Hello! My name is Lindah Kotut, from the information school at the University of
Washington. I'll be presenting our paper "winds of change seeking,
preserving, and retelling indigenous knowledge through self-organized online communities".
First I want to define what you mean by indigenous knowledge:
We define this as knowledge, beliefs, and traditions intended to preserve, communicate,
and contextualize indigenous relationship with culture and landscape. Over time.
This knowledge is often passed across generations through oral traditions,
storytelling, song, dance, and other performances. We can categorize the indigenous knowledge
under the larger research domain of intangible culture heritage. And in this work we focus on
one indigenous community called the Kalenjin, that inhabit the Rift Valley region of Kenya.
The main research question that we sought to answer in this work was:
How can we describe and design technology meant to aid amplification, engagement,
and preservation of critical oral histories? The solutions to this research question are
non-trivial, because indigenous knowledge involve practices that are disappearing with time,
and will be contending with questions of appropriateness of technology in the space.
And when it is appropriate to include technology, then how do we introduce them in a manner that
respects the agency of the story-holders? There are other challenges that are
inherent with indigenous knowledge: One is the lack of authoritarial narrative.
This is where 2 members of the indigenous committee may have 2 different versions of
the same story. Within the community itself, it's considered a valid thing to have multiple
versions of the narrative, but it may not be so when we choose to consider which
version of the narrative to preserve. There's also a tendency to place boundaries
around what constitute "culture", or focusing on the most visible part of culture. For example,
focusing on stories that are connected to artifacts and ignoring those that are not.
And third, in indigenous knowledge, is constantly evolving as community members who interpret what
it means to them: Given the time, their context, and their specific need at any given time.
There are other gaps that we found when we approached this work. The first is that
literature that focus on the indigenous knowledge or preservation of the indigenous knowledge.
They often report practices that are considered taboo or sacred or secret by the community. By
often omitting critical contextual detail. The picture that I have on the right side
of the screen shows one example of this: This is a was taken at an exhibit in a museum,
and the label reads "traditional herbal medicine", and it says: "Traditional herbal medicines has
been practiced from time immemorial in Africa. The practice is common in
Kenya. Even today many herbal doctors are demanding recognition by the Government.
Herbalist use part of set certain plans to cure him in ailments, for example, roots, leaves,
branches, and tubers from parts." What is missing is which particular community
uses this particular traditional medicine, what it is called in the indigenous language, or even
in English, and the context by which it was taken so that it can be displayed all the information
that is currently here is just the is not useful to identify anything about the community.
The other gap is: who is tasked in the preservation of that particular indigenous
knowledge? Because without community permission, it can be considered an act of cultural looting.
Third, is a lack of access to infrastructure--this includes smartphones. Because this impacts who can
participate from within the indigenous community. So in our approach we thought it important to
focus on the community itself, and what its doing to balance the evolutionary nature of
the indigenous knowledge, while maintaining the agency over their stories when using
technology to support engage amplify and preserve the indigenous knowledge.
we did that by following a two-fold study, the first study interview based
with 13 indigenous committee members. Five of those members were elders, considered
elders, or knowledge bearers by the community. They are prominent members of the community,
and recognized within the community as Good storytellers and story keepers.
The other members that we interviewed were based on convenience sampling.
The second study was online based. We considered community organized
Facebook pages and Facebook groups. We started with over 100 pages,
and then we narrowed them down, focusing on pages and groups that were open or public.
And then we also narrowed, it further focusing to those focusing on different aspects of culture.
I'll first summarize our findings, and then we'll go a little deeper into talking about the
different communities. We found in our findings that sentiments varied whether
members inhabited the online space, the offline space, or both The online and offline space.
There are 3 major findings here. I would direct you to the paper for more.
The one significant finding was: there is an absence of elders in the online discourse.
This was not very surprising, because the elders lacked formal language skills, and
also lacked infrastructure. As mentioned earlier, There is a significant participation of people
who call themselves "born towns". These are members who are born and/or raised
geographically distant from ancestral homes. t could rains from the city to a different
country: There's a lack of language fluency--which acted as a gatekeeping measure of discussing
ndigenous knowledge and the lack of number influences, especially by the born towns
impact the kind of indigenous knowledge that they consume in the online space.
e then talk about the types of questions and what they sought between those members
who are collocated or offline community and those that were distant in this case
in the online communities when considering those that have access to both online and
ffline communities we find that they use the indigenous knowledge to position
themselves in the community through an understanding of the communal structure.
So they would ask questions regarding to items, or to ask questions behind names that are given
within the communities, and so on. he the members that only
inhabited the offline space. hey would ask the elders themselves
questions surrounding their contextual knowledge. o these are consider this contextual knowledge
knowledge that is typically learned and shared as part of day-to-day life and community history.
nd then we have the community members that primarily inhabit the online space.
are the born towns, and most of the questions surrounded the foundational knowledge
regarding their indigineity. This includes the history and vocabulary,
especially for those point towns who may be second eneration members who are not born even in the
country, but their parents were members of indigenous community, but they themselves
were not born or raised within the offline space. e also considered what the motivation of seeking
and preserving the indigenous knowledge, considering where the members were,
whether they were offline online or in the team. and we categorized them into 3 broad groups.
he first groups of the contributors. These are the members who tended to engage with
like-minded people interested in cultural aspects of the indigenity, and to contribute knowledge.
e have the knowledge seekers, those who look for principles to contextualize the lived experience,
and are to the understanding of their cultural heritage.
nd we have community seekers, those who search for ways to connect with
the community and find their place within it. hese include the born towns. When we consider
the motivations of each of these groups, if under the contributors, they're very securing
their cultural identity, and they manifest this choice and confidence to share in how they share
and contextualized indigenous knowledge online. his include people who choose to be Facebook,
page administrative Facebook group administrators because they are even secure in their history.Or
they have ready access to the elders to give them context.
e have the knowledge seekers who are raised within the community,
and their first in the language and history. ut perhaps they've moved away, and they're seeking
as a way to fulfill the sense of community online, or maybe terms of the cultural crisis of identity.
e have the community seekers, those who seek for ways to connect to the communities and find
that place within it. This encompassed the born towns, as mentioned earlier to summarize our work.
ere we expand HCI perspective of understanding how indigenous community members engaged
with indigenous knowledge and social media. e examine the types of indigenous knowledge that
is sought and engaged with online, contrasted with what the community members interacted, offline
focusing on observed difference in roles. or example, of elders. and then we outline
design guidance for research and designers towards the respect for user technology,
for engaging, preserving, and amplifying indigenous knowledge, thus
cutting the community members, in preserving raditions supporting the evolving culture while
respecting the community, ownership and agency over their culture.