Beading Native Twitter: Indigenous arts-based approaches to healing and resurgence

Abstract

Beading is a cultural art form that holds great significance for Indigenous communities. Across history, the practice of beading has been widely recognized by Indigenous peoples as a means of recording and translating cultural knowledge, and of promoting wellness across various contexts. While beading existed long before Settler-European contact, its survival amidst Canada’s colonial history is profound. With the rise of social media platforms, Indigenous communities have taken up digital spaces such as Twitter to support cultural resurgence and healing. Our study is interested in the everyday ways in which digital environments like Twitter may be therapeutic. Conceptually situated within the interdisciplinary nexus of Indigenous studies, psychotherapeutic studies, and contextualist qualitative research, we draw on an analysis of tweets and interviews from Indigenous beaders within Canada. Using a thematic approach (Braun & Clark, 2006), our analysis yielded 12 themes that speak to the relationship between, and possibilities and challenges related to, beading, Indigenous healing processes, and digital space. A discussion is provided on the benefits of the digital space for therapeutic healing, its limitations, tensions, and the colonial legacies that become re-enacted in digital spaces. Strengths and limitations of the study are also discussed.