M2 Entry 3: Rethinking the Digital Divide in Canada

“The romanticized tale of Indigenous peoples’ first interactions with cameras is all too familiar a narrative to the Western consciousness, portraying Indigenous peoples as fearful of the technology’s ability to “steal souls” (Winter & Boudreau, 2018, p.38).

Winter, J., & Boudreau, J. (2018). Supporting self-determined indigenous innovations: Rethinking the digital divide in canada. Technology Innovation Management Review, 8(2), 38-48. https://doi.org/10.22215/timreview/1138

This article reviews dominant narratives of digital technological development in Indigenous communities in Canada. It situates Indigenous peoples as innovators and creators rather than consumers of digital technologies. First the authors discus how dominant media has used technology to misrepresent Indigenous cultures and promote colonial biases. Next, they showcase digital storytelling and virtual landscapes revealing a small sample of Indigenous initiatives online in video game and app development and in augmented and virtual reality. Winter and Boudreau present some ways that Indigenous peoples are making space in digital environments for their worldviews and ways of knowing. Accordint to Lameman and Lewis (2011), video games, with their distinct combination of story, design, code, architecture, art, animation, and sound provide a rich channel that reflects traditions of oral storytelling and enables both developers and users to examine different strategies for pursuing cultural preservation and revitalization (Winter & Boudreau, 2018).

Never Alone is an adventure game following a young girl named Nuna and an arctic fox who set out to find the source of an external blizzard which threatens the survival of everything they have ever known. The game is based on the Inupiaq tale “Kunuuksaayuka”. Players can unlock live-action videos illustrating Elders telling stories or showcasing different cultural practices and traditions that inspired the game play.