Tag Archives: self identity

Module 3 – Post 2 – Longhouse Media

Leave a reply

 

Longhouse Media

Image Source: http://www.longhousemedia.org/about.html

After viewing this week’s video, “March Point” I wanted to try to find out more about its origins.  Through an internet search, I discovered that March Point is a production of Longhouse Media, a Washington State non-profit organization.  The production was completed as part of their “Native Lens” program.

“The mission of Longhouse Media is to catalyze indigenous people and communities to use media as a tool for self-expression, cultural preservation, and social change.”

The Longhouse Media website provides information on the organization’s current and past video productions (including March Point), their mandate and rationale, latest news and upcoming events, and also links to many other Indigenous artists and Native Organizations.

I found the website to be visually appealing, quite user friendly and easy to navigate.  I liked the fact that the website was very positive in nature, and seemed to be based around a message of hope.  I also really appreciated the information provided on the “About Us” and “News” pages as they give a lot of background information as to both the history and future of this talented and dedicated group.

The website can be found here: Longhouse Media

Module 2 – Post #4 – Second Chances

Leave a reply

The digital storytelling project for First Nations women, which I described in my previous post, led me to the corresponding project posted by the Oral History Centre, which is known as ININIWAG DIBAAJIMOWAG: FIRST NATIONS MEN AND THE INTER-GENERATIONAL EXPERIENCES OF RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS. The men’s digital stories associated with this project are equally poignant to those of the women mentioned in my previous post. However, the one that I found most impactful was the story called Second Chance, by Dan Highway. He is a residential school survivor, who shares in simple and clear terms how the theft of the opportunity to be with his own parents impacted his abilities as a father and how his process of healing has resulted in a second chance to be a parent to his children and grandchildren.

Numerous other stories emerging from this project can be found on the Oral History Centre’s YouTube Playlist.

Mod 2:5 Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre

Leave a reply

The Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre is committed to helping maintain the languages and cultures of First Nations people. Their website has information on the various First Nations in Saskatchewan as well as a section on how to respect Elders. The website has information that could easily be used with students.

http://www.sicc.sk.ca/elders_faq.html

Entry 8: Language and Culture

Leave a reply

“The world loses a language every two weeks” – Wade Davis

The IRCA (Indigenious Remote Communications Association) “is the peak body that represents and advocates for the media and communications interests of remote and very remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia.”  This site discusses the importance of maintaining and strengthening the languages of aboriginal groups. Languages hold a key to the tranmission of culture, ideas, values, etc and often some information can not be translated into nother language, say English, wihout losing the importance of the information.  Therefore, it is imperative that the languages of aboriginal peoples be maintained.

IRCA “believes that strong language and culture are fundamental to strengthening Indigenous identity and culture.”

Languages contain complex understandings of a person’s culture, their identity and their connection with their land. Language enables the transference of culture and cultural knowledge across generations. Languages are a source of pride and strength.

The site goes on to list several key reasons for languages. These include 1) Culture    2) Health, Education, Employment  3) Heritage  4) Economics  5) Science and Sustainability  6) Reconciliation.  IRCA also offers many documents and reports that  support indigenious languages.

http://www.irca.net.au/about-irca/friends/sector/language-and-culture

Module 2 – Post 5 – Who are the Metis?

Leave a reply

The Metis Nation of Ontario website provides a great resource for research into Metis culture.  The Website provides a look into Metis culture from both a historical and a contemporary point of view, including areas such as language, leaders, symbols and traditions.

The website also provides information on current and ongoing legislative battles that the Metis are engaging in with provincial and federal governments to regain and perpetuate their rights and culture.  Particular attention is  given to reference to the Powley case, which has reaffirmed the Metis right to maintaining their culture through hunting and gathering activities on their traditional lands.

I think the Metis Nation of Ontario’s website is a good example of using the technology of the internet to both protect and further the culture of the Metis People.

The website can be found here: Metis Nation of Ontario

Mod 2:1 Mary Greyeyes

Leave a reply

A popular representation of First Nations people is that of the “noble savage.”  The character of Nanook in Nanook of the North is a prime example of the noble savage who lives off the land using traditional tools against the elements of nature. The noble savage is a romanticized representation that serves to contrast First Nations peoples with modern western culture. At best, the noble savage image makes us gaze in awe at a long-gone past, at worst it is a deliberate misrepresentation that reinforces a stereotype.

There is a photo in the Canadian War Museum archives once labelled,  “Unidentified Indian princess getting blessing from her chief and father to go fight in the war.” and currently, wrongly, labelled, “Mary Greyeyes being blessed by her native Chief prior to leaving for service in the CWAC” Neither is accurate. It is interesting to think of the purpose of this picture with the captions originally given it. I’m not sure that I would have questioned the second title (the first does seem far fetched) but it certainly serves to paint a rosy picture of First Nations people in the second world war. The story of this picture does not belong to me so I will let you read it from the source.

Technology and loss of identity

2 Replies

The benefits of technology are easily noticed.  The Web and other technological devices do allow indigenious people an opportunity to explore and investigate their culture.  People can often find traditional skills that may have otherwise been lost. However there has been a much research done on the overuse of technology.

Therefore, I wish to explore the drawbacks or negative side-effects of this over technological use on indigenious people.  This topic may seem broad in scope. How do we judge what is overuse of technology?  Which negative aspects of techuse do I wish to explore:  the medical, the environmental, or the social?  I will focus my research on the personal impact of technological use as it affects or alters one’s life.  I wish to explore if technology is taking away the self-identity, or cultural identity of indigenious people, – an identity that, without technology, would remain.

I will explore articles and sites on technology versus self-identity and cultural identity.  I will also examine data on technological use for indigenious and non-indigenious groups.

Below is a list of some sites, articles, and research that may be used along with the information from my modules.

Entry 5: Is technology ruining children?

Leave a reply

John Cornwell relates his interview with Professor Susan Greenfield, a specialist in neural degeneration and researcher for Alzhemier’s.  Dr Greenfield predicts “that our teen generation is headed for a sort of mass loss of personal identity.” p.1 which she alludes to as the Nobody Scenerio. Dr Greenfield feels that the brains of our youth are being altered as a result of the amount of time they spend in the virtual, 2D world of cyberspace.

Nobody Scenerio “individuality could be obliterated in favour of a passive state …  one where personalized brain connectivity is either not functional or absent altogether.” p6

Repercussions to this brain alterations include:

1) a substitution of virtual and real encounters;

2) spoon-fed menu options versus free-ranging inquiry

3) decline in linguistic and visual imagination

4) atrophy of creativity

5) contracted, brutalized text messaging lacking verbs and conditional structures

Dr Greenfield emphasizes a concern that youth  understand ‘process’ (the method) over ‘content’ (the meaning).  and ” the more time we play games, the less time there is for learning specific facts and working out how the facts relate ….  this results in a failure to build highly personalized individual conceptual frameworks… [which is ] the basis of individual identity.” p4

She continues to explain how the process becomes addictive and , in turn, alters the mind.  Dr Greenfield further elaborates on the process, using scientific jargon, referencing dopamine, nucleus accumbers, and the prefrontal cortex.  She makes the connection between youth playing a video game (ex: Kill Bill) and a recent teenage beating and murder of a goth girl.

Dr Greenfield believes slaughtering endless hordes of villains in a game seperates the process of the action to the meaning and consequences.  When teens brutally kicked  the girl to death, they acted on a process like in a video game, with no thought of the girl’s feelings or the family or consequence to themselves (the content).

Dr Greenfield asserts that ” unique and enriched identities [are attained] through the world of focused conversation, nursery rhyme repetition, recitation and rote learning, of reading and writing interspersed with bouts of physical activity in the real world, where there are first-hand and unique adventures to provide a personal narrative, personalised neuronal connections.  This is education as we have known it.” p5

http://rense.com/general81/techh.htm

Entry 2: Technology and Identity

Leave a reply

In  Technology & Identity : Is rapidly accelerating technology eroding our sense of who we are?, Barbara Molony  of Santa Clara University reports on a disucssion by three panelists about our identity and culture in relation to our use and dependence on technology. Questions such as,, “Is our identity as a society eroding because we are unclear about the survival of our cultural legacy?,” help clarify the impact of technology on our individual identity and community identity.   The potential of the Internet’s influence on our identities can have both a positive and negative impact.

The globalization of information allows for an openness of ideas, and a feeling of being connected. Yet, the internet can also lead “American ethnic communities to vanish and that online communities often result in a narrowing of focus,” as people are less connected emotionally.  Although the internet can “help us forge old-fashioned connectedness in a seemingly disconnected, modernizing world,”

One panelist, John Staudenmaier  (Professor of History, University of Detroit, Mercy), “felt that we all need “offline time” to find our identity, and suggested we consider fasting from the Internet one night per week.”

http://www.scu.edu/sts/nexus/summer2001/MolonyArticle.cfm

Entry 1: Is technology stealing our identity?

Leave a reply

Psychology Today offers an insigthful look at how technology may be ‘ shaping our identities in ways in which most of us aren’t the least bit aware.”  Jim Taylor indicates that present self-identity is altered and shaped by popular culture, making it more difficult to develop and understand who we really are. In other words, technology is creating the new you and me.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-prime/201107/technology-is-technology-stealing-our-self-identities