ISSUES
Several authors have illustrated how Indigenous peoples are using the Internet with the aim of self-determination and to support their goals as well as for preserving their heritage. For instance, Roy and Raitt (2003) noted, “[T]echnology may provide native peoples with new ammunition to express and extend themselves” (p.412). Similarly, several other writers have warned about the issues of ownership and access to Indigenous cultural material. One of these authors is Howe, who cautioned,
“[t]he pervasive universalism and individualism of the World Wide Web are antithetical to the particular localities, societies, moralities, and experiences that constitute tribalism. The Internet is an exceedingly deceptive technology whose power is immensely attractive to American Indians. But until its universalistic and individualistic foundation is restructured to incorporate spatial, social, spiritual, and experiential dimensions that particularize its application, cyberspace is no place for tribalism” (1998, p.27).
Howe further argued that if Indian communities wish to stake out a place in cyberspace, they must understand that in doing so they are capitulating to the underlying philosophy of the Internet. This section identifies some of the issues –positives and negatives– raised in the scholarly body of literature that arise when Indigenous peoples’ culture is placed in a digital networked environment.
Leuthold (1998) stated that Indigenous cultures’ outreach to new audiences and for new technologies reflected efforts at self-determination but also at
intercultural communication, to educate the wider community about contemporary Indigenous life. However, he also articulated it was not without dangers.
The distribution of images out of their local context, and the loss of control entailed by wider distribution, may end up compromising the cultural conventions and practices that Native Americans wish to maintain. But members of native cultures also recognize the value in identifying and describing their art and culture to the rest of the world (p.74).
Roy and Raitt (2003) argued that while information technology brings tools to assist Indigenous peoples in documenting, preserving, and interpreting cultural material, such applications bring up questions related to issues of ownership and access. Furthermore, they observed that even within tribal communities, there are varying levels of access to information: in some cultures information may be shared during certain times of the year, in others, information may be shared only with those who meet qualifications of gender or level of expertise or training, and in some others, information might have designated custodians or caretakers. Therefore, they regarded “open access to material must be balanced with a native community’s right to control delivery of content” (p.412).
Falconer (2003) also focused on ownership and access rights to Indigenous – Māori– information. From a record-keeping perspective, she argued that Māori knowledge management should: determine who has access (both public viewing and staff editing rights); provide systems of accountability and accuracy; provide thesauri, descriptive standards; provide procedures for version control, editing, classification, issuing/copying of material; and include programmes for ongoing preservation or migration of electronic data. Falconer added, “perhaps issues of ownership and access are best managed from the point of record creation” (p.462).
On the issue of intellectual and cultural property rights, several authors (Mead, 1997; Smith, 1997; Kamira, 2003) have expressed the need to redefine intellectual property laws, as they considered are inadequate to protect Indigenous knowledge.
Bowers et al (2000) pointed out that computers could be highly useful for Indigenous peoples in maintaining networks of communication, sharing information between culture groups, enabling people to communicate with each other over vast distances, increase their effectiveness in the political arena, recover indigenous languages, and furthering employment opportunities. In spite of the many beneficial uses of computers, Bowers et al questioned the claim that computers are a cultural neutral technology and opposed not to the content but to the delivery form and language used, which they considered highly pervasive to Indigenous cultures. They noted, “computers contribute to undermining the cultural diversity alternative to a global consumer and technologically dependent monoculture” (p.183).
Their argument was that computers reinforce a rootless form of individualism and that continue the tradition of representing print as a form of cultural storage that is more progressive than the oral tradition. Therefore, they asked when Indigenous peoples engage in computer-based communication, “[W]hat changes in cultural ways of thinking, values, and interaction are reinforced?” (p.189).
Robyn Kamira (2003), Director of Paua Interface Ltd and founding trust member of Te Wairere Wahine (the Society for Professional Māori Women in Information Technology) wrote a paper reviewing the predictions and impacts of early information technology on Māori and examined whether IT could have positive and long-term impact on the socio-economic status of
Indigenous peoples. She emphasised that we can extract relevant lessons in the IT era from our colonial past and reflected as to whether information technology acted as a colonisation tool,
If the coloniser has control of information technology, and is in a position to validate, discard or modify knowledge, then information technology becomes a tool for further colonisation…[T]here is a threat again to have our stories and histories reproduced by others who have no stake in their integrity or survival (p.467).
