Abstract
Social media is a highly valuable site for Indigenous people to express their identities and to engage with other Indigenous people, events, conversations, and debates. While the role of social media for Indigenous peoples is highly valued for public articulations of identity, it is not without peril. Drawing on the authors’ recent mixed-methods research in Australian Indigenous communities, this paper presents an insight into Indigenous peoples’ experiences of cultivating individual and collective identities on social media platforms. The findings suggest that Indigenous peoples are well aware of the intricacies of navigating a digital environment that exhibits persistent colonial attempts at the subjugation of Indigenous identities. We conclude that, while social media remains perilous, Indigenous people are harnessing online platforms for their own ends, for the reinforcement of selfhood, for identifying and being identified and, as a vehicle for humour and subversion.
Highlights
For as long as social media platforms have existed, the topic of Indigenous identity has featured in online conversations and debates
We present the standpoints of our research participants and other notable Indigenous people regarding the perils of identifying online
In contrast with the positive affordances of the Internet regarding the multitude of possibilities for Indigenous peoples to express their identity and continued collective survival of colonialism, there exists a considerable amount of negativity and harmful content on social media
Summary
For as long as social media platforms have existed, the topic of Indigenous identity has featured in online conversations and debates. From the early days of social media Indigenous people were creating pages and sites to publicly express their pride in being Aboriginal. This is exemplified in many social media profiles and Twitter handles, those of Aboriginal activists. This article outlines some of the ways that harmful content on social media is interpreted and experienced by Indigenous peoples and how this content can be seen to reflect colonial ideologies surrounding Indigenous identity. This article identifies an urgent need for a mature re-evaluation of identity politics in Australia and across the globe in an emerging and fast-paced era of global digital citizenship
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