Indigenous Rights in Cyberspace: Connectivity in the margins

A growing concern for the promotion and protection of human rights is now unquestionably interwoven in contemporary world issues, and one of the consequences has been the widening of the international discourse on human rights, which now includes collective and indigenous rights. As human rights discourse has become increasingly globalized, indigenous peoples have been using international human rights as a language within which they frame their movements, express their positions and direct their actions. This paper seeks to analyse how information and communication technologies have created a new space that allows the expansion of the recently recognized indigenous rights and how, increasingly, we witness to the appropriation of technology by indigenous communities as a tool for political action and reaffirmation of cultural identity. Approaching the indigenization of information and communication technologies as an example of what might be termed as the cultural construction of technology, this paper also aims to reflect upon the dynamics of visibility/invisibility of indigenous peoples in the information society.