The Impact of Digital Technologies on Indigenous Peoples
Gabriel Ruiz
July 29, 2022
When innovation brings the possibility of providing services and benefits closer. Indigenous people are just as likely to adopt them for themselves as for others. They can comfortably adapt their cultures to these new means, to take advantage of these digital opportunities and digital transformations.
Brief history
One of our main opportunities lies in the very depths of the ocean. It plays a big role in global warming. The oceans absorb about 30% of the carbon dioxide we produce, But it is under constant attack from pollution, bad fishing habits, and global warming.
In traditional lands time, indigenous peoples acquired new technology through elaborate community exchange networks and through internal innovation.
Colonization by Europeans transformed both the types of technologies known to indigenous peoples and their need for those technologies. At first, indigenous peoples welcomed colonizers' weapons and modes of transportation into their lives.
But over time, unequal distribution of those technologies fundamentally altered their political relationships and forced them to adapt their cultures to a frightening one.
The social and cultural transformation was dramatic. Some people see technology as a threat to their identity, while others find it useful or desirable. Often, those who are able to adapt to new technology have more political power than those who cannot.
Today's technological innovations are focused on knowledge, information, and communication. They provide the means to gather and act on new ideas, share ideas with others, and record past and present ways so that they are not forgotten in the future.
Nowadays
Today's technological innovations are centered on information and communication. They provide the means to share ideas and ways of doing things with others and to record past and present ways so that they are not forgotten in the future. Guns once stripped indigenous peoples of aspects of their identity, today's technology provides the opportunities for indigenous peoples to reinforce those identities.
In a study, Terence Turner described what happened when he began filming and giving video cameras and recording equipment to the Kayapo, an Amazonian indigenous people living in Brazil.
The Kayapo objectified their culture through representation in the media and began to understand that their culture had value not only to themselves but to at least some outsiders who agreed that their culture should be protected.
The Kayapo used the media to transform their relationship with the Brazilian authorities. They not only filmed their culture for posterity, but used the footage to educate the outside world about their ways of life and what would be lost if their oppression continued. And, when affected by political threats of the Brazilian government, such as the planning for a dam that would disrupt the lands and environment in which they lived, they used informational media as a via of political action.
Indigenous peoples are using technology to declare their intent to be included in the digital revolution. They are calling for an infrastructure to be made available to indigenous peoples so that they can have access to the internet and other information and communications technologies (ICT).
They are calling for ICT to be used to promote and preserve indigenous rights and cultures, to heighten their access to education in their own languages and based on their own cultural methods of teaching and learning, to improve their access to health care. Furthermore, they are demanding that ICT be made available to communities on the basis of equity and accessibility for all.
Internet, infinite possibilities
For example, Dr. Sharon Bohn Gmelch and Reuel Daniels argue that “the Internet provides Indigenous peoples with opportunities that simply did not exist before,” which empowers Native communities to compete economically on the global level, but on their own terms.
Gmelch and Daniels argue that the Internet provides opportunities for Indigenous economic development by creating a global market for businesses and products; making possible their participation in the global economy.
Search engines like lycos.com allow numbers of indigenous people to see how the world unfolds around them. From seeing the mountains of Japan, to the sculptures in Italy.
Second, the Internet promotes Indigenous self-determination and cultural diversity by contributing to the sense of organization and autonomous governance, even to those communities within repressive regimes, often through online bulletin boards, mass e-mailings, and general websites.
The Internet allows these communities “to share strategies, and mobilizes a world community of advocates and activists, who exert political and economic pressure and lend other aid.”
Finally, websites and other web-based media support Indigenous peoples’ art, language, culture, histories, and traditions can be shared, learned, promoted, and distributed. “No longer does such knowledge reside only in elders' minds or in dusty tomes in distant libraries.
Similarly, Dr. John Afele argues that Native peoples “should aim to digitize the oral cultures of Indigenous groups, who are the majority after all, and identify complementary knowledge from global resources.” Assuming that Indigenous peoples can actively assert dominance in a primarily Western-dominated medium, Dr. Afele asserts that “there is ample room for all cultures to be represented on the Internet.”
Sources
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/many-meanings-technology
https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/egms/docs/2013/ict/innovation-technology-indigenous.pdf
https://www.ethnosproject.org/the-impact-of-digital-technology-on-indigenous-peoples/#:~:text=The%20Internet%20allows%20these%20communities,%2C%20culture%2C%20histories%2C%20and%20traditions