Category Archives: Module 1

Module 1: Post 4: Rising Voices

My third post was about a website about Cultural Survival. I decided to keep searching for sites which help connect and reach out to indigenous communities around the world. This website is titled Rising Global Voices Online, it was created by a group of Indigenous bloggers in 2004. They began to invite other Indigenous peoples around the world to engage in conversation online and shed light to issues and news in their communities which is often overlooked by mainstream media.

Rising Voices allows Indigenous people around the world to voice their opinion to others, it shares Indigenous media and news coverage and support projects that help protect Indigenous peoples worldwide.

The downfall to this website is in order for Indigenous Voices to be heard online the documentation needs to be translated to English. It is sometimes difficult translating various issues and problems from an Indigenous language to English. It is also difficult for people to use many of the tools offered on Global Voices such as podcasts, blogs or online videos because it is only translated into 6 languages and many people do not have the language skills or experience to use this technology therefore unable to voice themselves properly.

http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/projects/

Module 1 – Post 5 – Metis Museum

Leave a reply

One of the central themes of Etec521 investigates how technology can be used by Indigenous peoples to reconnect with, archive, and share their identities and culture. With that in mind, most of my posts for this module have centered around websites that provide online access to historical documentation and information on Metis culture. For my final post for this module I chose to feature the website: The Virtual Museum of Metis Hitory and Culture. This website is designed and maintained by the Gabriel Dumont Institute of Native Studies and Applied Reseach in Saskatchewan, Canada.

The virtual museum provides a wealth of information in the following categories:

Indigenous Voices – Contains video clips of Michif language interviews
Metis Celebration – Video and audio files celebrating Metis music, dance and storytelling
Metis Heritage – Oral histories, photographs, and Metis Resistance documentation
Learning Resources – Information on traditional Metis lifestyle and education
Artistic Expressions – Materials honoring traditional and contemporary Metis art forms
Moccasin Telegraph – Links to other Metis resources around the web

The website is very user friendly, and I think provides a wonderful example of how technology can be used by Indigenous groups to preserve and share the visible aspects of their culture.

The website can be found here: Metis Virtual Museum

Mod 1:3 Inside Out – Armidale Australia

Leave a reply

http://blog.ted.com/2012/08/16/a-ted-prize-wish-100000-posters-later/

JR is an artist whose TED wish is coming true. His wish is “that people around the globe have a chance to show the world their true face.” (TED Blog) His wish is literal with communities in more than 100 countries displaying huge posters of faces on walls. The video above is from an Australian Aboriginal group who are creating a wall with their faces on it for their town to enjoy.

Inside Out Project is a website created by JR about his project. Most fascinating is the Explore section of the website which maps every place in the world where Inside Out has been done. Armidale Australia is not the only Indigenous group that has participated in this project. In North Dakota, the Lakota Tribe printed posters of faces which were hung in New York among other places.

In the context of this class, the Inside Out project allowed (and continues to allow) Aboriginal communities to share their identity with the world. The posters are free to anyone who uploads a photograph to Inside Out. The project started out as an illegal art installation in Paris but now all around the world people are using the idea to promote their own communities.

Module 1 – Post 4 – Glenbow Museum

Leave a reply

I had an opportunity last September to visit the Glenbow Museum, which is located in Calgary, Alberta. My quest was to visit their archives in hopes of finding information for the family tree project I have been working on for the past ten years. Glenbow’s website contains links to searchable databases of resources that are available at the archives. Unfortunately, very few of the materials have been digitized and therefore a visit to the archives will be required if you wish to investigate your initial finds further.

The website is available here: The Glenbow Museum and Archives

Module #1 – Post #5: Contemporary Inuit and Innu Music

Leave a reply

Music provides a natural outlet for Aboriginal artists to carry-on an important aspect of their oral culture. With advances in recording technology and the ability to share content online, Aboriginal musicians have more opportunities than ever before to share their work with the international community. Similarly, technology has afforded isolated communities the opportunity to experience music of other cultures, which has surely influenced many contemporary Aboriginal artists. I found this to be an interesting notion, placing into question how we might perceive work by Aboriginal artists that transcend aspects of their musical traditions. In other words, what does music produced by Aboriginal (or even non-aboriginal artists) that incorporate elements from other cultures reveal about Aboriginal identity and interaction with a wider world? Should they be criticized for not adhering to tradition, or is there value in seeking ways to bridge cultural divides through art? What significance lies in the appropriation of Aboriginal language and music by Western artists and vice-versa?

I’ve selected a few artists whose work occupies a unique milieu of traditional Aboriginal and Western influences. Specifically, I sought out work by Inuit musicians to see what kind of a presence their work has online. I was pleasantly surprised by the diversity of musical styles that have emerged in the past couple of decades and the interesting cross-pollination of cultural influences evident in the music being produced. In the case of Quebecois musician Chloe Ste. Marie, the influence went the other way, as she decided to record her 2009 album, Nitshisseniten e tshissenitamin, entirely in the Innu language. Follow the links below to sample some of the diverse music produced by a few of today’s top talents:

Susan Aglukark – an Inuk singer who began her career in 1993 and has amassed 6 albums and multiple Juno awards.

