National Film Board – Aboriginal Perspectives

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The National Film Board (NFB) of Canada has a web page devoted to high school and upper elementary students and teachers called Aboriginal Perspectives. It has NFB aboriginal documentaries from 1940 – 2004 with critical commentaries on the issues presented. The site has several themes including:

I viewed several of the excerpt clips under Cinema and Representation and found an interesting contrast in two clips about the Hudson Bay Company. In Caribou Hunters (1951) Manitoba Cree’s and Chipewan’s from the mainstream perspective, are shown happily trading with the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Other Side of the Ledger: An Indian View of the Hudson’s Bay Company (1972), presents an honest view of how the Indians felt about the “value” they were getting from trading with the Bay. This is much different from the 1951 Caribou Hunter’s perspective.

Evaluating Aboriginal Websites

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The document “Techniques for Evaluating American Indian Websites” was discussed in the Smith and Ward reading for this week and I decided to take a closer look at this article.  This is a valuable article that definitely covers some aspects of website analysis I would not have considered.  This is quite a long list and includes simple tips such as checking to see if the author of the website is identified as a member of a nation or are they more specific with a specific tribe (more specific would indicate more authentic).  Some of the more interesting aspects of analysis refer to the use of stories and whether they are appropriate and whether the website is trying to sell you something.  This is quite an old document (last updated in 2000) but despite the broken links still contains some valuable aspects of media literacy.

What is ‘Traditional Ecological Knowledge’?

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Article ‘Traditional Ecological Knowledge’

The author of this article, Deborah McGregor,  Anishinabe, is from the Whitefish River First Nation and is an Assistant Professor in Geography and Aboriginal Studies at the University of Toronto. In this article she discusses the definition of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and the Anishinabe perspective on TEK.  The Anishinabe  Recreation story which emphasizes the respect of all life forms is described. The author suggests that Aboriginal knowledge cannot be separated meaningfully from the people that hold it and perhaps more energy should be spent helping Aboriginal people so their culture is not lost, rather than documenting knowledge before the people disappear.

Internet use and indigenous women

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http://research.arts.yorku.ca/nhnf/DigitalDivide.pdf

This research paper written for the National Network for Aboriginal Mental Health Research in 2005. It addresses the question of whether or not the internet is a useful tool for indigenous women living in remote areas in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to access health resource. This article discusses the digital divide and how it affects indigenous communities. Based on the statistics presented, there is an apparent digital divide between on-reserve Aboriginal population versus the rest of Canada. There is also a divide between the Canadian population and Northern Aboriginal communities in terms of access to the internet. The article explains how the internet is beneficial to the health of aboriginal women and their families. The author also mentions the challenges of having internet technology implemented into aboriginal communities as there are concerns such as language barriers, cultural bias, and fears of assimilation.

The impact of digital technology on indigenous peoples

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http://www.ecoliteratelaw.com/09_DigitizationIndig.cfm?sect=text

I found this article to be quite interesting but also in need of careful evaluation. It discusses how technology is beneficial to indigenous cultures in many ways such as preserving and promoting culture. It also states that many indigenous communities see telecommunications and technology as a way to improve rather than hinder self-sufficiency, preservation of culture, real sovereignty, and general economic conditions. Furthermore, the article mentions that in Native societies, a dichotomy exists between those that embrace the internet as a tool to protect, maintain, and promote cultural diversity, and those who believe the internet only serve to endorse capitalist ideas. A number of different authors comment on the benefits of technology in indigenous communities. However, the article does come to question whether or not the benefits of the internet in Native communities outweigh the harm. A list of websites is provided for Indigenous cultures and the internet. It includes 32 websites with a brief description for each one. After reading Chapter 4 in our text book, I come to wonder how many of these websites are actually created by Indigenous people for or about indigenous groups. As Zimmerman et. al, mentions in Chapter 4, there are many “wannabes” who portray themselves as one that know about indigenous cultures. For someone in search of a website that was created by indigenous groups, this list provided would be a good start. It might also expose the surprise that all of the 32 websites were created by non-indigenous authors.

Cheryl’s Urban Aboriginal Life

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Cheryl Matthew is from the Simpcw First Nation in BC but lives in Ottawa where she is a PhD student at Carleton.  On her blog (Cheryl’s Urban Aboriginal Life), she writes on a variety of indigenous topics but the focus is on urban identity issues. One of the themes of her research is the indigenous “diasporic experience” and how, in the absence of a direct connection to a land base, urban aboriginals learn to construct identity and meaning through other cultural means, including new media. She demonstrates this by her use of technology but also writes extensively about it.

