Copyright © 2001 NLThomas
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Penn Folklore graduate students present the second annual graduate student sponsored videoconference-webcast series 2001-2002: Video-Conferencing with members of Indigenous People, Aboriginal People, Traditional People, and People of First Nations. Four one-hour-long events (two in fall 2001, two in spring 2002). The plan is to webcast these events live, and to keep the recordings of the webcasts in place for up to a year.

Proposed themes of the series are: Storytelling, both as it occurs in everyday conversation and in more formal events, and the question of how storytelling and other performing arts are changed when they are attempted via interactive media like videoconferencing. Also, the teaching and practising of language via video-mediated communication.

For information about the series last year, please visit:
Graduate Student Videoconference Series 2000-1!, where one can find links to video-audio recordings of last years final two events.
"Roles of listener-sponsors in the USA Pacifica radio network" (With students and others at City College of San Francisco) and
" Discussion and Demonstration of virtual performance & archiving." (With students and others at New York University's Performance Studies Dept.)

2001-2002 Series background and description:

In the summer of 1966, Sol Worth, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, co-led a project that eventually resulted in the book, Through Navajo Eyes.  The project involved going to a reservation in Arizona and teaching six Navajo individuals how to use 16mm film cameras, and how to edit.  Worth was trying to determine if these people would make movies differently than people of the mainstream white culture (in terms of imagery, sense of time and space, editing style, etc.).  The six Navajo participants were paid an hourly wage.

Then, in 1982, Eric Michaels -- after receiving a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Texas at Austin -- was hired by the Australian government to help them decide how to introduce satellite TV to Aboriginal peoples.  When Michaels arrived, he discovered that a number of Aboriginal peoples were already illegally -- that is, without a license -- broadcasting video locally.  Michaels became an outspoken advocate for various Aboriginal peoples, and he helped them continue to develop their own media-making, until he died of AIDS in 1988.

It was partly due to Michaels' contribution that members of a number of Australian Aboriginal peoples, including the Warlpiri and the Pintubi, founded the Tanami Network in 1992 -- a videoconferencing network with multiple sites, in rural and urban Australia.  This network is used for many purposes, including selling art on the international art market, ceremonial family and kinship gatherings, and delivery of government services.

Today, the situation is vastly different than it was in the 60s, in that today many Indigenous peoples are using electronic communication to organize among themselves, to publicize and conduct their struggles for cultural and physical survival, to conduct commercial activities (selling art, arranging eco-tourism, etc.), and for other purposes.

These events would be reciprocal interviews, otherwise known as "conversations."  On our part (Folklore graduate students), this project is not oriented toward studying Indigenous peoples.  Rather, it is oriented towards learning from members of those peoples, and towards the sharing of thoughts.

Preferably, the Indigenous peoples who participate will have been working with the technology for quite some time, and will have developed their own ways of using it.  Together, we will arrange how the screen will be configured for these events (split-screen, etc.) and other technical matters relating to presentation.

Following are some of the questions that might be asked of Indigenous peoples in the course of these events:

What is your attitude toward electronic communication technology?  What are meanings of it for you?  How does it relate to traditional (face-to-face) communication?  In your experience, what is electronic communication technology useful for?  What is it not useful for?  Can you offer any advice, suggestions, or guidance regarding its use?

Please share your thoughts about how people of Western and other dominant cultures tend to use various types of communication technology -- that is, please engage in anthropological and psychological analysis of white / Western / other dominant cultures. 

Do you use videoconferencing (and other interactive telecommunication technologies) for commercial purposes?  If so, please tell us about the goods and services you offer.  Do you use it to arrange for eco-tourism?  To give demonstrations, performances, or instruction in storytelling and other arts?  For language instruction and practice?

Please tell us about your efforts for your peoples' physical and cultural survival and growth.

Is there anything else you would like to ask or tell us?  ("us" being Folklore graduate students, the web audience in general, etc.)

Especially relevant to the subjects of Indigenous storytelling and electronic communication is the following excerpt from "Online In the Outback: The Use of Videoconferencing by Australian Aborigines," by Mark Hodges, Technology Review,April 1996:

"Perhaps the most intriguing use of the system is a continuing series of videoconferences among the Warlpiri aborigines and indigenous groups on other continents, including the Scandinavian Saami, Alaskan Inupiat, Canadian Inuit, and the Little Red Cree nation in Alberta, Canada.  These videoconferences have so far focused primarily on land rights and language preservation -- two issues of deep concern among indigenous peoples worldwide.  But one recent session allowed an exchange of native dances with members of the Little Red Cree nation.  Spurred on by the success of this dance exchange, the Warlpiri hope to collaborate this year with other groups in a global videoconference festival of traditional and contemporary music."  (The entire article, and two related articles, can be read by visiting Articles: Video-Conference Series Indigenous.)

Note: A group of graduate students at the U. of Penn and elsewhere are working together to help facilitate next year's series, just as they did with last year's series. Please send any feedback and suggestions regarding this proposed series, including if you might know of people who might be interested in participating. Thank you!