In this point, Kamira agreed with Mander whom in his book, In the Absence of
the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations
(1991), urged to think about the uncritical adoption of technology, the expansion of capitalism and the centralisation of power. Mander argued that technologies like television and computers extend corporate control in society and promote the uncaring consumption of natural resources, with devastating consequences for native cultures worldwide.
On the positive side, Kamira acknowledged that information technology is having, and will continue to have, “a significant impact on language resurgence” together with a revival of Māori social and cultural identity, previously undermined with the loss of land, mass dislocation, isolation and separation from ancestral knowledge (2003, p.468).
Smith and Sullivan’s Māori electronic information: Issues and Resources (1996) monograph added important insights on the issues that arise from the storage and dissemination of Māori information in electronic form, including online information resources and locally held resources. They discussed a number of positive and negative reasons for making available information in electronic form. Among the positives, Smith and Sullivan listed the easy access, distribution, searching capabilities and creation of material as well as the decreasing costs of hardware, software and network connections. Also,
they highlighted that Māori electronic information “can be made available to Pākehā and Tauiwi to increase understanding of Māori culture, promoting biculturalism,” raising the profile of Māori culture and “demonstrating that IT is compatible with tikanga Māori” (p.111).
On the contrary, among the negative reasons for making Māori information available in electronic form, Smith and Sullivan listed the loss of control of knowledge due to the little or non-control existent in the Internet environment; conflicts between Māori cultural values and appropriateness and the liberal attitude to information on the Internet; intellectual and cultural property rights; access restrictions and the commercialisation of information. Also, they mentioned the technical barrier existent for the correct use of te reo Māori in electronic form, with the absence of the macron to indicate a long vowel. Smith (1997) further discussed these issues in a latter paper, Fishing with new
nets: Māori Internet Information Resources and Implications of the Internet for Indigenous Peoples.
With regard to access issues, in Aotearoa/ New Zealand according to a report
Māori Access to Information Technology, by Te Puni Kōkiri (2001), there was
evidence of the existence of a digital divide based on income (low and high), education (highly qualified and less qualified), location (urban and rural), and ethnic group (Māori, Pacific Island, and other). Concentrating only on the ethnic divide –although there was clearly some correlation between ethnicity and the other variables– and compared to all other ethnic groups combined, Māori:
• Are under-represented in IT-related occupations • Are under-represented in IT education courses • Have lower computer ownership rates
• Are less likely to use new voice communications technologies. 9
There is no doubt then, given the available data, that Māori have less access to digital technology than other New Zealanders. However, the fact that ethnicity and access to technology are correlated does not imply that one causes the other. Rather, the report pointed out that it might be that low income, low levels of education, and a greater concentration of population in rural areas – all things also correlated with Māori ethnicity– are the cause of low Māori rates of technology take-up.
Web market research in by AGB McNair (‘NETRAP - Web Market research’, at http://www.netspace.co.nz/netrap/market.html) shows that about six percent of New Zealand’s Internet users were Māori, less than half of their proportionate representation in the general population. Moreover, Smith (1997) pointed out that while there is a significant amount of Māori information on the Web, it is mostly accessed by non-Māori. Therefore, a number of authors have shifted their attention from making Māori information available on the Web to providing them with access to it (Smith, 1997; Shields, 1998, 1999; Parker, 2003).
Clearly, the impact of technology on Indigenous people culture and identity is yet to be fully documented and understood. While there is no proof, for instance, that information technology can help improve the socio-economic status of Indigenous peoples, there is some optimism. For example, Kamira said, “While information technology could potentially have a similar impact on our knowledge to that of early colonisation, it did not completely destroy
9 From ACNielsen, Netwatch 2000. Also, the report ‘The digital Divide and Māori’, prepared by Te Puni Kōkiri (2001), shows that in the year 2000, 45 % of working-age New Zealanders had access to the Internet, but only 26 % of Māori could say the same.The cost of access was a particularly important barrier to Māori wanting to use, but not using, the Internet. Another barrier to the Internet in the case of access from home was the lack of a telephone line. As a result of reduced Internet access, Māori were less likely than European New Zealanders to use the World Wide Web, Internet e-mail, or make purchases across the Web.
our culture. In many cases, the ‘written word’, as an example, has preserved it” (2003, p.473-474). Likewise, Roy and Raitt opted for a positive outlook to technology when they expressed, “Given their power of resilience, it is a safe bet that tribal people will use information technology to advance their survival in novel and unexpected ways” (2003, p.413).