Indigenous Media Research Articles

Exploring the imperative of “relational documentary”: Process, power, and unruly collaboration in media production on Palestine

AbstractBecoming an anthropologist of Palestine during the War on Terror meant that the specter of violence and exclusion always loomed over my research; yet I had become an anthropologist out of a commitment to presence in and engagement with people from the Middle East. I investigate the ways in which Faye Ginsburg's approach to studying polarizing issues, her analysis of Indigenous media, and her commitment to ethical collaboration has shaped my written and video work. In the first part of the paper, I discuss how reflexivity and positionality propelled me forward in an ethnographic study of journalistic production. In the second half, I reflect on collaborative film projects that illuminated themes of risk and positionality that are at the heart of politics and media production in Palestine. The model of “relational documentary” analyzed by Ginsburg that considers ethics and politics both on and off screen informs my approach to the obligations of long‐running partnerships. Just as much, Ginsburg's commitment to play and creativity allowed me to imagine unexpected explorations of mobility, voice, and place to ask what we can do, working across lines of difference, to be able to hear each other and make space for each other to be heard.

“A Failure. No One to Blame But Themselves”? The Media and the Abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission

ABSTRACT In 2004/5 the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission was abolished after 15 years of operation. The longest running and most innovative representative body in the postwar era, its abolition has reverberated to this day. 1 1 ATSIC was one of several elected Indigenous representative bodies of the postwar period. However, it remains the most innovative because it was a statutory body that had both representative and administrative functions and a national commission with a network of regional councils. This model has not been replicated since. This article explores the role of the media in its abolition. It shows how the non-Indigenous media created an image of Indigenous dysfunction such that ATSIC’s abolition was understood as the only viable option. It did so by perpetuating untruths about Indigenous capacity for governance and leadership, suggesting that ATSIC’s alleged failure was self-inflicted. Such representation, including deeply offensive caricatures, worked to support government aims and amounted to institutional bullying. By situating this representation within the wider policy landscape, I show how the media not only created ideational frameworks necessary to project ATSIC as unfit but also helped to deflect attention from the government’s own non-accountability in this space. As a counterpoint to what became a dominant view about ATSIC, I recover the representation of its abolition in the Indigenous media, allowing Indigenous views to be heard for the first time. This case study is of critical importance in the context of today’s concern with both truth-telling and truth-denying.

Indigenous media and popular culture in the Philippines: representations, voices, and resistance

Indigenous media and popular culture in the Philippines: representations, voices, and resistance

Harnessing Bacillus subtilis QY5 PP784163 for Bioethanol Production from Potato Peel Waste and Nutrient Recovery for Animal Feed: Maximizing Resource Efficiency

The present work focuses on the utilization of potato peel waste for the production of bioethanol. In the present study, extensive screening was undertaken to isolate amylolytic and cellulolytic microbes using starchy biomass. After confirming the chemical composition of potato peel waste (PPW), several trials were performed to enhance the amylase and cellulase production from Bacillus subtilis to hydrolyze the PPW in submerged fermentation. Optimization of physical parameters was performed using both commercial and indigenous media from enzymatically hydrolyzed PPW. Different routes of various combinations were designed to enhance bioethanol production. The maximum ethanol titer of 0.50% and 0.41% was recorded in Route B and A, i.e., separate saccharification and ethanol fermentation and consolidated fermentation. Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) also measured a good ethanol yield of 0.46%. The fermented residual cake was checked for nutritional components and showed a high content of protein and amino acids because of the addition of unicellular yeasts. This cake can be utilized as an animal feed supplement.

Book Review: Black Witness: The Power of Indigenous Media by Amy McQuire

Book Review: <i>Black Witness: The Power of Indigenous Media</i> by Amy McQuire

Black Witness: The Power of Indigenous Media, Amy Mcquire (2024)

Review of: Black Witness: The Power of Indigenous Media, Amy Mcquire (2024) Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 336 pp., ISBN 978-0-70226-332-3, p/bk, AUD 34.99

Mass multiplication of native rhizospheric bacteria on cheaply available organic substrates and their plant growth promotion potentiality on cowpea

