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Is the Internet a friend or foe of indigenous peoples? Despite the complexity of the issue and the very real digital divide that exists between the West and the rest, between rich and poor, we believe the former to be true. Why? Because information is power. By spreading and sharing information, the Internet provides indigenous peoples with opportunities that simply did not exist before. PEOPLink.org, for example, works through local nonprofit organizations to provide over 100,000 indigenous artisans in 20 countries with Internet training and web space. Through this initiative and the work of many grassroots organizations, it is now possible for people in remote villages from Guatemala to Bangladesh to sell their crafts to customers around the globe. Search engines like lycos.com permit people living in urban centers from Germany to Japan to learn of village-run rainforest lodges and native-led botanical tours. The Internet, by creating an international market for local products and businesses, enables indigenous people to participate in the global economy on something like their own terms, thus enhancing their long-term economic viability. The Internet promotes self-determination and, ultimately, cultural diversity in other ways. Web sites, mass e-mailings, and electronic bulletin boards, for example, have contributed enormously to the political organization and sense of common purpose of many groups resisting oppressive regimes. For instance, Burman and ethnic minority exiles abroad have used the Internet to expose to the world the human rights abuses of Myanmarâs military junta. The Internet not only strengthens the internal solidarity of indigenous and minority groups, it allows them to share strategies, and mobilizes a world community of advocates and activists, who exert political and economic pressure and lend other aid. The Internet has also been used to marshal international support when a groupâs resource base has been threatened, for example by illegal logging. Web sites and electronic chat rooms create places where indigenous peoplesâ language, history, art, and aspirations can be recorded, shared, and learned. No longer does such knowledge reside only in the minds of elders or in dusty tomes in distant libraries. The Internet can also create virtual communities out of long-dispersed groups, such as the Assyrian diaspora, and allow widely scattered families to maintain kinship ties. It creates a timeless place where communication is always possible and knowledge is always available.
This is an admittedly rosy view. We are aware that many problems exist. Opening windows into other peoplesâ cultures and minds through the Internet can create confusion and discontent. Protecting the intellectual property rights of indigenous groups is a real concern. The Internet is dominated by English, posing a threat to minority languages, and illiteracy limits access. Although the digital divide is narrowing, the most advanced technology will remain in the hands of wealthy nations and corporations for a long time to come. The hope is that as wireless technologies become increasingly common, networks will push outwards so that even the poorest and most remote indigenous groups will be able to connect. Dr. Sharon Bohn Gmelch is a former Earthwatch scientist and professor of anthropology at Union College. She has conducted cultural research in Ireland, Newfoundland, Barbados, and Alaska and is the author of five books. Reuel Daniels, an anthropology major at Union College, wrote her senior thesis on the impact of the Internet on indigenous peoples. Robyn Kamira After food, shelter, and reproduction, there is culture. The Maori people strive for cultural survival. In the face of physical threat, we fight; in the face of colonization, we redefine, reclaim; in the face of information technology, we position ourselves so that we÷and everyone else÷can know we are distinct. That is survival also, ake, ake, ake tonu atu: ãforever and ever into the distant realms of time.ä The Internet is a new catalyst for a chaotic and greedy information ãgrabä at a rate and scale that humanity has never before experienced. But for Maori, a collective term created to include all tribal groups of Aotearoa, or New Zealand, the control of information on the Internet is not quite within reach. Maori are under-represented in technology professions and are less likely to have the access necessary to participate fully. Like any technology, the Internet travels a slow road of availability, first to highly developed communities and finally, if at all, to communities that are overwhelmed by basic survival issues. There is excitement and activity at one level for Maori through ad hoc Internet projects that support tino rangatiratanga, or ãcontrol over oneâs destiny,ä including education, development, and political autonomy. However, other organizations and our government are building multi-million-dollar, Internet-based systems that record and manipulate information about Maori with astounding speed. Government databases collect abundant data about Maori with no predetermined purpose, and publish it with little regard for context or benefit to Maori. Instead, Maori are subjected to research findings from these databanks that continue to reinforce the most negative stereotypes. The Internet now enables the sharing of data across organizational and governmental databases that ensures that the technology still happens ãÎatä Maori. Because others have control, the Internet has become a modern, exciting, and rapid tool