Jennifer Wolowic

Jennifer Wolowic completed her PhD at University of British Columbia in December 2016. She received her Masters from the same university and graduated from San Francisco State University with a BA in Film Production and a BA in Anthropology. Originally from Northern California, her research explored the affective nature of First Nation youths’ social networks and how film can be used to create new representations of those usually only represented through a criminalizing gaze.

Her dissertation explored the appropriation of Facebook by the Nisga’a and Tsimshian in Prince Rupert based on their experience with other forms of technology, cultural values, and ongoing impacts of colonization. As an ethnography of technology use, youth and cultural continuity. Within the thesis she discusses the objects and protocols visible in the Northwest Coast potlatch system as a means to outline the history of media used by First Nations peoples and their ideology.  She argues Facebook use in Prince Rupert is influenced by long standing First Nations’ cultural practices and the more recent repurposing of short wave radio technology. The use of Facebook by First Nations is motivated by the importance of witnessing and the desire for extensive families to remain connected. At the time, Facebook use supported and added to already existing social gatherings that maintain extensive social and supply networks that keep urban and reserve communities connected.

Dissertation Abstract:

For urban Tsimshian and Nisga’a youth in Prince Rupert, cell phones, cameras and Facebook are among the latest tools used to connect with families and friends across geographical distance as well as address the historical, cultural, and economic gaps created by processes of displacement. Traditional Northwest Coast First Nations’ social practices and feasts are expressed in intensely public ways; that visibility construct and maintain their social relationships and communities. Although the youth I met sometimes feel alienated from larger Canadian society as well as from village communities and feast protocols, traditional ideas of public participation embedded in social activities are sometimes successfully remediated to digital technology and Facebook for two reasons. First, public presentation and dissemination have effectively stabilized Northwest Coast First Nations’ societies across vast geographical distances for centuries. Second, the continued emphasis on public expression is part of new, creative ways the youth and families I met use mobile digital technology to create an active, somewhat de-localized, community-based support system. It is a response to colonization that creates opportunities to find and manage economic, emotional, and social support. As one result, I argue digital technology and media have become part of a succession of technological practices and tools used to create community, identity, and social stability for young people. By exploring historical practices as they relate to digital technology—some of which was introduced via photography and media production during the course of this research—I explore traditional and emergent modes of public participation that connects youth to their heritage and community, while addressing their unique needs.