Indigenous adoption of mobile phones

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F. Sudweeks, H. Hrachovec and C. Ess (eds.) Indigenous adoption of mobile phones and oral cultures.

This preliminary research into an Australian indigenous community illustrates how oral culture of an indigenous community is integrated with a new form or technology-the mobile phone. It also shows that technology can influence the way in which the people of ‘oral culture’ communicate with each other.

This finding can be compared with some of the previous studies made by Western media studies scholars such as Katz and Aakhus’s (2002). They have argued that the mobile phone is adopted and used universally to local peoples regardless of cultural or regional differences, owing to the its (somewhat neutral) design appealing to a wide range of populations.

That is, in Sudweeks’s research, the mobile phone interacts with its users who have particular culture and tradition. Technology is filtered and “cultured” through local traditions and histories, but also is re-articulate with tradition in many unexpected ways.
References

F. Sudweeks, H. Hrachovec and C. Ess (eds.) (2008). Indigenous adoption of mobile phones and oral cultures, Proceedings Cultural Attitutdes Towards Communication and Technology, Murdoch University, Australia, 384-398.

Katz, JE and Aakhus, MK (2002) Perpetual contact: Mobile communication, private talk, public performance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Ky
Module 4: #2

First Nations, Inuit and Aboriginal Health

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First Nations, Inuit and Aboriginal Health

eHealth is a government-managed system utilizing ICTs (information and communication technologies) to support and connect health care professionals and the people. Its main aim is to provide indigenous population with health-related information and telephone consultation.

It seems that Canadian government’s eHealth system implies the two possible types of appropriation of ICTs in and for indigenous communities (Gideon, 2006). The first is to disseminate Western medical knowledge into indigenous communities via ICTs; in this case, ICTs is adopted as a conduit of dominant scientific knowledge. The second is to build “partnership” between the dominant medical knowledge and indigenous care systems; this type of apporpriation would be more helpful for indigenous communities’ self-determination and well-being.

Reference: Gideon, V. (2006). Canadian aboriginal peoples tackle e-health, In K. Landzelius (ed.). Native on the Net: Indigenous and Diasporic Peoples in the Virtual Age (pp.61-79). London: Routledge.

Ky
Module 4: #1

Paradigms Podcast

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http://paradigms.bz/

In a recent twitter feed, @Indigeneity, this podcast was mentioned from Paradigm.  The host of the podcast interviews Susan Davis from the Whitehorse, NWT,  discusses various policies and practices of the Canadian Government towards First Nations people.  I was fairly taken back with her examples of the recent racism incidents that have occurred towards aboriginal peoples in the last few years.   She shares examples of the Whitehorse RCMP, Vancouver PD, and the Winnipeg PD, and the tragic and terrible incidents of mistreatment of first nation people in confinement, which resulted in deaths in all three cases spoken of.  It is rather disturbing to hear that this disgusting behaviour is still occurring within our society.  These examples of the torture/mistreatment of aboriginals can’t be justified as an isolated case, it appears that it’s happening coast to coast in Canada.  How can this be occurring? Why aren’t these tragic and terrible incidents being broadcasted more nationally, is the nation afraid of the what others are going to perceive us as a nation as a whole? If individuals are dying due to the injustices of the people whom we see as the protectors and providers of all peoples regardless of race, gender, etc, than we as Canadians are doing something wrong here.  NGO’S and Amnesty International can only do so much, but what ever happened to the basic principles of treating others with respect and dignity that we as a individual should be doing?

 

Module 4: Third World Farmer

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http://www.arcadetown.com/3rdworldfarmer/gameonline.asp

Third World Farmer is a game that makes use of Indigenous knowledge and teaches gamers about the struggles of a farmer in a developing nation.  The game bridges technology and IK in many layers.  The first layer is that of the actual game design–it is a game on a computer, but the rules of the game are dictated by environmental and social factors that influence the livelihood of an African farmer, and to overcome the difficulties, the gamer must discover the Indigenous knowledge to be successful.  Within the game IK and technology are also linked.  When the gamer starts, all she has is her family and a bit of money.  She must research the various crops and decide how best to spend her money.  Through trial and error, the gamer develops a very rudimentary form of Indigenous knowledge.  As the gamer makes more money, she can buy various technologies that will make her life easier and help her yield better crops and thus make more money.