for further colonization. This, I believe, is not part of a deliberate conspiracy for technological colonization but is a byproduct of it. Once again, there is a real threat that our stories and histories will be told by others who have no stake in their integrity or survival. Without the benefit of hindsight, this is not so easily perceived. However, history leaves us with relevant lessons: like indigenous peoples worldwide, our stories have been told and manipulated by others, only to be reduced to fantasy, novelty, myth, and untruth. Maori knowledge was validated, discarded, or modified to suit a strategy of colonization, conquering both geography and knowledge systems. The potential to prevent further pillaging of our culture exists only when Maori are able to participate in decisions about the technology. Recently, we have been attempting to develop mechanisms for governance that will protect cultural matters, collective privacy, and ownership, and lead to more Maori participation in Internet-based projects. By reaching mastery of the technology, we can also be vigilant about how others are using it and relevant government policies and laws. For example, the current laws of this nation and of the world are not conducive to perceptions about guardianship that are practiced by many indigenous peoples. This frivolous treatment of indigenous cultural knowledge by Western societies is consistent with their treatment of the physical environment. The Internet can contribute to our cultural survival as long as our cultural contexts are maintained. It can sustain our choice to define and redefine, and to grow and change as we choose. The Internet is still just a tool. It will not replace the ãbreath of lifeä that is intricately woven into our world. The land, sea, and mountains are the manifestations and reflections of our culture that technology will never completely mirror. There is life and there is death...Tihei mauri ora: ãI sneeze; therefore I live!ä Robyn Kamira is from the Maori tribal groups of Te Rarawa and Te Aupouri. She works with indigenous communities in New Zealand on issues in information technology, and is pursuing a Ph.D. at Aukland University on the subject. Dr. John Afele The Internet is not by default set to obliterate indigenous and minority groups. Information technology is about knowledge-based activities. All around the world, groups are evolving and converging into knowledge ãblocs,ä with the understanding that knowledge determines the state of humanity. The global community is faced with the search for new knowledge for sustainable human interaction with the environment and efficient productivity. These issues are pertinent to indigenous groups and developing countries as well, and are not inconsistent with cultural diversity.
When a participant at the Bamako 2000 conference last year posed the question, ãDoes America own the Internet?ä more than one member of the audience had to agree. The issue of ownership, or the perception of ãforeignä origin, affects peoplesâ perception of content on the Internet. There also are technical and governance structures pertaining to information technologies that are sore points for many nations. But there is ample room for all cultures to be represented on the Internet. It is not in Africaâs interest, or that of other poor nations and their indigenous groups, to expend valuable energy discussing the invasion of their world by the Internet, or that the Internet is not relevant to their local knowledge. If all the billions of pages on the Internet were available in my native African language, it would mean little to my mother, even though she is literate only in that language. Indigenous languages will matter on a more local level: building local networks connecting schools and curricula, hospitals and traditional health practitioners, technical schools and rural engineers. The rapid advances in information technology and telecommunications are relevant to all cultures and economies. What is essential is the ingenuity of local champions of the Internet to contemplate the unique ways in which this technology can be adapted to local situations. The various cultures of the world could, for the first time, be visible to all who have access to the Internet. There are no technological barriers to deployment of information technology anywhere in the world today; it is political will and imagination of institutions that will determine how much a culture benefits from the Internet. Dr. John Afele, originally from Ghana, is director of the International Program for Africa at the University of Guelph, Ontario ( www.waoe.org/africanknowledge/index.html), and director of Village Telecom in Ghana. His program builds knowledge partnerships, using information technology, for sustainable development. Rodney Bobiwash The late technology guru and modern philosopher Marshall McLuhan said that in the Information Age, we would all wear the skin of one anotherâs culture. This statement addresses the ambivalence about the use of information technology, like the Internet, by contemporary indigenous peoples. Successful cultures are those that are able to tolerate a high degree of adaptation and flexibility. The Haida artist Bill Reid once said that the only way for culture to survive, to be vibrant, was to keep inventing new things. Cultures that are unable to invent are quickly consigned to history. The survival of the approximately 6,000 to 10,000 indigenous nations worldwide is a testimony to the merits of cultural adaptation. On the other hand, there is a great concern within these nations that