Using Digital Technologies for Indigenous Sociocultural Advancement in an Era of AI: A Systematic Critical Synthesis

5.1.1 Human Participants

Participating human agents are primarily academic researchers and Indigenous collaborators. Academic researchers represent universities in Canada, Australia, the United States and New Zealand (n = 54). Twenty-seven studies include explicit identity markers. Of these, 28 % of the studies identify at least one Indigenous author (n = 15) and 22 % acknowledge non-Indigenous authorship (n = 12). Most studies (n = 42) avoid explicit cultural identifiers in authors’ descriptions. However, attentive readers can sometimes draw identity inferences from the discourse (e.g., use of pronouns).

Studies address Indigenous peoples in six configurations. Almost half (n = 30) reference Indigenous nations or communities (e.g., First Nation Community of Waywayseecappo in rural Manitoba, Canada; Wounaan people of Panama and Columbia; Zapotec diasporic community in the United States; Māori throughout the world). Some studies (n = 19) address mixed regional groupings (e.g., Indigenous peoples of central Australia, North America, or Bangladesh). Other studies address Indigenous artists or professionals as individuals (n = 7), Indigenous peoples belonging to a gender or sexual-orientation subgroup (n = 6), or historic peoples (n = 2). A few studies reference “Indigenous peoples” as a general identity collective (n = 5).

5.1.2 Places and Spaces

“Place” is a central construct in Indigenous culture (Morford and Ansloos 2021). Despite linkages between dominant cartographic practices and colonial epistemologies (Briggs et al. 2020; Broadhead 2020), English-language place names are favoured in the research. Thus, at the macro level, the sampled studies span 19 countries on five continents (North America, Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania). Over 75 % of reported activities were conducted in six countries: Canada (n = 16), Australia (n = 14), United States (n = 13), New Zealand (n = 8), Mexico (n = 3), and Malaysia (n = 2). Indigenous names for Canada, New Zealand, and Mexico (namely, “Turtle Island,” Aotearoa, and Oaxaca) are only occasionally used (n = 6).

At the micro-level, most studies are associated with physical locales (n = 39). These include large regions (e.g., Australia’s Northern Territory), single communities (e.g., Wasauksing First Nation community, Ontario, Canada) or places within a community (e.g., a school or youth center). Other studies address activity in social media platforms or websites (n = 17). A few studies reference hybrid spaces manifested by Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), or online-offline activism (n = 8). A few are not place-specific (n = 4).

5.1.3 Information Technologies

Technology assemblages vary greatly and include:

1. Consumer hardware and software, including desktop computers, mobile devices, social platforms, and productivity applications (n = 28),

2. Specialized applications requiring IT training or programming knowledge (n = 20),

3. Sophisticated hardware deployments such as networking equipment, geographical information systems (GIS), and AR or VR platforms (n = 12),

4. and smart technologies or AI (n = 3).

In some cases, facilitating technologies are undisclosed (n = 6). As deployments become more complex, there is increasing dependence on academic and IT specialists.

5.1.4 Activity Types

Projects in the sampled investigations were reduced to eight types. Some types emphasize a class of affording technologies, and others highlight a dominant objective, which may incorporate diverse IT assemblages. Listed in alphabetical order, these activity types were labelled: Access and Use (n = 7); Arts and Gaming (n = 6); Cultural Digitization (n = 10); Digital Storytelling (n = 10); Geospatial Mapping (n = 8); Services and Professions (n = 8); Social Media (n = 10); and Tech 4.0 (n = 10).

5.2.1 Access and Use

Set mostly in remote communities, activities in this category highlight Indigenous agency and problem-solving. For example, community technology leaders in Malaysia and Mexico, who are primarily male, collaborate with “outsiders” to maintain telecentres and ad hoc networks, providing communal Internet access (Bala and Tan 2021; Rosa 2022). In other contexts where Internet access exists, leaders promote using mobile devices for community cohesion, political expression, and economic development (Hasan, Bao, and Miah 2022; Horn and Gifford 2022; Rivera and Rojas 2021; Young 2019).