The intensive agricultural system results into considerable environmental damage and its inevitable effects on various environmental and ecological factors. Known for their role in the natural disease-suppressiveness of particular soil, Fluorescent pseudomonads are a genus of root-associated bacteria that may colonise the roots of agricultural plants and create antifungal metabolites, making them a viable alternative to the use of chemical fungicides. The successful application of Fluorescent pseudomonads as bioinoculants depends to a great extent on their capability to establish roots and to contend with indigenous microbiome in the rhizosphere. Because of various limitations, variations in the bio control agents are bound to occur in different agro-climatic regions, so it is advisable to choose native bio control agents. In the present investigation, a comprehensive effort was undertaken to check the growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (GP-8), which was found to be much lesser in aqueous extracts of cow dung, vermicompost and groundnut cake as compared to the growth of GP-8 (Pseudomonas aeruginosa) in nutrient broth media. The enrichment of Nitrogen and other supplementary nutrients may be required for the development of low cost indigenous media from cheaply available substrates for commercial mass production of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (GP-8) and also a field level screening trial was undertaken with efficient native Fluorescent pseudomonads solely or in consortia for improvement of plant health and management of soil borne pathogens as well as to develop a culture media with cheap and readily available substrate sources for mass production of Fluorescent pseudomonads strains. In the present study, it was found that shoot length and root length of native Fluorescent pseudomonads inoculated cowpea plants were significantly increased as compared with those of the control plants both at 30 and 60 days after sowing.

Indigenous media and rural mobilization for development programmes in Nigeria

This paper explores the role of indigenous media in rural mobilization for development programmes in Nigeria. It is a position paper which obtained its data through secondary sources such as textbooks and journal articles. The paper is anchored on the Uses and Gratifications Theory. Indigenous media have been found to be critical components of rural mobilization which empowers rural dwellers to engage in self-actualizing activities in their communities. They are also found to be instrumental to changing the behavioural patterns of rural people towards achieving set development goals. Indigenous media promote awareness and increase active participation of rural people in development programmes. Lack of a unified language system in indigenous communication, lack of official attention from the government and the influence of new media technologies among others have been identified as challenges faced by indigenous media in Nigeria. The paper however, concludes that indigenous media are vital channels for rural mobilization and development in Nigeria. The paper recommended among others that government, policy makers and development stakeholders should deploy indigenous media in rural development programmes for effective mobilization and participation of the rural folks in their development programmes.

YouTube Itak: a description of Ainu-related videos

The Ainu are an Indigenous group currently living primarily in Japan. Following the cultural revitalisation of laws and social movements and the appropriation of new technologies, Ainu communities are increasingly using social media to disseminate their culture. However, research on the Ainu people has rarely discussed their communication strategies in current media. In this study, a total of 428 Ainu-related videos uploaded on YouTube were analysed. Basic information about the videos was obtained through the YouTube application programming interface and additional information was acquired by watching them. The videos were categorised into three groups: those produced only by Ainu people, with Ainu people, or without Ainu collaborators. Statistical and qualitative differences between release and upload dates, keywords, categories, conceptualisers, producers, presenters, YouTube metrics, tags, and video descriptions were used to uncover the different types of content created and/or endorsed by Ainu people and the communication strategies used by them and their allies. The combination of quantitative and qualitative methods based on Indigenous communication approaches adopted in this study proved to be useful in understanding Indigenous media in online contexts.

Exploring and Navigating the Chasm: The Incompatibility of Western Gatekeeping Theory with Akwa-Cross Akata Indigenous Media

The global practice of journalism which is a Western conception stipulates that any media content meant for public consumption must go through the process of ‘Gatekeeping’ by ‘Gatekeepers’ before it is featured on any media channel. This quality assurance process ensures that media contents that could insult public sensibilities and unfit for public consumption are sorted out and discarded. Ironically, it is believed that this principle applies globally across media terrains. The Akata indigenous media, of the Akwa-Cross (Akwa Ibom and Cross River States) rural communities does not have ‘Gatekeepers’ who ensure that the quality of information churned out is fit for public consumption, free of legal issues and defamation. This study basically examines the sharp contrast, the incompatibility and unsuitability of the Western theoretical concept of Gatekeeping with the traditional African ‘Akata’ masquerade which serves as the traditional media for West African natives (Akwa Ibom and Cross River States communities in Nigeria). A qualitative methodology using focus group discussion as the procedure to elicit data from members of the Akata masquerade was used in this study. To ascertain the contextual relevance and significance of this cult, several Afrocentric theories were employed to examine the phenomenon.

