Exploring Indigenous Creative Practice in Contemporary Post-Colonial Society

The contexts of Indigenous dance practices in postcolonial African environments have continued to evolve. The phenomena of dance bears on the meanings that individual dance practitioners construct as active agents in Indigenous dance knowledge production. This work draws on the following question to examine how contexts of practice impel the reimagining and reimaging of dances, dancing, and the dancing body in Indigenous dance practices: What meanings do Indigenous dance practitioners construct from partaking in Indigenous dance education practices in varied contexts? Using Indigenous knowledge systems theoretical frame and decoloniality as lenses of analyses, the article reveals how reimaging and reimagination of Indigenous dances transcends framing the body as an exotic, fetishized, and objectified artefact. The dance practitioners rationalize the dances and dance experiences as affective and conceptual-expressive epistemology and ontology that is grounded in community connection, self-guided creative imagination and innovation, intercorporeal embodiments, socio-economic positionalities, and intersubjective situatedness. The complex meanings are anchored in dynamic contexts, experience, agency, community, situations, and epistemological holism. The article provokes a radical rethink in how pedagogy, performance, research, and recreation of Indigenous African dances can be understood and engaged in ways that rise above the Anglo-European objectification, exoticization, and fetishization of the Black body.

Outside Australia, “Australian art” is often taken to mean Indigenous art produced in remote regions of the continent, even though Indigenous Australians comprise only 3 percent of the population, and less than 10 percent of this 3 percent live in the remote communities where most of this art is produced. Inside Australia, which is where nearly all histories of Indigenous Australian art are written, the relationship between the categories of Indigenous and Australian art is more complex due to unresolved legacies of colonialism. The category of Indigenous Australian art includes the Melanesian culture of the Torres Strait Islands and the Aboriginal art of mainland Australia, Tasmania, and several other islands. Indigenous art encompasses everything from late Pleistocene rock art to moving image and digital technologies of the contemporary age. It is made in all regions of Australia, from the urban to the remote, and unlike non-Indigenous Australian art, it has great regional variation. Despite long continuous Indigenous cultural practices, there is no recognizable Indigenous art historiographical tradition and until recently art historians showed little interest in retrieving the oral histories of its various schools. This is because the paradigm of primitivism had locked Indigenous art out of the discipline’s underlying assumptions, leaving its study to archaeologists and anthropologists. As the art world critique of primitivism only began to take hold in the 1980s, Indigenous art history is a new field of study in the discipline. Interdisciplinary in its formation, it has drawn significantly from anthropologists, who remain leaders in the study of Indigenous art. Due to their fieldwork approach, anthropologists also led the way in developing methodologies that could account for Indigenous worldviews, which are becoming more prominent in art world discourse, with Indigenous artists, curators, and scholars making an increasingly significant contribution since the 1990s. However, connections with archaeology are poorly developed. While archaeological research into rock art is booming in Australia, it is focused on conventional analysis of dating in order to develop largely speculative historical narratives about the origins of various cultures. This lies outside the main current of Indigenous art history, which has a contemporary focus. Indigenous art history is yet to articulate a substantial historical narrative of its subject. Nevertheless, traditional art history genres such as biography, regional art histories, and issue-based thematic subjects are serving the field well. The place of Indigenous art in the Australian national tradition is an issue with which the discipline is currently grappling. Finally, curators have been important instigators in transforming what had largely been a subject of anthropology into art history. This is reflected in the bibliography, in which exhibition catalogues outnumber scholarly books by art historians.