These activities generate two classes of tensions. First, conflicts with external entities can arise when do-it-yourself networks break the rules of commercial service providers (Rosa 2022). Second, some community members resist IT adoption, fearing that it (a) promotes Western urbanized lifestyles, (b) reduces the time spent participating in community gatherings and land-based learning, (c) provides undue advantages to younger people, and (d) makes communities dependent on technology “outsiders” (Bala and Tan 2021). In one setting, almost 20 % of those interviewed feared that IT adoption would cause a youth exodus from the village (Bala and Tan 2021).

5.2.2 Arts and Gaming

This category features Indigenous cultural producers, including an Ecuadorian YouTube musician (Aguilo 2020), teams of Sámi and Māori game designers (Nijdam 2023; Reihana, Taura, and Harcourt 2019), mixed Indigenous artists exhibiting in an online exhibition (Vett 2019), and Zapotec producers of YouTube “road trip” videos (Ruiz 2022). The technology assemblages are generally off-the-shelf computers, design applications, and online media platforms. One outlying study adopts a digital marketing perspective, offering a (settler) proposal to redesign Indigenous art centre websites in Australia’s Northern Territory (Vett 2019).

This category highlights Indigenous creative agency. However, the reception of resulting cultural artifacts varies, and tensions can emerge between artists and audiences. For example, Aguilo (2020) introduces the case of Delfín Quishpe. His YouTube music video (“Torres gemelas”) went viral in the late 2000s, reaching millions of views. However, the artist’s popularity was mainly driven by ridicule in the user comments. Aguilo (2020) addresses this tension through the lens of cultural kitsch, “symbolic violence” and a dark history of class-based judgments of artistic value. In a second case, Ruiz (2022) explores road trip videos depicting journeys to pueblos in Mexico. At first glance, these ungarnished depictions of vehicular travel to Zapotec communities appear mundane. However, looking closer, these artifacts offer proxy homecoming experiences (“mobile postcards”) for an undocumented diaspora landlocked in the United States (Ruiz 2022).

5.2.3 Cultural Digitalization

Digitalization projects involve curating, preserving, and promoting cultural phenomena, including oral and textual traditions (Bow 2019; Alvarado, Barriente, and Bigelow 2021; Broadwell et al. 2020; Langdon 2020), biocultural heritage (Carney et al. 2022), and material artifacts (Ellis, Macdonald, and Almeida 2022). IT deployments can become quite complex in facilitating artifact imaging, database design, item cataloging, or markup (using Indigenous-specific taxonomies), and the development of online interfaces. Consequently, these projects are primarily initiated and led by information scientists and technical specialists, with Indigenous people functioning as collaborators and end users.

The primary tension in this category is between noble academic intentions and Indigenous communities’ interests and cultural preservation strategies. Bow (2019) worries that expert-led digitization projects may have re-colonizing effects, and the digital archives produced by specialists may not be valued and sustained by the communities they intend to serve. She was confronted with a misalignment between her project’s outcome (a Living Archive website of rare Australian Indigenous texts) and the disinterested attitude of a community elder (Bow 2019). Similarly, Kelly and Taffe (2022) document their failure to complete a digital museum project in the Kelabit Highlands of Borneo, Malaysia, owing to a challenging environment and the underdeveloped digital skills of Indigenous collaborators. The Kelabit community eventually abandoned the idea of digital archiving. (Assessing performance outcomes of projects is difficult because researchers generally fail to report usage statistics from the communities they intend to serve.).

An outlier in this expert-driven category is a report on the cultural preservation practices of an Indigenous village in central Australia (Vaarzon-Morel, Barwick, and Green 2021). In this case, the impetus for cultural digitization stemmed from the community. The authors observed how Indigenous peoples addressed their archival needs using mobile phones, low-tech devices (e.g., USB sticks), and social media platforms. These self-governed efforts reinforced collective self-determination, allowing conflicts to arise as community members expressed different attitudes toward IT, data ownership, and appropriate uses of cultural materials.

