Doctoral Dissertation Research: Use of Digital Technologies by Indigenous People for Communication Within and Beyond Communities

土著人民利用信息和通信技术为这些边缘化群体提供了跨越地理距离进行交流和影响政策和决策的新机会。这一博士论文研究项目将调查互联网促进土著人民、科学家和政府机构之间富有成效的对话的能力。该项目将为数字互动如何为所涉及的不同利益攸关方带来赋权和不平等提供新的见解。项目结果有可能为弱势群体如何更好地利用数字技术增强自身能力，以及不同的利益攸关方如何跨越文化、认识论和官僚障碍相互协作，寻找应对不断变化的环境条件的解决方案提供新的见解。这位博士生将与加拿大北部当地的因纽特人社区合作，但这些问题影响着全球的边缘人群，该项目将提供对互联网的见解，作为在美国和其他地方的不同地点促进国际对话和决策的论坛。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生能够建立强大的独立研究生涯。该项目将解决三个核心问题：(1)环境变化问题是如何在网上阐述的？(2)这种数字话语是否受到当前政策的塑造和限制，以及它们是否影响因纽特人参与这些政策的方式？(3)造成这些限制的网络的技术和话语属性是什么？博士生将结合话题建模和批判性话语分析来探索这些问题，并提供对因纽特人必须参与的话语框架的理解。他还将分析因纽特人在参与数字空间时的经历，以及数字技术的文化和认识论方面如何阻止他们充分参与。这项研究对从理论和政策上理解数字技术、土著和边缘化人民对技术的参与以及环境信息和知识的交流都有影响。

The use of information and communication technologies by indigenous people has opened new opportunities for these marginalized groups to communicate across geographic distances and to influence policy and decision making. This doctoral dissertation research project will investigate the capacity of the Internet to facilitate productive dialogue among indigenous peoples, scientists and government agencies. The project will provide new insights into how digital interactions produce empowerment as well as inequalities for the various stakeholders involved. Project findings have the potential to provide new insights regarding how vulnerable groups might better leverage digital technologies to empower themselves as well as how different stakeholders might collaborate with one another and with policymakers across cultural, epistemological, and bureaucratic barriers in a search for solutions to changing environmental conditions. The doctoral student will work with local Inuit communities in northern Canada, but these issues affect marginalized populations globally, and the project will provide insights into the Internet as a forum for enabling international dialogue and decision making in a diverse set of locales in the U.S. and elsewhere. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.The project will address three core questions: (1) How are environmental change issues articulated online? (2) Are such digital discourses shaped and constrained by current policies and do they affect the ways in which the Inuit engage with such policies? (3) What are the technological and discursive attributes of the Web that contribute to these constraints? The doctoral student will use a combination of topic modeling and critical discourse analysis to explore these questions and provide an understanding of the discursive framework with which the Inuit must engage. He also will analyze the experiences of Inuit as they engage with digital spaces as well as how cultural and epistemological aspects of digital technologies may prevent them from being fully engaged. The research has implications for the theoretical and policy-based understanding of digital technologies, the engagement of technologies by indigenous and marginalized peoples, and the communication of environmental information and knowledge.