Diverse nations, diverse thought
With workshop participants including representatives from Australian Aboriginal, Hawaiian, Māori, Oglala Lakota, Euskaldun (Basque), Anishinaabe, Coquille, Cree, Crow, Cheyenne and Mohawk, among other communities, Lewis says they really wanted to reinforce the diversity of Indigenous thought.
“We decided that there would be no one format for the position paper; authors should write in the mode that was most effective for them. As a result of that, people felt comfortable and we were able to create a document that still fit together,” he explains.
Lewis, who is also Research Chair in Computational Media and the Indigenous Future Imaginary, adds that the decision to base the workshops in Hawai‘i was both practical as well as personal. The island chain sits neatly in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, reasonably accessible by air from Australia and New Zealand as well as from North America and Europe. Additionally, as a scholar of Hawaiian, Cherokee and Samoan descent himself, it gave him the opportunity to better understand and study his own heritage. Finally, Hawai‘i offered a rich example of what a vibrant, Indigenous-led tech scene can achieve.
“In a way that I don’t think exists elsewhere other than New Zealand, there is a full ecology of Indigenous cultural practitioners, language keepers, critical cultural researchers, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists — everything you need to work at the cutting edge of digital technology centred on Indigenous Hawaiian bodies,” he says.