(Re)imagining Ndau indigenous religion of Zimbabwe in the digital age

ABSTRACT The twenty-first century has been characterized by various digital communication technologies that are a major agent of globalization. Today Africans find themselves in new geo-cultural contexts within their countries and in the diaspora through migration triggered by many factors. These geographical dislocations disrupt the traditional clan settlement patterns and in turn challenge indigenous media of communication in indigenous African societies. Digitalization becomes a lifestyle in this globalizing world. African Indigenous Religions (AIRs) practitioners are embracing digital communication facilities. However, there are fears within some sections of African indigenous communities whether African Indigenous Religions could utilize the emergent communication technologies and remain unscathed. These sections hold the view that digital communication technologies are incompatible with the African indigenous worldview. There has been scanty literature on AIRs in general and Ndau religio-culture in particular to respond to these fears. Mindful of the variations that characterize AIRs, this article uses Ndau religio-culture of Zimbabwe to contend that AIRs are dynamic and have long been digital. In this regard, digitalization is neither new nor opposed to African indigenous religions. Rather, it is the amplification of the old as it fuses with the new. This empirical article employs the theological ethnography design to access the meaning embedded in the indigenous Ndau’s interaction with the digital communication services. Afro-centricity provides the lens to glean phenomena from the standpoint of the Ndau as key players in their life-worlds. The research findings were that the Ndau have a penchant for innovation and creativity in ways of thinking and doing things in order to survive in new circumstances. The article concludes that the Ndau religio-culture is an enduring heritage that has responded to the digital communication revolution by finding ways of reimagining and revitalizing its communication repertoire to be compliant with the dictates of the digital era.

Producing Indigenous Media

AbstractThe following dialogue—with Indigenous filmmakers and anthropologists Dr. Angelo Baca (Diné/Hopi), Teresa Martinez‐Chavez (Zapotec), Dr. Teresa Montoya (Diné), and Dr. Ikaika Ramones (Kanaka ʻŌiwi)—charts the ethical protocols and decisions undertaken in the production of documentary films with and within Indigenous communities. These films underscore the significance of prioritizing culturally specific protocols about knowledge production and its attendant impacts on media circulation. Each filmmaker considers the broader colonial legacies that have shaped various representations of Indigenous life and what refusing certain media conventions, such as digital distribution, might mean for theorizing Indigenous media practices in broader anticolonial frameworks.

Observing digital mobilizations in pandemic times

The year 2020 was strange for Indigenous movements in Brazil. On-site gatherings were cancelled due to the outbreak of Covid-19. Indigenous movements, in connection with Indigenous media initiatives, aimed at occupying the screens instead. An abundance of live streams popped up on diverse social media platforms. During April 2020, online observations were carried out using an approach inspired by digital ethnography. This article offers a discussion about collecting research data within this changing context. The main aim is to reflect upon online observations as research practice and live streams as sources for scholarly investigation. Additionally, this paper discusses how to think about presence, place and temporality in the research context.

The Politics of Media Format: Printing Poor Sarah During the Removal Crisis in Cherokee Nation

Nineteenth-century Cherokee printers were media theorists who made political arguments through the materiality of Christian tracts. This article turns to the tract Poor Sarah as an illuminating example, especially because Cherokees published it in two editions in 1833 and 1843, affording a comparative analysis from before and after the tribe's forced removal from Cherokee Nation to Indian Territory. The material qualities of the two editions were strikingly different. Before removal, Cherokee printers emulated Anglo-Protestant prototypes in terms of dimensions, layout, and typography. The goal was to increase the likelihood of staying on their lands by winning white patrons and nudging Cherokee readers to see themselves as acculturated reading subjects. After removal, Cherokee printers rethought acculturation as a strategy. They redesigned Poor Sarah to turn away from white audiences and instead address the Cherokee community and its needs. Attention to the evolving materialities of Poor Sarah reveals Cherokee Christian printing as a key site of Indigenous media theory and part of Cherokee Nation's repertory of political action in response to US imperialism and settler colonialism.

Indigenous Journalists: Perceptions of Mainstream Media Coverage of Indigenous Affairs and Climate Change

Indigenous journalism plays an increasingly important role in modern media. It fulfils important functions such as creating counter-narratives, empowering local communities and acting as watchdog. Representations of Indigenous peoples in traditional media are often stereotyped, lacking in detail, or factually incorrect. To understand the balance in this complex media ecosystem, this study investigated Indigenous journalists’ perceptions of traditional media coverage of indigenous stories and Indigenous journalists’ relationships with non-Indigenous journalists. Based on 20 in-depth interviews conducted with Indigenous journalists around the world, the study confirms that there is a gap between mainstream and Indigenous media, and that there is generally little trust in mainstream media representations of Indigenous communities. This study is a first brick in a foundation to build greater understanding between mainstream and Indigenous media and to consider possible ways forward.