Importantly, expert-led projects can sometimes produce unexpected benefits. For example, an almost 50-year-long effort of collecting and digitizing audio recordings preserving the social life and oral traditions of the Siona in Putumayo, Columbia, was caught up in collaboration breakdowns, misunderstandings, inter-community conflict, and the intrigues of shamans (Langdon 2020). However, the researcher’s years of labour and endless dedication were rewarded when she received an unexpected call from community leaders asking her to explain the meaning of “their term for well-being (huajë) and its relation to the term for ‘Mother Earth’” (Langdon 2020, 146). This opinion was requested to support the community’s legal battle to preserve their lands.

5.2.4 Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling features two system configurations. The first involves structured workshops choreographed by experts for small groups in an Indigenous community or institutional setting. The second showcases the self-directed activities of individual Indigenous storytellers and artists. In both cases, autobiography and identity expression shape the narrative structures of media artifacts. A dominant collective theme in choreographed settings involves “pushing back” against hegemonic discourses and colonial memories (Rice et al. 2022). The reported outcomes of both storytelling configurations include: (a) engaging with Indigenous modes of knowledge production (Peña et al. 2021); (b) reactivating Indigenous identity (Sanchez-Pimienta, Masuda, and M’Wikwedong Indigenous Friendship Centre 2021) and memory (Chazan and Cole 2022); (c) cultural continuance (Cox 2022) and generational bridging (Hausknecht et al. 2021); (d) engaging with landscapes (Marques, McIntosh, and Carson 2019); and (e) developing traversal digital skills (Loebach et al. 2019). However, these reported benefits are often anecdotal.

The technology-use repertoires of storytellers go mostly unreported, with three exceptions. Cordes (2021) advocates for sophisticated GIS assemblages for (re)telling stories of the Rogue River War. Marques, McIntosh, and Carson (2019) design an AR application to retell the stories of Māori cultural landscapes and values. As a theoretical contribution, Loebach et al. (2019) explore how digital technologies afford the reshaping of oral storytelling.

The “erasure of the machine” in most storytelling accounts suggests a tension between traditional cultural production systems and emerging forms of human-machine partnering. The traditional view places the human agent in control and diminishes the role of tools and technologies in the creative process. At this historical moment, however, cultural producers increasingly share creative control with agential tools or “intelligent” entities (Guzman and Lewis 2019; C. Zhang et al. 2023). For example, transformer-based large-language models (LLMs) – a dominant form of generative AI – are transforming the traditional creative workflows of professional designers, musicians, and filmmakers (GlobalData Thematic Intelligence 2023; J. Nelson 2023; Othen 2023).

5.2.5 Geospatial Mapping

Indigenous peoples often link land-based relations and group identity (Morford and Ansloos 2021). De Mori (2016) argues that Indigenous peoples synchronize their lives with regenerative environmental cycles. Plant, animal, and mineral entities are “kin” rather than raw materials. Giving names and meaning to places creates original knowledge structures that often conflict with Western cartographic practices. Therefore, researchers are pursuing digital (re)mapping projects based on Indigenous knowledge. Such projects routinely deploy GIS assemblages with variations in constituent subsystems and levels of automation (Meisel et al. 2021; Briggs et al. 2020; Mamontova and Klyachko 2022).

Activities in this cluster are variously characterized as “counter-mapping” (Syme 2020), “community-engaged mapping” (Mamontova and Klyachko 2022), “decolonial mapping” (McGurk and Caquard 2020), and “cartographic activism” (Miner 2022). The technical challenge is to produce and visualize reliable source data aligned with Indigenous epistemologies. This data includes, for example, GPS coordinates for traditional territories, reservation allotments, cross-border communities, and (last known) locations of missing Indigenous persons. Occasionally, data is collected by Indigenous peoples themselves. However, in this category, Indigenous participants generally have limited control over project scope, technologies, and procedures (McGurk and Caquard 2020).

