Author Archives: Elvio Castelli

http://www.integrativescience.ca/Principles/TwoEyedSeeing/

This website has been set up by Cape Breton University and works with Unama’ki College. The purpose is to bring together Indigenous and Western scientific knowledge and ways of knowing. The organization’s guiding principle is Two-Eyed Seeing, which was created by Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall. Two-Eyed Seeing refers to learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing and from the other eye with the strengths of Western knowledge and ways of knowing and learning to use both these eyes together for everyone’s benefit.

The website provides a collection of research, presentations, articles and multimedia items.

I will also use this website to enrichen my knowledge about how people are going about integrating Indigenous knowledge and Western tech.

I am excited to build on all of the websites listed above for my final assignment. Their collective knowledge will undoubtedly be useful.

Elvio

https://www.waysofknowingforum.ca/

The authors of this website are working to bring together Indigenous knowledge and Western ways of knowing in order to benefit everyone. I think seeing how people are combining Indigenous and Western knowledge together will be very useful for my own research assignment. Reconciling Ways of Knowing has a large online collection where Indigenous knowledge holders, scientists, teachers, and writers share their knowledge. The website provides visuals, videos and text to educate the reader. 

http://firstmile.ca/#home

This website provides a place for Indigenous communities from across Canada to learn from each other in developing their own ICTs and broadband to provide services to their communities. The site has a vast archive of articles and discussions about treaty rights, infrastructure, e-justice, e-learning and many more categories. The researcher can search by category or geographic area to narrow down their search. Further, First Mile provides a bibliography linking to many other informative websites. I think First Mile can provide insight into the goals and struggles of communities creating their own ICTs and broadband. 

https://evenementswapikoni.ca/vision

I found this website from Haley Lewis’ article. Wapikoni is a great resource for educators. They have collaborated with UNESCO to create a pedagogical guide for educators. I thought this was a great resource to share because they provide teaching material related to Canada’s Indigenous cultures. Further, the website provides a vast collection of videos and biographies of Indigenous peoples from throughout Canada and details their initiatives. I hope to learn valuable information from these initiatives that I can apply to my research assignment.  

Dennis Pierre. (February 7th, 2022). Why The Time For Indigenous-led Innovation in Tech Is Now, And How To Support It. First Nations Technology Council.

https://technologycouncil.ca/2022/02/07/why-the-time-for-indigenous-led-innovation-in-tech-is-now/

I came across this article in my research. The article itself interested me because the author discusses combining Indigenous holistic knowledge and Western technology to address the many issues that are facing society. Further, the author addresses not only why Indigenous peoples are trailing in the ICT field but how we can address the causes and overcome the divide. 

Beyond this article, the First Nations Technology Council’s website is very useful. They are Indigenous-led, and their goal is to help Indigenous people be successful in the digital age through education and support.

Lutz, Ellen L. (June 2005). ‘The Many Meanings of Technology’

https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/many-meanings-technology

This article caught my attention because of its discussion of Indigenous people’s relationship with Western technology since the 1600s. The author discusses how groups are trying to use ICT to ensure their cultural survival worldwide. 

Cultural Survival works with UNESCO to protect Indigenous communities’ rights. Beyond advocating, they operate an Indigenous radio where the programming includes interviews, reports, and strategies to protect their rights. Their programming is offered in numerous Indigenous languages and can be listened to online. 

I think that this website will prove to be valuable for my research because it provides both knowledge and a successful example of how technology can be used to protect and advocate for Indigenous rights. 

The Ethnos project ran from 2008 to 2018, with the goal of exploring the intersection of Indigeneity and information and communication technologies (ICTs). While the project has ended and the site is not maintained, there is plenty of helpful information and hyperlinks to like-minded sites. One of these is EcoliterateLaw (http://www.ecoliteratelaw.com/index.cfm?sect=home).

The Ethnos Project provides numerous links to other Indigenous websites that are all connected to Indigenous involvement with the digital age, which at first glance appears to be a very valuable database moving forward.

Welcome

This library guide is maintained by Natasha Parrish, an education developer for Indigenization at Camosun College in Victoria, BC. The guide interests me because it links content focusing on Indigenizing online learning, transformative change education, and numerous other essays, books, and videos. The guide also provides Territory information, links to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), teaching material (in the form of lesson plans and resources), and Indigenous websites.

Overall the website provides a ton of information.

https://camosun.libguides.com/teaching/indigenization

Blackwater, D. (April 29, 2020) “Indigenize the Internet: How to close the digital divide by respecting tribal sovereignty.”

https://nnigovernance.arizona.edu/indigenize-internet-how-close-digital-divide-respecting-tribal-sovereignty-darrah-blackwater

I came across this presentation by Darrah Blackwater, which immediately jumped out. Darrah Blackwater is from the Navajo Nation and was completing a law degree at the time of the presentation. Ms. Blackwater describes the opportunities Indigenous people offer to the global community (economically and culturally), and she believes that the internet needs Indigenous people. 

I found the presentation on The Native Nations institute at the University of Arizona database (https://nnigovernance.arizona.edu/). This database provides a vast resource for further research, including conferences, seminars, and symposia, to mention just a fraction. 

I highly recommend watching this presentation.

After watching her presentation, I further researched Ms. Blackwater and found her website (https://blackwatersoul.org/). She has a lot of resources here focusing on Indigenous policy, health, and art.

My research interest is to examine whether or not Indigenous people can reimagine western technology to:

1. Give back more to the earth than we take and, 
2. Strengthen their community and land ties

With this in mind, I chose the following websites and articles because they focused on creating an Indigenous digital space and/or bridging the divide between Indigenous people and Western technology/learning.

Indigenizing the digital world – TVO March 2019, Haley Lewis

https://www.tvo.org/article/indigenizing-the-digital-world

This article is written by Haley Lewis, a Kanyen’keha:ka-Scottish writer. The article details three Indigenous creators who are working on reinventing the online world to be more inclusive.

One of the three creators is Monique Manatach, a member of Indigenous Culture and Media Innovations, a collective working to give access to Indigenous people in multimedia arts. Second, we have Megan Byrne, who has worked on creating a unique and totally Indigenous digital space. Lastly, Brad Pine has created an Indigenous dating app, an app for homestay experience and Waboos, which is a search engine that connects the searcher with Indigenous results. 

This article caught my attention because I think it will be useful for researching my final assignment as it links to several Indigenous tech initiatives that Lewis describes.