The Digital Age & Indigenous Peoples
How indigenous cultures around the world are finding innovative uses of social media to educate and inform the public and themselves.
Some have speculated that social media and other digital tools could lead to a more globally homogenous monoculture for humanity, where smaller cultures become lost in the digital aether. Perhaps in a very long time, but not for now.
Looking at how indigenous peoples are embracing and leveraging social media in Canada and some other countries, shows us that by doing so, they’re not only enriching and strengthening their own culture, but building stronger relationships with other cultures. In a way, social media and other technologies, are enabling them to reclaim their rich, vibrant cultural heritage.
At the outset I will say that I live on unceded territory in Sipekne’katik. My goal is be as respectful as I can in an article that could certainly be a whole book! My perspective in this article is about cultural preservation and fostering positive engagement with other cultures.
In 2018, Jeremy Dutcher, an indigenous tenor, composer and musicologist of the Wlastqiyik nation in New Brunswick, won a Polaris Music Prize for his inaugural album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, sung entirely in…