Some of the criticisms I have of this game are that the fact that it is a game may trivialize the plight of the third world farmer.  There is not a lot of education going on to really inform the gamer of the social implications of the GAME itself.  There is infomation about the severity of the situation in Africa, and a critical thinker would understand the message, but the average gamer would not see that while he or she may have just lost their entire family to a plague, the actual farmer the character represents can’t escape this reality.  Another criticism is that the issues behind the struggles are not very well articulated.  It does show that these farmers are being forced to work with in the confines of mechanization, but it doesn’t reveal that the increase in length, frequencey and severity of droughts is caused by industrialization and capitalism.  You also can’t save your game and pick up where you left off later.  This is frustrating from a game point of view, but also from a learning point of view.  To get the full effect of the game, several hours are required, which I’d like to expend over a few weeks, but because I can’t save the game, I have to start over each time, but I also don’t have the stamina (or time or patience) to spend 7 consecutive hours playing the same game.

Indigenous Education

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Another interesting site I found addresses Indigenous Education. It has a North American focus. This organization, Bowman Performance Consulting, LLC has done its homework and has included an enormous amount of links to other sites, alphabetically organized, to Native American Educational Resources for various types of Indigenous: youth camps, caregivers, language, children’s blogs, conferences, study programs, associations, councils and organizations and specific Indigenous people’s education sites to name a few. This site also includes information about grants and scholarships, evaluations, business development, certifications and publications. The contact us information is included at the bottom of every webpage. I would recommend this site to anyone who needs information about and links to many North American Indigenous people’s organization website.

Indigenous Environmental Network

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This Indigenous Environmental Network site caught my eye and correlates with Module 4. The Indigenous Environmental Network was formed by Indigenous peoples and other individuals and was developed in 1990 to address environmental and economic justice issues and develop strategies to protect the environment, Indigenous culture and the health of Indigenous peoples. Issues such as energy, climate, water and the importance of health and culture are highlighted on the website. The organization and site describe themselves as a “network of Indigenous Peoples empowering Indigenous Nations and communities towards sustainable livelihoods, demanding environmental justice and maintaining the Sacred Fire of our traditions.”

The site has links to all sorts of environmental activities, traditional gatherings, resources, energy and climate information and other Native Network Organizations as well as including current Indigenous news. The site also includes a section of suggested reading, news updates and places to access newsletter archives and subscribe to its newsletter. This organization, the Indigenous Environmental Network, also has a Facebook page and links to it are on the site as well. As well, you can listen daily to live interviews with speakers, panel discussions and interviews.

The following is taken directly from the website but should be recognized…

A “SNAP-SHOT” of environmental and economic justice issues in indigenous lands (US-CANADA):

a. Toxic contaminants, agricultural pesticides and other industrial chemicals that disproportionately impact Indigenous peoples, especially subsistence and livestock cultures.

b. Inadequate governmental environment and health standards and regulations.

c. Clean up of contaminated lands from mining, military, and other industry activities.

d. Toxic incinerators and landfills on and near Indigenous lands.

e. Inadequate solid and hazardous waste and wastewater management capacity of Indigenous communities and tribes.

f. Unsustainable mining and oil development on and near Indigenous lands.

g. National energy policies at the expense of the rights of Indigenous peoples.

h. Climate change and global warming.

i. Coal mining and coal-fired power plants resulting in mercury contamination, water depletion, destruction of sacred sites and environmental degradation.

j. Uranium mining developments and struggles to obtain victim compensation to Indigenous uranium miners, millers, processors and Downwinders of past nuclear testing experiments.

k. Nuclear waste dumping in Indigenous lands.

l. Deforestation.

m. Water rights, water quantity and privatization of water.

n. Economic globalization putting stress on Indigenous peoples and local ecosystems.

o. Border justice, trade agreements and transboundary waste and contamination along the US/Mexico/Canada borders and other Indigenous lands worldwide.

p. Failure of the US government to fulfill its mandated responsibility to provide funding to tribes and Alaska villages to develop and implement environmental protection infrastructures.

q. Backlash from US state governments giving in to the lobbying pressures of industry and corporations against the right of tribes to implement their own water and air quality standards.

r. Protection of sacred, historical and cultural significant areas.

s. Biological diversity and endangered species.

t. Genetically modified organisms impacting the environment, traditional plants and seeds and intellectual rights of Indigenous peoples – bio-colonialism.

u. Economic blackmail and lack of sustainable economic and community development resources.

v. Just transition of workers and communities impacted by industry on and near Indigenous lands.

w. Urban sprawl and growth on and near Indigenous lands.

x. Failure of colonial governments and their programs to adequately consult with or address environmental protection, natural resource conservation, environmental health, and sacred/historical site issues affecting traditional Indigenous lands and its Indigenous peoples.

y. De-colonization and symptoms of internalized oppression/racism/tribalism.

z. And many others ..