Mindfulness Has Parallels to Indigenous Cultural Practices

Background and Objectives: Indigenous Peoples (IPs) have a unique and vast wealth of traditional knowledge, practices, and beliefs. However, IPs from across the globe continue to experience discrimination, environmental destruction, deprivation, exploitation, and other problems. Therefore, this research aims to identify the extent to which indigenous knowledge has been practiced among the Ifugaos, specifically those who are parents of children at the elementary and high school levels. The study examines both past and present generations about the practice of indigenous knowledge in the areas of family, education, agriculture, and forest conservation. Consequently, the problems encountered by these parents in the promotion and preservation of indigenous practices were determined. Methodology: The survey method was used and data were collected through a questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, such as mean, were utilized to determine the extent of the parents’ indigenous practices in the areas of family, education, agriculture, and forest conservation. Significant differences in the use of indigenous practices between the past and present were accounted for by the use of the t-test. Main Results: Findings revealed that the Ifugao families practice their indigenous marriage and parenting roles frequently in both the past and present. Children in the past often observed traditional practices, however children today only sometimes practice them. A decline in indigenous practices in education, agriculture, and forest conservation is evident today. Factors contributing to the abandonment of cultural traditions include diminishing family values, children’s disinterest in education, fading traditional agricultural practices, and the denuding and destruction of forests. Discussions: The Ifugaos are family oriented and concerned with maintaining relationships. At the same time, they would like to ensure that new couples are economically secure. Children help their parents and siblings perform agricultural tasks and rituals, which indicates they are values-oriented. However, there is a need to strengthen this orientation in order to preserve it. Parents now send their children away from home for school, unlike before. Indigenous agricultural and forest conservation practices are vanishing as the Ifugaos embrace the use of modernized farming technologies. Family problems, the disappearance of traditional agricultural practices, forest destruction, and the balding of mountains continues. Conclusions: The Ifugao people live in harmony with the environment and have a profound cultural heritage. Their indigenous knowledge and practices have directly contributed to both biological and cultural preservation and promotion. Parents and children have distinct cultural roles to play in perpetuating the family. Education, which was a challenge in the past, has now become a priority for parents. Evidence of agricultural and forest conservation practices like the Ifugao Rice Terraces (IRT) and the ethnic muyung system showcase the best practices of the Ifugaos in conserving biodiversity, reforestation, and environmental protection. However, evidence suggests that indigenous practices among the Ifugaos in the areas of family, education, agriculture, and forest conservation have changed in recent generations. These practices have become threatened by social and economic changes, modernization and technology, and the dwindling interest of the younger generation. This implies there is a need to safeguard indigenous practices that are relevant to today's generation. Careful attention needs to be paid to the inclusion of traditional knowledge and practices in the elementary and secondary levels.

Indigenous cultural tourism offers significant future opportunities for countries, cities and Indigenous communities, but the development of new offerings can be problematic. Addressing this challenge, this article examines contemporary Australian Indigenous art innovation and cultural entrepreneurship or culturepreneurship emanating from Australia’s remote Arnhem Land art and culture centres and provides insight into the future development of Indigenous cultural tourism. Using art- and culture-focused field studies and recent literature from the diverse disciplines of art history, tourism, sociology and economics, this article investigates examples of successful Indigenous artistic innovation and culturepreneurship that operate within the context of cultural tourism events. From this investigation, this article introduces and defines the original concept of Indigenous culturepreneurship and provides six practical criteria for those interested in developing future Indigenous cultural tourism ventures. These findings not only challenge existing western definitions of both culture and culturepreneurship but also affirm the vital role of innovation in both contemporary Indigenous art and culturepreneurial practice. Equally importantly, this investigation illuminates Indigenous culturepreneurship as an important future-making socio-political and economic practice for the potential benefit of Indigenous communities concerned with maintaining and promoting their cultures as living, growing and relevant in the contemporary world.

This article explores the gender-transgressive expressions found in shōjo culture in order to highlight the potential for feminist analysis in the prevalence of the shōjo motif in contemporary Japanese art. Shōjo culture is a fascinating cultural space, within contemporary Japanese culture, which fosters creative expressions of gender that negate or make complex hegemonic categories. Departing from stereotypes of Japanese girls, this article will pay particular interest to an emerging wave of figurative contemporary art practices in which the figure of the shōjo is utilised for a new generation of feminist critique. Aoshima Chiho, Kunikata Mahomi, Takano Aya, Sawada Tomoko and Yanagi Miwa are among the current artists who feature the shōjo motif in contexts that foreground female subjectivities found paralleled in shōjo culture. These works will then be contextualised in the greater picture of current trends and themes in global contemporary feminist art.

