Tag Archives: culture

Module 1.3 – ICT For Peace (or, is technology neutral)

ICT For Peacbuilding is a really interesting website that looks at the use of information communications technology (ICT) for conflict resolution. I thought it was interesting to extrapolate a lot of their discussions on the neutrality of the internet/technology as it pertains to our discussions of these topics in this course. The main author certainly believes that the question, “is technology culturally neutral”, isn’t even the question we should focus on, rather,

whether one accepts the neutrality of technology depends on one’s valuing philosophy – whether one tends toward the pragmatic and situational, or the absolute and authoritarian. Those who believe that technology is neutral argue that “guns don’t kill people, people do”, or that a knife can be used to “cook, kill, or cure.” Those who believe the opposite counter with evidence that technology cannot be evaluated in a vacuum and that there are traits common to all technological developments: (1) technological objects are unique; they are designed to function in a particular and limited way, and (2) technological objects are intertwined with their environment; they interact in unique ways with the rest of reality.

I do think that the neutrality of technology really depends upon the lens with which we look at each circumstance. There are opportunities for individuals to represent themselves in the way they’d like to be seen. But it is certainly not clear to me if that means true neutrality or simply a manipulation of the cultural norm.

Module 1.2 – Tribalism

As an antithesis to Howe’s “Cyberspace is no place for tribalism”, I wanted to highlight this interesting journal article I found which appropriates the language of indigenous people to discuss the potential sociocultural benefits of being part of a “tribe” in the online world:

An Online Community as the New Tribalism: The World of Warcraft

In particular I was drawn to the concept that the authors of this paper would feel the best way to describe the building of an online world or community would be “tribalism” when World of Warcraft happens to have its own nomenclature for this type of group already in place (“guilds”) which would have probably been more natural terminology for an article of this sort. This article discusses the social benefit to the use of joining an online “tribe”. That alone makes one think of the significant cultural appropriation taking place, that articles writing about something as (relatively speaking) insignificant could feel comfortable taking the language of enormous swaths of people to explain the experience of community/online world-building.

I think it also brings up some thoughts about the way in which we see ourselves in online communities, like this? Is there space for indigenous internet users to actually build tribal spaces online that feel authentic?

Module 1.1 – TulipTV – First Nations Art

Chief Rande Cook and Chief Mike Willie of the Kwakwaka’wakw are passionate about teaching others about the history, language and culture of their tribe. Rande is an artist and in this interview he shares a Totem pole he created for a museum in the Netherlands to tell his story. He speaks about his process and what it meant to him. Willie highlights that his art is language and singing and shares his story of learning his language, which was lost at a young age, and how he is now teaching his language at an elementary school.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdVVIHyBpvY