien, um sich zu vernetzen, zu (re)präsentieren, Identitäten zu (re)konstruieren und aktivistisch tätig zu sein. Aufgrund eingeschränkten Zugangs zu Internettechnologien sind sie oftmals auf Akteure angewiesen, die ihre Anliegen vertreten und sich mit ihnen solidarisieren. Wie indigene Bewegungen im lateinamerikanischen Kontext transnational distribuierte Internettechnologien nutzen, adaptieren und praktizieren, wird aus kultur- und sozialanthropologischer Perspektive anhand der Zapatisten in Mexiko und der Mapuche in Chile in diesem Beitrag diskutiert.

Los procesos de la globalización influyen sobre todo a aquellas personas que están en el márgen de la sociedad, como por ejemplo una mayoría de los indígenas de latinoamérica. Excluidos del discurso político, sociocultural y económico como lo llevan los medios de masas, los movimientos indígenas utilizan cada vez más la tecnología del internet para conectarse en redes, (re)presentarse, (re)construir identidades y practicar activismo. Debido al restringido acceso a tecnologías de internet muchas veces dependen de actores que representan sus intereses y se solidarizan con ellos. En este artículo se discute desde una perspectiva de la antropología cultural y social de cómo los movimientos indígenas en el contexto latinoamericano usan, adaptan y practican las tecnologías de internet distribuidos transnacionalmente tomando como ejemplos el EZLN en México y los Mapuche en Chile.

Full Paper (German)
budka_trupp_cyberakt_LA.pdf

The end of mailing lists?

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:14:00 +0000

from the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Change or Die: Scholarly E-Mail Lists, Once Vibrant, Fight for Relevance
By Jeffrey R. Young

Once they were hosts to lively discussions about academic style and substance, but the time of scholarly e-mail lists has passed, meaningful posts slowing to a trickle as professors migrate to blogs, wikis, Twitter, and social networks like Facebook.

That's the argument made by T. Mills Kelly, an associate professor of history and associate director of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Naturally, he first made the argument on his blog, and he has mentioned it on the technology podcast he hosts with two colleagues.

A close look at some of the largest academic listservs, however, shows signs of enduring life and adaptation to the modern world.

...

continue at: http://beta.chronicle.com/article/Change-or-Die-Scholarly/46962/

Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change - The Anchorage Declaration

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:35:00 +0000

From 20-24 April, 2009, Indigenous representatives from the Arctic, North America, Asia, Pacific, Latin America, Africa, Caribbean and Russia met in Anchorage, Alaska for the Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change. We thank the Ahtna and the Dena’ina Athabascan Peoples in whose lands we gathered.
...
The Anchorage Declaration
Background documents
The Global Summit

Australia Decides to Sign Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:56:00 +0000

from Cultural Survival

When the United Nations General Assembly voted on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, only four countries voted against it: the United States, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia. Today, the Rudd government in Australia announced that it would endorse the declaration. The original vote on the declaration was largely the result of the tireless efforts of Cultural Survival board member Les Melezer, and Melezer played a key role in today's announcement by the Rudd government: he has been in New York for two weeks putting pressure on the Australian ambassador. For more on the decision, click here or here.

UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues - 8th Session

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Sun, 10 May 2009 13:48:00 +0000

The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is an advisory body to the Economic and Social Council, with a mandate to discuss indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human rights.

Eigth Session 18-29 May 2009
More info and documents: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/session_eighth.html

UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 07:11:00 +0000

The online edition of the Atlas includes all of the information in the print edition (soon to be released) and much more. Using this interface, you can browse through the endangered languages listed in the 2009 edition of UNESCO’s Atlas, using combinations of search criteria and/or zooming in the map below (see. browsing functionalities). For more detailed information, please consult the Language names and locations, Contribute your comments and FAQ pages.

UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Parents proud, son Barack Black Eagle (Obama) enters White House

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 07:21:00 +0000

from Indiana Country Today by Ashutosh Bhardwaj, Special to Today

HELENA, Mont. – While the world celebrated as an African American assumed the highest office in the United States, Barack Obama was accompanied by his adopted parents, brother and clan members of the Apsaálooke, or the Crow Nation.

Twenty-four Crow members traveled from Montana to Washington D.C., hauling horse trailers and traditional regalia to participate in the inaugural parade Jan. 20, after Obama became the first U.S. president to belong to an Indian tribe.

Last May, then-presidential candidate Obama paid a campaign visit to Crow Agency, arguably the first stop at an Indian reservation by any presidential candidate since Robert F. Kennedy’s visit in 1968 to Pine Ridge, S.D.

Before the rally Mary and Hartford Black Eagle formally adopted Obama into the Crow Nation, conferring an honorary tribal membership. They gave him a family name, Barack Black Eagle, and a Crow name, Awe Kooda Bilaxpak Kuuxshish, which translates as “one who helps people throughout the land.”

more: http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/national/plains/38693927.html

Obama's commitment to Native Americans

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:28:00 +0000

Remember what you promised Mr. President:

"Indigenous Peoples Knowledge Society: Transformations and Challenges"

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:14:00 +0000

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"

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:51:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:29:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (philbu) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:52:00 +0000

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