I finally found what I was looking for, evidence of Mexican Indigenous youth using the Web 2.0 for Intra cultural dialogue. There are so many speakers of Indigenous languages in Mexico, but so little digital evidence.

Nizkaloa Nahuatl

Web Site: http://miztonpixan.blogspot.com/

This site is a blog by Miztonpixan, which the user regularly updates. I cannot tell you about the content as it is all in Nahuatl, but going by the images it is  a blog by a modern youth. Unfortunately, no one has left any comments, so it is a lone crusade. However it is an example of what mexican Indigenous youth could be doing to create communities of practice. This is the only blog in a Mexican Indigenous language I have found so far.

I also just had to include this site:

Twelve canoes

Web Site: http://www.12canoes.com.au/

This is an Aboriginal  site that tells the story of some Indigenous communities in their own language using images, videos and sound. There is also the possibility of listening in English. I cannot find out much about who made it, but it is so beautiful I just had to put it up. It is eye catching and multimodal. Really This is the kind of site Oaxacan communities need to share their IK.

finally I found a aboriginal blog that is built to participate in networked culture

http://www.abtec.org/blog/?page_id=2

Form their site

“The main objective of AbTeC is to discover, define and implement methods by which Aboriginal people can use networked communication technology to strengthen our cultures. AbTeC’s Skins project will bring Aboriginal community organizations together with academic institutions to conduct research into the means by which the power of digital and networked technology can be put to use in producing and preserving our knowledge, culture and language. We will work with elder who have stories to tell, bands who have histories to preserve, and Aboriginal language speakers who want to share their knowledge. The goal is to provide conceptual and practical tools that will allow us to create new, Aboriginally-determined territories within the collection of web-pages, online games, chat rooms, bulletin boards and virtual environments that we call cyberspace.”

Love it!

The site cites current projects that include the use of computers in cyber pow wows, 3D story telling and computer programing

http://www.nstraining.ca/

The Nunavut Sivuniksavut Training Program was designed to help ease the transition to living and learning in “the south” for Inuit students. This eight month college program recognizes that this culture shock can be highly disruptive to youth who may never have experienced city life and allows them to blend their own cultural activities with formal learning and big city life.

One of the highlights at the end of each school year is a major trip to places such as Guyana, Belize, Alaska, Peru, Mongolia and New Zealand. Blogs (linked from the main website) from these trips share the students’ experiences and the connections they were able to make with Indigenous people at their destinations.

I stumbled upon this group a while ago while researching Second Life.  Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace or AbTeC is a group of Aboriginal technology and media specialists and what they do is a  bit hard to explain so I will let them do it:

AbTeC is a network of academics, artists and technologists whose goal is to define and share conceptual and practical tools that will allow us to create new, Aboriginally-determined territories within the web-pages, online games, and virtual environments that we call cyberspace. Our multi-faceted effort will include a storytelling series, an ongoing gamesnight, a modding workshop, Machinima, and performance art.

Our main objective is to identify and implement methods by which Aboriginal people can use new media technologies to complement our cultures. In other words, how can we use the exciting new tools now available on the personal computer to empower Native people, especially our youth, to both preserve and produce our knowledge, culture and language in this highly technological society? AbTeC’s roots lie with a project called CyberPowWow, a pioneering on-line gallery and chat space for contemporary Aboriginal art. It was through CyberPowWow that we realized that, even on the Internet, Native people need a self-determined place to call home.

The group has done a lot of very interesting work related to Aboriginals in Cyberspace including research publications,  digital productions and their site also has a very informed blog.  Some of the more intersting and relevant blog posts can be found below:

• Indigenous Representations in Commercial Video Games
• Scathing review of Remix: New modernities in a post-Indian world
• Digital Drum: Aboriginal Media Production
• First Nations / Second Life
• Stereotypes in Gaming
• What is a (Native) Game?

I think site is of interest to anyone curious about how Aboriginal groups are represented in cyberspace, and more specifically, in modern video games.  There is definitely an interesting body of knowledge emerging from this group.

Creative Spirits

I came across this site linked to an actual Australian government website. I cruised through quite a bit of it before I actually worked my way back to the homepage. It was only then that I realized that this was a blog created by a non-Aboriginal. The following quote from the author really jumped out at me:

“I present Aboriginal culture in Australia from a different angle. While you can find many texts by white authors I like to involve Aboriginal authors, Aboriginal resources and even Aboriginal people themselves as much as possible.”

I’m quite confident that I would have noticed this statement in the past but after reading chapter four of the textbook and participating in the discussion threads I have to say I take issue with this. I’m curious to hear if others feel the same way.

Looking for aboriginal blogs I stumbled upon RezXtra: http://communities.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/blogs/rezxtra/archive/2009/06/30/canada-day-is-my-aboriginal-day.aspx

It is  a entertainment magazine type blog that speaks to aboriginal issues and other current events. It is based out of Regina Saskatchewan.  I can tell that because of the weather the blog is linked to.

I was hoping to see if they had created a blogoshpere and  connected with other aboriginal blogs to create a community  but unfortunately they have not. REzXtra is a blog inside of LeaderPost, a division of Canwest publishing.  The bog rolls connects to other  canada.com  blogs.