Only one lead author in this cluster identifies as Indigenous. However, most studies find fault with mainstream mapping practices and the epistemologies on which they are based. Indeed, with few exceptions (Meisel et al. 2021), this category promotes an ideological discourse of righteous indignation. One settler scholar even conflates Israel’s land settlement practices with the “erasure” of Mi’kmaq territories in Canada, citing Canadian taxpayer and government complicity (Broadhead 2020).

The primary tension in this category relates to the question: To what extent can academic remapping projects be Indigenized and decolonized? McGurk and Caquard (2020) systematically assess control parameters of Indigenous cartographic projects related to process, scope, framing, and technology deployment. They conclude that although some colonial dynamics can be mitigated (e.g., by sourcing data collection to Indigenous communities), academic counter-mapping is never inherently decolonial. As a potential mitigation, Syme (2020) proposes that mapping algorithms be co-designed with Indigenous elders “in spaces of deep equity” (1117). However, to what extent Indigenous peoples can trust outside experts to (re)engineer their land-based knowledge reliably remains an open question.

5.2.6 Services and Professions

Set on four continents, activities in this category address IT work (Andrade et al. 2021; Beetson et al. 2020), health services (Bennett-Levy et al. 2021; Henson et al. 2022), journalism and citizen science (Bhawra 2022; Tshabangu and Salawu 2022), digital pedagogy (Ribeiro et al. 2019) and online voting (Budd, Gabel, and Goodman 2019). About half of the sponsoring projects are led by Indigenous academics. Technological orchestrations include proprietary applications and mainstream social media platforms. A shared objective of sampled Indigenous participants is to incorporate their ways of being and knowing into work activities.

Two cases, one featuring tech-savvy Indigenous IT professionals and the other, traditional Indigenous journalists, address a tension between digital skills and successful work experience. On the one hand, the stories of three Māori IT professionals in New Zealand highlight technical proficiencies and the freedom to harness Indigenous culture as a source of creative inspiration. On the other hand, the reports from a small journalistic team in Zimbabwe highlight the struggles of “going digital” without retooling and retraining.

5.2.7 Social Media

Indigenous peoples use Facebook, Instagram, and other social platforms as collectives and individuals, with Facebook being singled out by researchers as an especially popular platform (Carlson and Frazer 2021; Dejmanee et al. 2022). Indigenous peoples have demonstrated fluency with the full range of social media affordances (e.g., hashtags, newsfeeds, check-ins, video posting, etc.) to establish voice, challenge dominant narratives, buy and sell, maintain family relationships, and express identity (Hasan, Bao, and Miah 2022). Some practices, such as spoofing one’s location to counter the surveillance efforts of settler authorities (S.Z. Zhang et al. 2021), are noteworthy subversive maneuvers that bypass the intentions of system designers (Béguin and Rabardel 2000).

Collective uses of social media include social activism, community development, and cultural reclamation, relying heavily on the Groups functionality of Facebook (Zuckerberg 2017). Notable activist efforts include:

1. North American Dakota Access Pipeline (Deem 2019) and Trans Mountain pipeline (Karsgaard and MacDonald 2020) protests,

2. #Aboriginallivesmatter (Dejmanee et al. 2022), #IdleNoMore (Richez et al. 2020), #StandingRock (S.Z. Zhang et al. 2021), and Indigenous LGBTQI + hashtag campaigns (Farrell 2021),

3. Decolonial photobombing (Miner 2021),

4. and Indigenous language revitalization movements (Pavez 2022).

These political efforts align with those of other disempowered non-Western collectives (Chunly 2019; Clarke and Kocak 2018; Lokot 2018; Mosconi et al. 2017; Patrut and Stoica 2019).

