Indigenous Cyberspace – The new frontier

By: Jennifer Wemigwans/ Interactive Media Producer www.fourdirectionsteachings.com

Like any popular media before it, cyberspace produces stories that contribute to our understanding of who we are. This is important because today’s exploding “knowledge exchange” through communications technologies is not really about new knowledge; it is about a new knowledge system – a new way of representing or exchanging ideas, stories or information that already exist in one form or another. Think of Youtube: in many cases, what we see isn’t new; it’s often nostalgic material, or kids goofing around, only in a new medium.

This new medium is the internet, which is found today in schools, offices, libraries and community centres, and in many homes. It is even found in once-isolated places. Increasingly, children in remote northern communities can interact online with people around the world. This is really significant because for the first time ever we have access to a multimedia communications system that combines images, sounds, and movement, which gives us more flexibility to express ourselves. Already many native youth are using sites like MySpace to share their own style, talent, likes and dislikes. Others are collaborating professionally to create innovative storytelling experiences. For example, Radio Healer (www.radiohealer.com) combines images and music inspired from traditional indigenous origins and uses modern technology to give form to new creations - like the cyborg shaman, which takes the user into a fantastical aural journey. A totally different take, the Inuk Site (www.inuksite.com) offers kids aged 4 to 7 a storytelling experience where they learn problem solving skills based on Inuk societal values. Bright, child friendly and easy to use, this site introduces youngsters to interactive play from an Indigenous perspective. Sites like these are great examples of how the internet is being used for Indigenous cultural expression, whether to teach children or to provide healing experiences through music. Aboriginal people across the country are exploring the territory of cyberspace and claiming it for their own.

Our communities need to have access to Indigenous spaces online that reinforce and direct us back to the strengths found in our own histories, cultures and traditions - rather than ignoring or degrading them, as popular media have done so often in the past. This is why Aboriginal sites are so important, and why it is my pleasure to congratulate Digital Drum on its launch. Digital Drum celebrates and promotes ways of seeing and understanding ourselves online by existing as a space where Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people from many different nations can learn and play in ways that relate to the exploration of Aboriginal cultures, perspectives and forms of knowledge. Digital Drum is a great opportunity to use this new space to make contributions that right the wrongs of earlier media and for grassroots community members to contribute to a more respectful understanding of our diversity as Aboriginal Peoples.

For far too long, generations of Aboriginal people have witnessed their absence or misrepresentation in the media of print, radio, television and film, which provided limited access to Aboriginal peoples in the past. There is a long legacy in broader society of misunderstanding and stereotyping of Aboriginal people. This sad legacy has been promoted by storytellers with a limited knowledge of Aboriginal communities, if not a complete disregard for them. Such misrepresentation has contributed to generations of Aboriginal people experiencing racism and social alienation in the larger mainstream society, and low self-esteem among themselves. In recent history, we have succeeded in accessing and controlling these traditional media formats to some extent, even more expensive formats such as television; however, not everyone can contribute and communicate through media like television, radio or even print, because of their highly specialized requirements and limitations.

“Sharing the beat for all generations,” Digital Drum is a potential remedy to this situation. Digital Drum is an open door of endless possibilities, with unlimited access. Here you can share your story, or your grandmother’s story; you can ask questions about Powwow regalia or learn about particular dances; or, you can post your latest hip-hop rhyme or start a contest for best homegrown music video. As an activist or an educator, you can call attention to an issue or seek out support for a cause. Whatever you can imagine, whatever you can share, you can find a space on Digital Drum, an Aboriginal site committed to profiling its own users. In a world where we are bombarded by mainstream popular culture everywhere, it is comforting to know that there are user friendly alternatives like Digital Drum, where we can experience our communities from the ground up.

Educators, elders, and parents know that Aboriginal youth are the fastest growing population in Canada. This growth of the youth population has created a pyramid in Aboriginal communities, where the base represents the youth and the top represents traditional teachers and elders who hold cultural knowledge. With so many youth and a limited number of elders, it is hard to bring traditional knowledge to the new generation. Our elders are the keepers of wisdom, and it has often been said that their stories are the key to the past, present and future. So it is appropriate that Digital Drum aims to connect elders to youth and youth to elders, because to move forward and to be strong, we all need to know where we come from. This connection is essential, and sustains the greater circle that holds us all and helps us to know that we belong. It is a connection that can only be built through sharing and dialogue.

Ultimately, sites like Digital Drum and www.FourDirectionsTeachings.com, another Aboriginal site which shares teachings from First Nations, along with the other sites mentioned above, are about belonging and sharing. They are also, by virtue of their very existence in cyberspace, a political statement that we as Aboriginal people will not be steamrolled by advanced media or the so-called progress of western civilization. Instead, we will do what our ancestors before us did: we will adapt, advance, use and share the resources we have at hand to celebrate our communities, cultures and lives. We will do all this so that we can have a positive impact on the social relations within our communities, and on the communities that surround us.

Staking out a claim in cyberspace for Aboriginal peoples is crucial to the health of our communities. Aboriginal peoples need to have open access to culturally sensitive resources so that we can participate, share and play in these spaces as a way of strengthening, defining and challenging who we are and what we want to be.

Digital Drum is a call: a challenge that speaks to how new technology is more than just a computer screen or a mechanical door to virtual space. It is an invitation to relate and relay what Aboriginal cultures are in the twenty first century and how these new expressions and relations can impact our communities and the communities beyond them.

So let’s share the beat and have some fun!