Many of her posts are quite academic, not surprisingly as they are part of her research, but others are quite casual as she discusses her experience as an educated aboriginal living in a large city.

This site is a great resource for anyone researching urban aboriginal issues.

Turtle Island Native Network

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I’m not sure what the Turtle Island Native Network (TINN) is exactly (other than an independent aboriginal news network) as I wasn’t able to find a mission statement anywhere or even a clear theme running through the content. I think that may be the strength of the site; it’s got a bit of everything.  It’s almost a “digital refrigerator” with a ton of links to other media sources providers.  If you are looking for information on a contemporary indigenous topic, you will find something here.

I found this site when I was researching urban indigeniety and I came across TINN’s  Spotlight on Urban Aborginals.  Most of the content showcases (usually using video) individual aboriginals who are discussing their lives and challenges. While there are few direct references to the value or risk of using technology, the site clearly is comfortable with new media as a means to strengthen connections and articulate indigenous identity.

CBC Digital Archives

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CBC has a fantastic archives site called CBC Digital Archives. This site has something for everyone and contains both television and radio archives going back many years. It is interesting to note that two of the three most popular clips are about aboriginal issues: the Oka stand-off in 1990 (with a rather young looking Peter Mansbridge) and piece on survivors of the Residential school system from 1991. The third most popular video is Justin Trudeau’s eulogy for his father in 2000.

I did a bit of exploring in the archives under Society and Native Issues and focused on the history of the residential School system. It is interesting to see how Canadian Societal views about the Native residential school system changed over time as expressed through the CBC media. The earliest clip called “A New Future” is from 1955 and presents a wonderful and cheery perspective of residential schools as a feature to salute “Education Week”. It is definitely biased as the well dressed, cheery, anglicized Indians never stopped smiling – a must to see to understand how residential schools were justified and understood at the time.

Fast forward to 1969 for the video Government takes over schools to see when the federal government took over the residential schools from the churches. This clip also shows a huge change in attitude and understanding of the residential school. This clip and the 1970 the clip “Losing Native Languages” shows recognition that isolating aboriginals from their culture was not such a good idea after all. The cover picture for this radio broadcast is from the 1955 “A New Future” video from 1955. The videos then progress towards the present as the abuses of the aboriginal students were recognized: Native Leader charges church with abuse (1990) to the official apology’s from the Canadian Government including: We are deeply Sorry (1998) and A long-awaited Apology (2008). There is also an interesting clip from 1974 showing a day in the life of the Indian Affairs Minister: Jean Chretien (former Prime Minister of Canada)

This is a great site to find out about Canadian Aboriginal issues both past and present.

CBC Aboriginal

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CBC has an Aboriginal portal called CBC Aboriginal. To start, the site has a listing of current top headlines, for example on June 17, 2011 here were a few of the listed news items:

The site also has regular sections such as Promote: Legends series started in 2002, Special features such as Truth and Reconciliation, Arts and Culture, Radio featuring ReVision Quest, the Legends Project, and Spotlight featuring Aboriginal Artists.

This site also has links to Learning the Path: for aboriginal youth, Ab-Originals: Aboriginal Music, CBC North: Daly programing in Aboriginal Languages, CBC Archives: Aboriginal related television and radio clips, the Aboriginal section of the National Film Board of Canada and In Depth features such as History of Aboriginal Canadians.

This is a great site to find out about Canadian Aboriginal issues both past and present.

Arctic Hip Hop

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In our discussion this module about stereotypes and critical media anaylsis, I came upon the organization BluePrintForLife which runs the program “Social Work through Hip Hop.” Through the medium of hiphop, this program facilitates social work development and healthy indigenous communities in the Arctic North. Projects are designed with specific communities in mind, but generally deal with issues such as anger, violence, sexual abuse, addictions, positive outlets.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Q9EpqgfF0&feature=player_profilepage[/youtube]

Elders, adults, and youth are encouraged to participate side by side in fun events such as throat-boxing (Inuit throat boxing combined with beatboxing) as well as complex discussions of  anger, violence, sexual abuse and addictions.This program addresses the multigenerational healing of communities – take the Elder DJ component for example; a way in which Elders can model positive risk taking along with opening dialogue through sharing a laugh.