Compiled by the INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK

CyberCircles

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CyberCircles is a paper written by Canadian researcher, Mike Patterson of Carleton University.  Patterson’s focuses the paper around many of his personal accounts of the positives that “cyberspace” and social media tools have had within the Aboriginal communities.  One of the biggest concerns is what Patterson calls “Institutional Interference: academic, Aboriginal, and other organizations have varied degrees of acceptance of these tools.”  Fear and reluctance of using such tools are real elements that the Aboriginal communities face, and it can be linked to the potential lack of training. “Cyber networks and communities have to develop their own technical expertise. There is an ongoing need for community capacity building to address these challenges and use video communications to its full potential.”  If education isn’t available to provide assistance to successfully implement cyber/social media tools, than the value and meaning of them becomes lost.  It doesn’t just stop with a “one-time” training session, the tools that are currently being used within cyberspace, are active and useable for the now but like everything, change occurs, and with these changes, retraining is necessary.

It does seem to be a vicious circle of how the in-and-outs of technologies are, but if we don’t focus on the “how” we can change the ways, the circle will remain broken, and the divide left unattended.

Patterson, Michael. CyberCircles: InternetWorking for Aboriginal Community Research.  Retrieved July 20, 2011.

Canadian Community Access Program

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Community Access Program

In the last decade, numerous efforts have been made to improve the situation for the Aboriginal Canadians, in an attempt to bridge the digital divide. 1994 saw the inception of the Canadian Community Access Program (CAP) with early efforts primarily focused on rural communities where Internet access was less available.  CAP, in conjunction with provincial governments and local agencies, worked to bridge the gap in “public locations like schools, libraries and community centres and acted as “on-ramps” to the Information Highway, providing computer support and training” (Industry Canada, 2011).  In 2011, the Canadian Government agreed to continue supporting the efforts of CAP within local, regional, and national networks and bridge the significant technology infrastructure.  Action plans, such as CAP, provide the pertinent funding needed to keep the attempts moving in the forward to interject many of the unique challenges that Aboriginal Canadians face.

Industry Canada. (2011). Community Access Program (CAP). Ottawa: Government of

Canada. Retrieved July 18, 2011 from http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cap

pac.nsf/eng/00006.html

 

Killick Centre for E-Leaning Research

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Killick Centre for E-Learning Research

To continue focusing on Bridging the Gap of the Digital Divide, repeated concerns have been made in regards to the culturally relevancy of what students are learning in Aboriginal communities.  The Killick Centre for E-Learning Research (2011), observed the experiences of a sample high school group from Coastal Labrador.  The course facilitators and participants of the study raised the concern about the content not being culturally relevant. Educators understand the importance of engaging the learner.  When course content is relevant and engaging, the learner is apt to be motivated towards success.  Educators demonstrated this, when adaptations to the core content of a English Grade 12 course within a pilot program were made, “We’re in the process of piloting a new course here, an English First-Peoples 12 course which is basically English 12, which every student needs to have, written exclusively with Aboriginal content for the resources. So the plays, instead of doing Shakespeare, they’ll do an Aboriginal play. The poetry is all from Aboriginal authors; the short stories are the same. The first cohort that went through here, their provincial exam results were 10% higher than Aboriginal students taking [the regular] English 12.”

(Sharpe, Phillpott, Bourgeois 2011: p.61)

Sharpe, Philpott, Bourgeois. (April, 2011). A Pan-Canadian Survey of E-Learning for Aboriginal High School Students.

Sunchild E-learning Community

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Sunchild E-Learning Community

While researching possible resources for my project, I was curious to discover that there are very few (4 that I found) e-learning communities that were specifically created for students and adults within the Aboriginal communities. I was astonished that there were so few!  The following is an excerpt from my paper, focusing on the Digital Divide and Bridging the Gap.

“Bridging digital and educational divides has enabled simultaneous growth in the technological and educational skills within the Canadian Aboriginal population. Many Canadian Aboriginals reside in rural; often remote areas of the nation. Web-based educational instruction offers an opportunity for individual success by bridging the gap within the learning environment.  A Calgary Alberta based e-learning facility, Sunchild e-learning Community, is an example of an online K-12 learning program for Aboriginal Canadians.  The Sunchild e-learning community provides an educational learning experience that stresses accountability and interaction amongst its participants, whether within the classroom setting or remotely.  Teachers motivate and keep “students involved through synchronous voice exchanges, chat line discussions and the monitoring of student assignments” (Sunchild website testimonial, 2011). With the availability of e-learning programs such as Sunchild, participants do not have to leave their community rather, the program is delivered to them.”