Overall, research on Indigenous uses of social media highlights five notable tensions. First, digital divides are evident among Indigenous peoples, with tech-savvy youth and digital professionals achieving greater online influence. Second, several academic authors in this category adopt strong critiques of Euro-Western culture while excluding social media platforms from this critique. Third, some studies find that “hashtag campaigns” have little effect on settler government policy (Richez et al. 2020) and are frequently coopted by a cult of celebrity (Dejmanee et al. 2022; Farrell 2021). Fourth, although subversive practices like location spoofing may confuse settler authorities, such practices also heighten online misinformation concerns (S.Z. Zhang et al. 2021). Finally, and most troubling, Carlson and Kennedy (2021) find that Indigenous people often experience intense online harassment from non-Indigenous people in social media.

5.2.8 Tech 4.0

Tech 4.0 activity systems foreground emerging “smart” technologies championed by transnational programs such as Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0 (Blayone and Van Oostveen 2020). Activity system orchestrations in this category feature:

1. 3D photogrammetry and computer-aided pattern matching (Gonzalez-Quevedo et al. 2021; Tashi and Ullah 2019),

2. AR and VR systems (McMahon et al. 2019; Shedlock and Vos 2021; Park et al. 2022),

3. Cybersecurity systems and protocols (Plosker and Srivastava 2021),

4. and AI systems (Sohail et al. 2021; Yogarajan et al. 2022).

Academic and technical specialists, two of whom self-identify as Indigenous, take leading roles in this category. There is also a strong emphasis on educating Indigenous peoples and infusing IT practices with Indigenous culture. Some major emerging technologies, like robots, are absent from the sampled studies. However, a non-Indigenous researcher at a Canadian university has proposed a Mi’kmaq AI chatbot (Sohail et al. 2021).

A strong tension in this category is the underrepresentation of Indigenous technologists. The recurring emphasis on gaining the trust of Indigenous peoples raises the question of whose needs and interests are represented when developing cutting-edge “Indigenous” technology solutions. This tension is consistent with the persistent colonial tendencies of mainstream academic practices, which includes “settler-splaining” (Cordes 2021). However, given the strong technology adoption rates among Indigenous youth (Carlson and Frazer 2021) and the efforts of emerging collectives like the Indigenous Protocol and Artificial Intelligence Working Group (2020), Indigenous technologists will increasingly pursue high-tech opportunities on their own terms.

5.3.1 Synergistic Frame

The S frame combines Indigenous and Euro-Western techno-cultures – a perspective conceptualized as “bi-cultural” (Marques, McIntosh, and Carson 2019), “bothways” (Guthadjaka and van Gelderen 2019), or “two-eyed seeing” (Bhawra 2022). The latter concept entered scientific scholarship in the early 2000s via the work of Mi’kmaq elder Albert Marshall and the integrative science and Aboriginal pedagogy programs at Cape Breton University, Canada (Hatcher et al. 2009; Bartlett, Marshall, and Marshall 2012). This framing orientation promotes Indigenous knowledge while deploying Western technology perspectives such as “affordances” (Karsgaard and MacDonald 2020), and “actor networks” (S.Z. Zhang et al. 2021). Some S-framed studies emphasize continuities between online media and Indigenous storytelling (Henson et al. 2022). Others adopt formal cross-cultural protocols, such as the Utility, Self-Sufficiency, Access, and Inter-relationality (USAI) framework (Sanchez-Pimienta, Masuda, and M’Wikwedong Indigenous Friendship Centre 2021) and the Research Data Alliance’s CARE principles (Carney et al. 2022). Notably, the S frame is optimistic. It portrays Indigenous IT users as capable agents not held captive to colonial histories, biased algorithms, or exploitative socio-political systems.

Six of eight activity categories are represented in this S-frame cluster. General technology use and geospatial projects are absent. However, only 10 % of these articles have at least one author who self-identifies as Indigenous. This raises the question as to what degree cultural hybridization belongs to a multi-cultural settler strategy detached from Indigenous self-determination goals.