Venus rising, Furies raging: bodies redressed in contemporary visual art

Creativity and its development have been regarded as integral to 21st-century education. Although researchers have made several contributions to the development of creativity in schools, there remains a paucity of educational inventories on conceptual frameworks that tackle creativity development in its entirety, highlighting the essential constructs and elements required for the creativity-fostering process in the educational ecosystem. Therefore, this study proposes a framework that holistically provides a view of 11 elements necessary for successful facilitation of creativity in educational environments and the transition of creativity from policy to the local school system. These elements are: teachers’ training concerning creativity, teachers’ perspectives and understanding of creativity, innovative learning environments (ILEs) available for teachers, teachers’ context of practice, teachers’ commitment to creativity in policy, teachers’ creative practices, teachers’ creative behaviours in the classroom, teachers’ beliefs and professional experience, teachers cultural background, ideologies and influences of educational and policy documents, teachers understanding of discourses in policy, and creative pedagogies used by teachers to foster creativity in students/learners. This conceptual framework will serve as a reference for future studies intended to explicate the fostering of creativity in local classrooms across the world. It also discusses the significance of teachers and students for the development of creativity in education. The study recommends that the perspectives from the school administration and students ought to be taken into account in future studies.

Writing Water, Writing LifeSilko as Environmental Activist Christina Boyles (bio) As concerns regarding the earth’s water resources continue to grow, Indigenous communities are often thrust to the forefront of these conflicts. Protests at Standing Rock and the Tar Sands have highlighted the challenges they face when trying to access clean water. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Indigenous peoples are some of the hardest hit by government and corporate entities seeking to privatize water for profit. One of the communities most affected by water politics are the Indigenous peoples of Arizona and New Mexico, whose water supply is being drained, polluted, and rerouted due to corporate and government interests. The work of Leslie Marmon Silko, who is a member of the Laguna Pueblo of New Mexico, is mired in the concerns of her community, particularly issues of water scarcity. While Silko discusses the role of water in Native American communities in the Southwest in each of her works, those written post-1990—Almanac of the Dead, Sacred Water, Gardens in the Dunes, and Oceanstory—examine it in the greatest depth. These texts highlight the tension between imperial interests and Indigenous knowledge, focusing specifically on issues of water scarcity to demonstrate the need for an environmental ethos grounded in Indigenous practices. Since water allocation cannot be separated from either environmental or racial factors, Silko’s texts critique (eco)colonialism’s relationship to Native American communities and their water supply. In Almanac of the Dead, Silko discusses how large quantities of water are both used and contaminated by uranium mining, an act that has the greatest impact on the nearby Native American reservations. In Sacred Water, Silko presents a solution to water scarcity and contamination by advocating for sustainable irrigation, farming, and gardening practices. In Gardens in the Dunes, Silko addresses issues of population growth and landscaping [End Page 10] in the American Southwest, noting that current trends are detrimental to the water supply. Her most recent publication, an e-novella entitled Oceanstory, completes her discussion of water by drawing connections between colonialism and environmental degradation. Silko’s work directly challenges the settler logics inherent in the environmental movement for its investment in the narrative of Indigenous erasure. By focusing on the preservation of “pristine” landscapes—many of which are stolen Indigenous lands now operating under the guise of natural parks—environmentalists fail to address the ways in which climate change poses the greatest threat for marginalized groups, especially Native communities in the Southwest. Silko notes that “[t]hose who claim to love and protect the Mother Earth have to love all of her, even the places that are no longer pristine” (Yellow Woman 95). One way for activists to do this is by acknowledging the environmental conditions in many Native communities. Cultural studies scholar Andrea Smith notes that “ecofeminist thinkers do not adequately discuss the material conditions in which Indian people live, how these conditions affect non-Indians, and what strategies we can employ to stop the genocide of Indian people and end the destructive forms of resource development on Indian land” (30). In her work on Almanac of the Dead, Bridget O’Meara argues that “[a]n environmental movement that does not consistently and consciously foreground the relationship between the degradation of ecosystems and the violence against labor within gendered, racialized, and sexualized discourses and practices of capitalism merely serves and strengthens capital’s interests in (neo)colonial and (neo)imperial projects” (71). Silko provides an ethical approach to environmentalism in her novels both by highlighting the harm created by settler culture and by demonstrating the ways in which Indigenous knowledge promotes healthier ways of being for both people and the ecosystem. T. V. Reed terms Silko’s approach “decolonial environmental justice cultural studies” to emphasize the ways it challenges imperialist logics of economics, race, and the environment. Reed’s assessment provides a powerful foundation for many key components of Silko’s philosophy; this piece builds upon it by noting the interplay between Indigenous knowledge and decolonial projects. Decolonial environmental projects, often aligned with the “environmental justice” movement, address the needs of individuals “from an assortment of racial and social class backgrounds; they [End Page 11] are African, Latino, Asian, Native, and...

