Embracing Indigenous Knowledge Systems Into A New Technology Design Paradigm

Indigenous knowledge systems differ, fundamentally, from the knowledge systems that underlie technology development. Numerous initiatives aim to enable diverse remote communities to share their wisdom and practical know-how using conventional digital technologies but often overlook the very systems that these communities use to organize and make sense of the world. Further, many indigenous communities, especially those in rural places, have few opportunities to appropriate new technologies emerging in ubiquitous computing, such as social networks, flickr, virtual and augmented realities.

To design digital infrastructures for currently unserved knowledge systems we must account for the transformations that occur as technology interacts with the ways of knowing, doing and being that constitute indigenous knowledge systems.

The aim of this conference is to bring together researchers and practitioners, from different disciplines, who are engaged in supporting indigenous and local knowledge representation and dissemination. We will pursue a critical dialogue that considers the tensions arising in representing indigenous knowledge digitally and the factors that contribute to these tensions. Through this we aim to identify opportunities and new epistemological and methodological perspectives that will enable developing technologies that can extend the practices of indigenous knowledge and support the emergence of local socio-technical systems globally.