5.3.2 Reorientative Frame

2The R frame draws a sharp line between Euro-Western culture and Indigenous ways of being and knowing. Studies adopting this frame deploy the discursive techniques of critical theory and storytelling to challenge Western economic, scientific, and technological dominance. This includes deploying an activist lexicon featuring constructs such as “entrenched settler ignorance,” “erasure,” “invisiblization,” “pushing back,” “reclaiming,” and “unlearning.” Some studies adopt an intersectional perspective, merging a general critique of settler culture with more specific targets. For example, Farrell (2021) addresses “heteropatriarchal settler colonialism” that “violently dispossesses” some online Indigenous LGBTIQ + groups and forcibly assimilates them into “European gender, sex and sexual orders” (1). Similarly, Rice et al. (2022) invite consideration that “epistemic ignorance” has gendered dimensions (i.e., that males are often the primary culprits).

The R frame appears in articles addressing all eight activity categories, almost 30 % of which have Indigenous authors. Geospatial mapping activities are prominent in this cluster, which exhibit sobering discourse markers such as “putting remembrance back on the map” (Broadhead 2020), and “digital cartographies of gender violence” (Miner 2022).

5.3.3 Pragmatic Frame

The P frame focuses on using digital technology to solve challenging technical problems of relevance to Indigenous peoples, avoiding strong theoretical stances on cross-cultural politics. Examples are found in studies addressing (a) Internet access for Indigenous communities in South Asia (Bala and Tan 2021; Hasan, Bao, and Miah 2022; Horn and Gifford 2022), (b) digital modelling techniques for preserving Indigenous cultural heritage in Cuba and Japan (Gonzalez-Quevedo et al. 2021; Tashi and Ullah 2019), and (c) cybersecurity training for Indigenous youth in rural Canada (Plosker and Srivastava 2021).

Six of eight activity categories are represented in this P-frame cluster. Social media uses and storytelling, which foreground critical discourses, are not represented. About 25 % of P-framed studies have an Indigenous author.

5.3.4 Frames and Research Designs

Regardless of the framing orientation, qualitative methods dominate in the sampled studies, with only a few quantitative (Hasan, Bao, and Miah 2022; Plosker and Srivastava 2021; Yogarajan et al. 2022) or mixed methods (Reihana, Taura, and Harcourt 2019; Carlson and Kennedy 2021) investigations. This is consistent with the perspective that qualitative methods align with tribal epistemologies (Kovach 2021). Two general tendencies are that articles with a strong theoretical component adopt an S or R frame, while technical reports adopt a P frame.

5.4.1 Digital Empowerment

The sampled literature finds that using digital technologies generally enhances Indigenous empowerment at the individual and collective levels. Empowering outcomes include:

1. Improved information sharing, connective action, and communication with non-Indigenous power brokers (Bala and Tan 2021; Varea et al. 2020; Dejmanee et al. 2022),

2. Increased civic involvement and activism via online platforms (Budd, Gabel, and Goodman 2019; Horn and Gifford 2022; Rivera and Rojas 2021),

3. Amplified voices via social media and online cultural resources (Cordes 2021; Nijdam 2023; Gonzalez-Quevedo et al. 2021; Hausknecht et al. 2021; Miner 2022, 2021; Mamontova and Klyachko 2022),

4. New forms of cultural expression and hybrid identity development (Gonzalez-Quevedo et al. 2021; Reihana, Taura, and Harcourt 2019),

5. Improved digital competencies (Loebach et al. 2019; Park et al. 2022), data gathering and problem-solving (Meisel et al. 2021),

6. and technological innovation (Ruckstuhl et al. 2019).

These outcomes are reinforced by Hasan, Bao, and Miah (2022), who find significant positive correlations between IT usage and political and economic freedoms defined by Sen’s capabilities framework.

Despite these positive findings, some projects raised concerns, including:

1. Limited Indigenous sovereignty over digital infrastructures (Wagner and Fernandez-Ardevol 2020),

2. Colonizing pressures of mainstream mapping platforms (Syme 2020),

3. A perceived loss of traditional (land-based) knowledge-making practices (Young 2019),

4. and the potential misuse of online Indigenous cultural artifacts (Andrade et al. 2021).