Many businesses are currently transitioning to digital models, relying on information technology to store, manage, and process critical information. However, with increased technology usage, threats to information security are also on the rise. This research aims to measure the engagement of human resources in information security practices in the context of technology-based businesses. The research method employed is a qualitative literature review aimed at investigating various perspectives, approaches, and findings related to human resource engagement in information security practices in technology-based business contexts. Data for this literature review were obtained through searching scholarly articles using the Google Scholar search engine, spanning from 2006 to 2023. The study findings indicate that in the continuously evolving digital era, human resource engagement in information security practices is crucial for the success and sustainability of technology-based businesses. This responsibility extends beyond the IT department and involves collective responsibility throughout the organization. Measuring this engagement requires a holistic approach involving management, operational levels, and corporate culture.

Reviewed by: Form & Relation: Contemporary Native Ceramics ed. by Jami C. Powell Shanna Ketchum-Heap of Birds (bio) Form & Relation: Contemporary Native Ceramics edited by Jami C. Powell; with contributions by Morgan E. Freeman, Courtney M. Leonard, Sequoia Miller, Anya Montiel, Rose B. Simpson, Roxanne Swentzell University of Washington Press, 2020 FORM & RELATION: CONTEMPORARY NATIVE CERAMICS was published to coincide with an exhibition of the same title that took place at the Hood Museum of Art and focuses on six Indigenous contemporary ceramics artists (Anita Fields, Courtney M. Leonard, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Ruben Olguin, Rose B. Simpson, and Roxanne Swentzell) from various regions in the United States. As editor Jami C. Powell mentions in the introduction, the works made of clay embody the relationship of the Indigenous artists to the land, not only in terms of the medium's materiality but also the "knowledge embedded within it" (15). Powell's adept discussion of the broad philosophical underpinnings of the clay medium, and its utilitarian and aesthetic forms, provides the necessary context for creating a dialogue with viewers about "the power of intergenerational community, cross-community connections, and even international collaboration" (19). Thus, it is through a broad, global lens that the six Indigenous artists are introduced, their works discussed and critically analyzed by scholars in the field, and the complexity of their practices clarified in enlightening conversations with the artists. In the chapter Memory, Landscape, Knowledge: The Clay Practices of Indigenous Artists, contributing essayists Anya Montiel and Sequoia Miller collaborated to determine the state of the field by situating Indigenous ceramic traditions within mainstream, Western systems of meaning. In so doing, Montiel and Miller cite the visibility of several exhibitions within the last fifteen years that evidence "the ongoing dissolution of the traditional hierarchies of Western art that has created wider audiences for contemporary Indigenous art" (23). What is then considered are recent theorizations of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination that Native American art historians and artists, such as Montiel and Miller, respectively, have forged to highlight Indigenous worldviews "regarding land, knowledge, gender, and [End Page 178] agency" (22) within the wider field of contemporary Indigenous art, theory, and practice. Consequently, Anita Fields's (Osage/Mvskoke) clay figures and sculptural pieces are described as evincing Osage epistemologies encompassing "the life-sustaining concept of duality" (86) through techniques of layering, texture, and coloration that "convey the balance and duality that characterize the relationship between the earth and sky as well as our relationships to one another as earth people or sky people" (15). In the chapter Bound To: On Lineage, Place, and Futurity, the mother-daughter collaborations of Santa Clara Pueblo artists Roxanne Swentzell and Rose B. Simpson resonate in cocurator Morgan E. Freeman's conversations with the artists about their family lineage as well as their "depictions of the self through sculpture" (44). Their collaborative works are showcased in monumental pieces, multisite ceramic installations, as well as individual works that, according to Montiel and Miller, have literal and metaphorical meanings associated with clay such as "land, body, water, and blood memory" (23). Furthermore, Montiel and Miller draw attention to the diversity of ceramic works made by multidisciplinary artists Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara/Lakota/Austrian/Norwegian) and Ruben Olguin (Nambé Pueblo/Mexican/Spanish) whose processes are understood by way of Christine DeLucia's concept of "memoryscapes" as a place-based notion that "transform[s] blank or neutral spaces into emotionally infused, politically potent spaces" (27). In particular, Luger's piece entitled Every One (#MMIWQT Bead Project) uses social collaboration workshops to produce a project that responds to "the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and queer and trans community members (MMIWQT)" (16–17) by enlisting those affected by this type of violence to participate in making clay beads, which represent a MMIWQT person lost to this crisis. In comparison, Olguin's creative approach "connects his interest in traditional ceramic practices, including adobe and hand-built vessels, to digital and audio technology" (29). Olguin's Retablos are made of clay and pigments in order to comment upon the history of Spanish retablo art forms employed as "tool[s] of conversion and assimilation" (16). Artist Courtney M. Leonard [Shinnecock...