I Fanhigaiyan: weaving an alternative journalism praxis from CHamoru decolonization media activism

In this article, I theorize an Indigenous media framework drawn from conversations with journalists and Indigenous activists in Guåhan (Guam). I refer to this framework as I Fanhigaiyan, a Fino’CHamoru (CHamoru language) term which can mean a thing which weaves or a place for weaving. This term captures the essence of CHamoru (the Indigenous people of the Marianas) media activism as a grounded and resurgent practice which establishes and maintains networks of reciprocity in Guåhan and in translocal spaces for Indigenous sovereignty and demilitarization. While in critical studies it is a given that news media serve an ideological function of state power, few researchers have examined the settler ideological power of media in American territories such as Guåhan. This article draws attention to the role of mainstream news media in concealing and reproducing settler logics of territoriality and elimination, and the mediated CHamoru resistance to American settler governance and discourse.

SGaawaay K‘uuna

At the intersection of Indigenous language socialization, linguistic preservation of endangered languages, and a sociocultural anthropology of Indigenous media, lies how Indigenous languages are being revitalized by film and the production process. The critically acclaimed production of the first all Haida language feature film, SGaawaay K‘uuna: Edge of the Knife (2018), tells an inspiring story of bringing hope to the elders, Indigenous language to the youth, and a passionate revitalization of language and community with its radical approach to language revitalization through its community-driven production process.

Media: The Case of Spain and New Spain

This article develops the new concept of environing media against the case of Mexico’s complex history over the past five centuries. To do this, it stakes out a theoretical development consisting in a shift in understanding from media as content-delivery systems to data processors, combining it with a processual understanding of environment as an ongoing and historical process of environing. In addition, the article discusses examples of indigenous media, an area that has so far received very little attention. The Aztec empire was as dependent on media forms as the Spanish colonizers who replaced it, and there are numerous cases of knowledges and practices surviving in hybrid forms, for example as part of maps. For much of its history, the field of media studies has been biased toward questions of (1) ideological or attitudinal influence caused by (2) modern or emergent technologies. This article goes in another direction by thinking about media as (1) environing and (2) residual. Media are agencies of civilizational and environmental order. The rise of digital media in recent decades has reinforced the fundamental logistical role of media as agencies that arrange, catalog, organize, network, and index people, places, and things. Our understanding of media as fundamental constituents of organization joins the recent interest in infrastructures. Calendars, clocks, towers, names, addresses, maps, registers, arms, and money are all infrastructural media. Such media become second nature, morphing biorhythms and altering ecosystems. Today’s planetary digital infrastructure builds upon the long legacy of resource management via databases. We argue for a longer genealogy of the nature shaping logistical role of media that is so evident today. In this article, we refine and exemplify these claims via a case study of some environing media in Mexico, a country with a deep and rich media history.

Ghost in the Machine: Remembering Donald Ghostkeeper Âhasiw Maskêgon-Iskwêw

An essay about the life and legacy of pioneering indigenous media artist Âhasiw Maskêgon-Iskwêw, including the author’s own re-performance of his performance White Shame (1992).

"Mothers are Medicine": U.S. Indigenous Media Emphasizing Indigenous Women's Roles in COVID-19 Coverage.

As COVID-19 surged in 2020, non-Indigenous media had a chronic disease of its own: sparse pandemic news from Indian Country. Within this inadequate coverage, there was an erasure of sources: Indigenous women were missing. This study evaluates the role of gender in U.S. Indigenous news coverage during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a qualitative thematic textual analysis, 161 Indigenous media news articles were analyzed to examine gendered news coverage themes from the time the United States instituted a nationwide quarantine until the autumn of 2020. U.S. Indigenous media amplified voices of the Indigenous women on the COVID-19 frontlines. This study focuses on Indigenous media as the benchmark for telling ethical diverse Indigenous community-focused stories, illustrating how women's voices led media coverage and amplified issues. U.S. tribes are often matriarchal. As Europeans wielded disease and genocide as extermination tactics on these communities, women's voices served as medicine to guide narratives to community solutions and healing. As such, this study seeks to add to current theoretical understanding of how Indigenous women's roles were portrayed in COVID-19 coverage.