Tanya Tagaq – Inuk throat singer who often incorporates Celtic influences; has recorded and toured with Icelandic singer, Bjork.

Lucie Idlout – Inuk singer/songwriter in English, whose work is heavily influenced by modern rock.

Chloe Ste. Marie – Quebecois singer/songwriter who in 2009 recorded Nitshisseniten e tshissenitamin, an album sung entirely in the Innu language.

Module 1 – Post 3 – The Metis Centre

Leave a reply

I found the Metis Centre when researching for articles on Metis health. The website hosts a large, searchable database that include census referenced statistical tables and a great deal of literature on Metis health and well-being. Also included on the website are links to current projects, cultural videos, fact sheets, and a Metis Newsletter. The Metis Centre’s moto is, “Our Health: Strengthened by Sharing”.

From the website: “The Métis Centre is one of three population-specific centres within the National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO). Incorporated in 2000, NAHO is an Aboriginal founded and guided institution whose aim is to advance and promote the health and well-being of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. The Métis Centre strives to develop accessible, culturally relevant and safe health and well-being information for a variety of audiences including, but not limited to, researchers, governments, and Métis individuals, families, and communities.”

The Metis Centre would be a great jumping off point for any heath related research of the Metis community.

The website is located here: The Metis Centre

Mod 1:2 Community Schools in SK

Leave a reply

Community Education is a concept that acknowledges that education does not stop at the school. Community Schools in Saskatchewan are schools that have been designated by the provincial government due to the high enrolment of First Nations youth. These schools are not only schools but places where other community organizations come together to support families. Part of their mandate states:

Community Education is a unique education concept that embraces these beliefs:

Education is a lifelong process;
Everyone in the community – individuals, businesses, public and private agencies – shares responsibility for the mission of educating all members of the community; and
Citizens have a right and a responsibility to be involved in determining community needs, identifying community resources, and linking those needs and resources to improve their community. (Community Schools – About us)

One of the questions that we reflected on during Module one was whether educational goals are different in First Nations communities. The goal of our educational system is to create healthy, contributing members of society and I believe that this is universal goal. I think the route to this goal is necessarily different for First Nations youth and we are learning how to acknowledge the differences. Our system isn’t perfect but schools with frameworks in place to support First Nations youth and families are starting the process of healing for First Nations Communities.

Module 1 – Post #5 – Sharing Insights

Leave a reply

Media Indigena is a multimedia magazine which began as a collective of 7 Aboriginal bloggers from Canada, but seeks to aggregate and debate Indigenous news and creative/interactive works from across the world.

The site offers multimedia content and commentary on current issues in Indigenous arts and culture, business and politics. Of all the sites I have visited so far in my research, this one has presented some of the most interesting snapshots of Aboriginal contributors exploring expressions of their cultures and the relative states of their traditions and knowledge. One of the posts from June of last year is titled Why there ain’t no such a-thing as “Aboriginal culture”. This post touches on the important distinctions between terms such as “nations”, “confederacy”, “bands”, etc. It also demonstrates the challenging balance of interests between uniting against colonialism and maintaining strong identities as individual and unique cultures. This is a theme that I’m sure we will return to throughout this course.

As I proceed through my research, I’m sure that the voices that come through in this online magazine will provide important benchmarks against which to check my assumptions.

Module 1 Post 2 – Firstnations.com

Leave a reply

I found this site really helpful in keeping up to date with First Nations news across the country and globe – http://www.firstnations.com/rss/google-news.php. It provides newsfeeds of FN news from various news sources.

One of the stories I came across http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/harper-government-on-collision-course-with-first-nations-1.1862819 talks about the ongoing battle between the Assembly of First Nations, and the government of Canada in land disputes and education rights. With education, AFN are fighting for more legislative rights to control education for their own people, and in the wake of annual event in B.C held by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, they believe the abuse in residential schools would never have happened if “had FN been in control over their own education”. FN is still seeking a “fair and lasting” resolution to the legacy of Indian Residential Schools. Past traumas are still alive and active today, and have profound impact on FN fight for autonomy in their communities.

Module 1 – Post #4 – The Value of Cooperation

Leave a reply

Collaboration and cooperation are key elements of Indigenous culture that have come up in our Module 1 readings. As I have continued my research into storytelling through rich media, I encountered a great posting from Australia about Victorian Indigenous Communities and Digital Storytelling .

The post is an entry on a site called “Screening the Past”, a site which is devoted to:

the history of photography, film, television and multimedia;
the representation of history on/in these media;
the role of these media in social history;
the history and development of critical and theoretical analysis in these areas

(Retrieved on 22nd September 2013 from http://www.screeningthepast.com/about-us/)

The post includes a great story about how a reluctant “Aunt” (term for female elders in Victorian Indigenous Communities) was supported and encouraged to participate in a digital storytelling workshop by two “Uncles” (term for male elders in Victorian Indigenous Communities), who offered up photos and stories of their own. As one of the writers of the post states, “…behind every one of these individual stories is another story about how the film was made, and that’s a story about being in the community.”