Indigenous Lands are globally recognized as crucial for maintaining ecosystem services, enhancing climate resilience, and supporting both biodiversity conservation and indigenous rights. They are essential not only for their ecological importance but also for preserving the traditional knowledge of indigenous communities, which significantly contributes to sustainable environmental management. The “Marco Temporal” legislation proposed by Brazilian legislators’ states that only Indigenous Lands occupied before October 1988 can be demarcated or remain registered, opening the way for the fragmentation and extinction of demarcated areas. This legislation will lead to deforestation and biodiversity loss, threatens indigenous cultural heritage, and traditional knowledge, and undermines food sovereignty for indigenous communities. The potential approval of the “Marco Temporal” legislation represents a significant retrogression in addressing environmental and social justice. Safeguarding Indigenous Lands is imperative for promoting ecological restoration, mitigating climate change, and ensuring the continued protection of both biodiversity and indigenous cultural practices.

National celebrations have been defined as manifestations of collective identities that glorify the nation and strengthen the national community. However, the magnitude and design of celebrations in autocratic states indicate a different ideational function that these symbolic events play in an autocratic political system. Autocratic elites have the administrative capacity to distort everyday routines and impose ideological principles of how people participate in state celebrations. How citizens engage in official celebratory practices in an authoritarian political context formulates a valuable contribution to the conceptualisation of national celebrations. Drawing on focus group discussions and ethnographic observations, I investigate how people negotiate meanings of celebratory and commemorative practices in the context of autocratic Belarus. I discuss how volatile the symbolic politics is when the invention of new symbolic traditions or the reinvention of old narratives does not appeal to all social groups and lacks authenticity.

"From October 3,2007 to February 14, 2009, Candice Hopkins and I co-curated an exhibition of Indigenous art entitled Shapeshifters, Time Travellers and Storytellers. Held at the Institute for Contemporary Culture (ICC) at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), the show included work by Canadian artist Kent Monkman and seven other contemporary artists, as well as a selection of historical artifacts from the ROM's collections. The genesis of the show grew from the curators' desire to engage in the ongoing debate around the collision between past and present that was to be so conspicuously manifested in the Daniel Libeskind-designed postmodernist extension to the ROM. It was a timely opportunity to exhibit some of the groundbreaking work coming from some of Canada's contemporary artists, particularly in the context of the museum, which maintains a traditional approach to Indigenous arts and cultures. As the inaugural ICC-generated exhibit in the newly opened ROM wing, the show was to comment on the multiple layers of the colonial relationship as it was reflected by the museum's history of isplaying and housing Indigenous art, and the relationship of contemporary Indigenous artists with the museum and its collections."--Page 1.

"From October 3,2007 to February 14, 2009, Candice Hopkins and I co-curated an exhibition of Indigenous art entitled Shapeshifters, Time Travellers and Storytellers. Held at the Institute for Contemporary Culture (ICC) at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), the show included work by Canadian artist Kent Monkman and seven other contemporary artists, as well as a selection of historical artifacts from the ROM's collections. The genesis of the show grew from the curators' desire to engage in the ongoing debate around the collision between past and present that was to be so conspicuously manifested in the Daniel Libeskind-designed postmodernist extension to the ROM. It was a timely opportunity to exhibit some of the groundbreaking work coming from some of Canada's contemporary artists, particularly in the context of the museum, which maintains a traditional approach to Indigenous arts and cultures. As the inaugural ICC-generated exhibit in the newly opened ROM wing, the show was to comment on the multiple layers of the colonial relationship as it was reflected by the museum's history of isplaying and housing Indigenous art, and the relationship of contemporary Indigenous artists with the museum and its collections."--Page 1.