the same forces that brought them useful technologies have also brought Coca-Cola, Nike, and other global corporations intent on undermining local culture, language, and tradition. Indigenous elders realize too well that the one who controls the narrative÷who tells the stories÷controls both the future and the past. How does the Internet fit into this? Indigenous people have been quick to embrace the use of the Internet, seeing in it the potential for access to a larger community of interest for their local struggles, for fostering cultural revitalization, and for transforming their relationship with the dominant society. It is often pointed out that, in 1994, the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, fought the first, local, indigenous insurgency over the Internet. Using e-mail and the Web, the Zapatistas were able to gain access to both media and international support groups with an immediacy and effectiveness unknown before. Among other examples, in the mid-1980s, the Center for World Indigenous Studies began construction of a site devoted to indigenous cultural information. What began as a bulletin board has now grown to over 30,000 documents in the George Manuel On-Line Library, a leading source of information about contemporary indigenous issues. In the Canadian Arctic, the new province of Nunavut has been developing computer code (unicode) to enable its geographically far-flung government offices to communicate with each other using a common Inuktituut orthography. Apple Computerâs Library of Tomorrow project has worked with indigenous people globally to reinforce local languages and enhance networking between indigenous communities. While such initiatives have been positive, many tribal elders fear that, in the long run, the Internet will be used to reinforce traditional, hierarchical social structures and the hegemony of the state and corporations, and to provide uncontrolled access to traditional knowledge. Concepts such as cultural property and intellectual property rights are still in flux, and, in the absence of clearly defined legal instruments relating to ownership of cultural property, the indigenous knowledge found on the Web is at the mercy of end-users. The lack of progress in defining appropriate limitations means that indigenous peoples will continue to view with a great deal of suspicion databases developed in response to the Convention on Biodiversity, the World Taxonomy Project, etc. With the Internet, as with all introduced technology, the principle of successful adaptation remains paramount: Accept only those things that demonstrate a clear benefit. While the Internet has proven beneficial to indigenous communities, until collateral issues on the information highway have been resolved, it, too, must be governed by the precautionary principle. The invention of new technology promises new spheres of engagement between indigenous people and nonindigenous societies. But, if I am to invite you to wear my skin, you must first learn to respect the spirit within. Rodney Bobiwash was a member of the Anishnabek Nation, on the north shore of Lake Huron, Canada. Before his untimely death in December 2002, he was director of the Forum for Global Exchange at the Center for World Indigenous Studies, an international organization promoting indigenous knowledge. |
With more than 3.2 million new pages of content every 24 hours, and an estimated 1 billion users by 2005, the Internet is an information empire on a scale never before approached in human history. Although the Internet brings the opportunities of the Information Age to villages in every corner of the Earth, most content is in English and promotes the capitalist ideals and products of modern industrialized society. Is the Internet just another example of Western domination that will speed cultural homogenization? Or can indigenous peoples and cultural minorities join the information revolution to ensure their cultural survival, thus protecting the worldâs precious cultural diversity? We asked four participants from diverse backgrounds to share their views on these questions. Their responses help highlight both the positive and negative impacts of global communication on indigenous cultures, and give clear direction to how indigenous groups can make best use of the Internet to sustain their traditions.
Enhanced pride in oneâs culture as well as practical information from the outside÷from appropriate technology to ideas for resistant crop strains and preventive health care÷can improve the quality of life for indigenous peoples. Governments and international organizations like UNESCO recognize this and have set up community Internet centers in rural areas from Sri Lanka to Tasmania, creating a larger world of the possible for local cultures. Because the Internet is an organic and exciting medium, it appeals especially to the young, those most intrigued by the possible.
In Africa, proponents of the Internet should aim to digitize the oral cultures of indigenous groups, who are the majority after all, and identify complementary knowledge from global resources. The resulting knowledge should be sifted into forms available to meet African peoplesâ needs locally. The matrix for a viable pluralistic Information Age is contained in recent advances in information technology. All thatâs required is information managers to develop the necessary linkages and partnerships. Africans, who for centuries have sent their children to school to bring back knowledge, should now demand that their educated children reflect on the indigenous knowledge they grew up with.