5.4.2 Data Sovereignty, Ownership and Bias

Data sovereignty addresses legal jurisdiction over data, often determining how data is stored and processed. Data ownership involves rights and control over data, including the ability to derive commercial benefits. Data bias addresses patterns in the collection, processing, or interpretation that can lead to skewed results in some contexts. These are closely related constructs and are, therefore, treated together. Each construct affects the fairness of emerging data automation systems (Zajko 2021).

The sampled studies address data ownership (n = 6), data sovereignty (n = 4), and data bias (n = 2) as investigative foci, procedural concerns, or discussion items emerging through interaction with Indigenous stakeholders. Data sovereignty and ownership issues arise in producing online platforms featuring Indigenous knowledge (Carney et al. 2022; Ellis, Macdonald, and Almeida 2022; Jennings, Johnson-Jennings, and Little 2020; Montenegro 2019). Specific cases include (a) Māori IT professionals disseminating cultural symbols online (Andrade et al. 2021), (b) researchers establishing citizen science collaborations with Indigenous communities (Bhawra 2022), and (c) academics creating digital artifacts from Indigenous languages and literature (Bow 2019; Langdon 2020) or geographic information (McMahon et al. 2019; McGurk and Caquard 2020). One notable discourse marker in research reporting relates to “claiming” (Andrade et al. 2021) versus “giving” or “ceding” control of data (Bhawra 2022; McGurk and Caquard 2020). The delicate question is who is claiming and ceding, and under what conditions?

Several studies have addressed data bias. For example, Yogarajan et al. (2022) highlight dangerous biases in AI healthcare algorithms in New Zealand. They argue that machine-learning procedures must be altered to mitigate biases before an AI model is fully trained. Alvarado, Barriente, and Bigelow (2021) address interpretive biases in the critical edition of an Indigenous literary text using the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) metadata standard. Notably, uniquely Indigenous alternatives to the TEI have been proposed (Montenegro 2019).

5.4.3 Identity Expression and Storytelling

Identity is a complex psycho-social construct formed by roles, group associations, and individual traits in social contexts (Stets and Serpe 2013). Identities become politicized as they are subjected to social “validation,” which can occur online or offline. Indigenous identities, which are linked to Euro-Western colonization, genocide, and consequent programs of (re)conciliation, have a pronounced political dimension in settler states (MacDonald 2019).

The sampled research addresses Indigenous identity politics primarily in the context of online activity. Carlson and Kennedy (2021) find that Indigenous people often become victims of hate speech when they identify in social media. The case studies of Sanchez-Pimienta, Masuda, and M’Wikwedong Indigenous Friendship Centre (2021) discuss emotional storytelling videos addressing Indigenous youth culture and sexual orientation. Similarly, Guzzetti (2022) explores a Navajo woman’s writing and illustration practices, emphasizing the “gender fluidity” of Navajo identity constructs. Other studies address (a) the politics of Indigenous artistic expression and audience reception on YouTube (Aguilo 2020), (b) combatting the “erasure” of Indigenous identity in digital stories (Cox 2022), (c) pursuing bi-cultural identities via AR experiences (Marques, McIntosh, and Carson 2019), and (d) advocating for the revitalizing of Indigenous language through social media (Pavez 2022).

5.4.4 Activism and Collective Action

A portion of the sampled research highlights the politics of activism and collective action. Bennett-Levy et al. (2021) describe their efforts to transform a government-funded mental health training program for Indigenous practitioners into a bottom-up and culturally informed learning experience. Broadhead (2020), a settler scholar, introduces two digital (re)mapping initiatives offering cartographic evidence of a past erased from settler histories in Israel and Canada. Henson et al. (2022) investigates how older Indigenous women advocate for their community’s health through social media. Townsend et al. (2020) describe a digital archaeology project conducted by Michigan State University scientists in collaboration with members of the Ani-Kitu Hwagi (Cherokee) community. Finally, Richez et al. (2020) correlate activities of the #idlenomore online movement with the documented policy changes of the Canadian government, finding little evidence of a significant positive correlation.