Indigenous people in Australia and around the world have always been early adopters of new technologies. This is particularly true of Indigenous people’s use of social media. We have used various platforms to reconnect with either long lost or stolen family, to explore our own identities and to connect with each other as we always have.
Dr Bronwyn Carlson, professor of Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University, has been undertaking some of the first research into Indigenous use of social media.
“We do see a lot of Indigenous people taking up a variety of social media for a range of social and cultural and political reasons,” she told me. “Research has revealed that the uptake is somewhere up to 20% higher for Indigenous people then non-Indigenous. This seems to be consistent with the literature from other countries, where there are similar colonial violent current and historical relationships.”
Social media has opened up new channels for Indigenous people to advocate and explore issues of importance and bring those issues to mainstream audiences. Carlson’s research has found that 79% of Indigenous social media users have supported a political cause on social network sites.
“So you see the rise of pages like IndigenousX, for example, on Twitter, and Blackfella Revolution on Facebook, where Indigenous people own the handles and pages and use the power of their following to disrupt mainstream media. They disrupt mainstream thought and that old wonderful lilt of ‘terra nullius’ concept, which has applied to human beings as well.”
But to have an active voice as an Indigenous person on social media is not easy.
Those of us who engage in a national conversation on Aboriginality and our history and the restorative justice required to right some of this country’s wrongs, are labelled as radical and dangerous. We endure an endless stream of fear-driven hate, relentless in quantity and intensity.
With the expression of identity through political and social discourse comes perennial risks, usually in the form of racism, either direct, indirect or witnessed. Scour the replies on Twitter or comments on Facebook, to any genuine tragedy involving Indigenous people or their communities, and you will witness a cesspool of racist vitriol.
A more recent phenomenon confronting Indigenous people online has been the rise of white victimhood, which has become a centrepiece of the ongoing culture wars.
The almost daily reminder of mainstream Australia’s indifference to the historical wrongs committed against Indigenous Australians and the connection those wrongs have on the plight of many Indigenous Australians today.
Here, we deny the 60,000 years of the longest continuing culture on Earth. Here we continue to believe Australia was discovered by Captain Cook and Australia was born the day the First Fleet arrived to poison, imprison and murder the Gadigal people of Eora Nation. Here we use our flag as a cape or sometimes a blanket, a blanket that covers up the unseemly parts of our history, our shame.
For many non-Indigenous people, these culture wars are an academic exercise, but for Indigenous people it goes to the heart of personal identity. For Indigenous Australians, it’s personal. It’s not only a fight for recognition, it also a fight to play a central and meaningful role in the life of this country.
Witnessing or combating this torrent is relentless for Indigenous people online, as Carlson explains, “even if you have no mind to be political, the very fact of your existence brings you into that realm”.
So, essentially, even Indigenous people who didn’t see themselves as political online often end up taking a political position anyway.
Suicide levels among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people still remain double that of the rest of the population and has been slowly increasing. Social media, far from being social, can act to isolate individuals and communities.
This is reflected in Carlson’s research, “so now we find a lot of people, young people in isolated places that start to realise that this is not a friendly place to be and that they’re not going to have opportunities like every other Australian. So you see high rates of suicide in many of these places where hope is no longer something that people can envision.”
The online world is a lived experience for Aboriginal people and it has real world impacts.
Daniel James is a Yorta Yorta man, a writer, consultant and social policy advocate. His Twitter account is @mrdtjames.
Thanks Daniel. Fantastic.
Thank you Nigel.
Words are the weapons, the armory of the dispossessed.
The adoption of the tablet and smart-phone technology is by no means confined to Australian aborigines. Indeed, such instruments have assisted greatly by communicating the affairs, events and the opinions of the global community more so than any TV channel or newspaper. Indeed, in the majority of 3rd word countries that I have visited one can buy a phone at booth A, a SIM at boot B and a plan at booth C. Such “trading” is
almost impossible in the USA, Canada or Europe. The current government’s obsession with encryption is a case in point; ditto for the Five-Eyes block generally.
“… We endure an endless stream of fear-driven hate, relentless in quantity and intensity.”
You are laying it on a but thick Daniel. It is never sufficient to merely make a statement and expect to have it accepted. One requires research and a knowledge of what would both prove and disprove the assertions of any particular matter. Without that characteristic within the discourse the blabber is of Face Book standard
“A more recent phenomenon confronting Indigenous people online has been the rise of white victimhood, which has become a centrepiece of the ongoing culture wars.”
Opinions come and go. The approach, as per the principles of empiricism are our guide. We may not be able to conjecture the next vogue issue but we OUGHT to know how to approach and analyse it.
“For many non-Indigenous people, these culture wars are an academic exercise,”
Not sure what you mean. The principles of the Enlightenment were by no means an “academic exercise”. Indeed we are having this discussion on account of those principles.
“but for Indigenous people it goes to the heart of personal identity.”
Does not every creed possess “personal identity”? To a large extent that is what politics, or indeed, religion, is about.
“So, essentially, even Indigenous people who didn’t see themselves as political online often end up taking a political position anyway.
Could you provide an example or two because I don’t comprehend this sentence at all.
“Here, we deny the 60,000 years of the longest continuing culture on Earth.”
Steady on here Daniel! I have some familiarity with Pascoe, “Dark Emu”, Cane, S. “First Footprints” and more recently Griffiths, “Deep Time Dreaming” along with the paleontology of Australia in general. The date of the first inhabitants isn’t clear (could be of the order of 50,000 years but what is clear or clear(er) is more or less continuous existence for 40,000 years or, roughly, the last two Ice ages.
On that point alone those that exist in the country now are not necessary “related” to those that were in the country an ice age or so ago. There is also the matter of language or rather the variation in language which suggest a much more recent “invasion”
No one “believes” that the place was “discovered” by Cook. The logs of Tasman were known well prior to Cook. Cook merely claimed the place for George III, his airs and successors. In any event do you, personally, think that as the world was changing in terms of technology (that word again) and relative population explosions were occurring (just consider immigration to the USA and Canada along) matters could have remained as they were. It is more a question of which nationality of colonialist might Daniel have preferred. To this end the paleontology, indeed the anthropology of the place is a side issue to the year 2018.
“Social media, far from being social, can act to isolate individuals and communities.”
I don’t think even Gates asserted that IT was a panacea. Like anything at all : it is about how the item is used. White kids have suicided on account of being bullied by their peers.
“So you see high rates of suicide in many of these places where hope is no longer something that people can envision.”
Indeed. Such places (around the world) are also excellent hunting grounds for various organisations to recruit personnel, “radicalise” them and encourage acts of terrorism. Not all that hard with a reliable smart-phone.
“The online world is a lived experience for Aboriginal people and it has real world impacts.”
An observation that returns us to square one. We all share the planet AND, for that matter, the SAME common ancestor!
Thanks for this intriguing article. Social media is indeed a double edged sword, but I hadn’t really considered it in connection with indigenous people and politics. The abuse is horrible but hopefully means your advocacy is discomforting people who need to be discomforted.