Indigenous peoples across Indian Country are under constant pressure from what the western state has presented throughout time, in which Native peoples have actively participated since the introduction of western identity and its colonialistic nature. Institutions of western higher education, akin to the University of Denver, were built upon the foundations of colonialism. At the core of many Indigenous societies, language, tradition, and the cultural transmission of knowledge are passed down from generation to generation through oral tradition.
Digital media advancement of vocal transmission has allowed people to engage and become a part of their communities and the border world. Furthermore, the transmission of information alongside the technological advancement of radios and present-day podcasting (Cultivated Space) offers new modes of cultural expression and mediation in digital form.
Indigenous peoples, in turn, can use podcasting to continue personal and community oral narratives in a digital form in a positive light. Tribal radios have historically been successful participants of their right to exercise Indigenous sovereignty. Radio and podcasting platforms transmit culture among Indigenous communities where multiple forms of oral traditions could be made available. These vocal platforms create social discourses on how Indigenous communities could further use podcasting as social scholarship to inform, educate, and liberate their people. In this series, I explore Indigenous Identity while in Higher education. Cultivated Space uses the voices of Indigenous students to exercise the sovereignty presented here.
Mediating podcasting in this light allows Native communities to explore uncharted territory, exercising the right to create potential resources to share Indigenous language, stories, tradition, and culture. Documenting University of Denver Native histories does this in a manner that shares Indigenous social issues in an institutional context. The purpose is to explore how Indigenous knowledge can be integrated and transmitted through modern digital platforms to secure Indigenous stories, language, and cultural identity—the fundamental right to self-govern individual and collective cultures in an ever-growing western world.
The transmission of Indigenous knowledge acts as an independent identity, incompatible with western scholarship and worldviews witnessed throughout Indigenous societies since colonization. If we implicate western modes of knowing and learning, we purposefully explore the relationship of how audio media become progressive modes of culture belonging to ensure the security of Indigenous lifeways across their communities. Ancient modes of cultural communication through vocal dialogue where “digital Storytelling [, inturn] bridges historical, cultural traditions of storytelling with technology to create new traditions for passing on knowledge to future generations.” (Cueva 2013, 5) Podcasting has been around for more than a few decades; suppose tribal nations use this mediation to its fullest extent and, by extension, institutional settings. In this light, it becomes another expression of self-determination thinking and acts as a sovereign motivator that breaks the bounds of western academic scholarship.
Generational learning through storytelling and oral tradition are core learning values across all Indian Country; it continues an intense fight to preserve its language and culture in an increasing western world. Native communities today use tribal radios as a means of cultural transmission as they are more accessible in reservation settings. Language revitalization techniques through mediation, in the case of tribal radios studied in Latin America within the communities of Michoacán, Mexico are then acts of self-determination exercising the rights to cultural autonomy and production, described as “technological sovereignty” (Gutierrez 2021, 125). In its meditative state, podcasting offers a more diverse interaction as young people are more likely to be more interested in virtual and social media interactions, especially in college environments. It allows a broader audience to interact on a subversive cultural level. As the digital age advances and Indigenous communities have more resources available, podcasting as a cultural mediation has practical implications as entities share knowledge and procreate meaningful dialogue. Channette Romero uses the term “Tribalgraphy” in the sense that it allows peoples to have a “greater understanding of the development of Native identities, and the way they are expanded through storytelling better serve tribal interests” (2014, 13) and to “make connections across cultures”(21) If we present tribal sovereignty in this light, a collective vision for the goals of thriving on a holistic level is possible, but requires support and action.
Cultural expression and participation of language, tradition, and epistemologies are essential to the security and procreation of Native cultures. This is especially true as Indigenous communities participate in western societies and senses of being. Cultural procreation and ensuring cultural security becomes a highlighted question. The successes of the digital transformation from radio to online podcasting throughout past decades are worth mentioning. This means that if we take the time to “better understand podcasting as a media form and an avenue for the cultural expression” (Bottomley 2015, 167), we can act in a purposeful manner that further liberates and allows culture to thrive among its participants. Instead of pushing away the advancement of the digital age, we should explore the potential positive implementations for tribal communities that serve as another form of political activism.
A prime example of this mediation that I present comes from Indigenous First Nations peoples of Canada in the Water Dialogues podcast, where tribal communities procreated a platform for a collective understanding of the importance of water rights and Indigenous social human issues imposed by colonial rule over First Nation lands, resources, and peoples. Through this, Water Dialogues presents itself in a manner where Indigenous thinking and reflecting in a collective effort, participating in “collaborative knowledge building which could catalyze how tribal sovereignty could manifest itself through digital audio transmission,” set forth a “participatory and decolonizing method [as] collaborative podcasting.” (Day 2017, 205) By creating spaces in which the narrative belongs to the people, specific political and social issues are mediated and accessed not only by members of Indigenous communities but also in broader society.
Another podcast, Residential Schools, comes from a historical perspective, confronting the trauma imposed on Canada's First Nations Indigenous peoples to educate their peoples further and reclaim the story historically dominated by the settler-state society. In this podcast, “Indigenous subjects detail their lived experiences using digital storytelling as a form of orality and sonically share group memory with Indigenous communities” (Donison 2021, 342). When indigenous peoples tell the history of Indigenous peoples, that is an act of reclaiming the stories rooted in the trauma caused by the legacy of Canada's residential imposed on Indigenous communities. Podcasts used in this manner thus are yet another form of sharing historical knowledge and educating those that want to learn. This work presents an interesting dichotomy where First Nations peoples grapple with exercising their worldview and digital platforms and how this can create meaningful discourse between nation-states and Indigenous peoples.
Podcasts open up a mode of communication where the Indigenous social issues and cultural revitalization efforts can be explored where both Indigenous and decolonization methodologies can be utilized in a western manner. The more significant impact of this kind of public discourse and scholarship is highlighted in the educational realm of learning. In a more radical form, “podcasts open up the possibility for debate, collaboration, and cocreation of content.” (Singer 2019, 575) Collaborative efforts in this kind of ideological thinking have immense potential that we may have only yet to witness beyond what I have presented. Through this scholarship, we can discover a new way “how indigenous peoples in Mexico, in Latin America, in the United States, and the world exercise their inherent right to sovereignty.” (Gutierrez 2021, 128) The goal here is to create and explore a theoretical bridge that links traditional oral values inherently rooted in Indigenous identity with western platforms and foundations of mediation.
Can Indigenous methodologies and knowledge be exercised through these modes of western communication? What I present here comes from a progressive thought for podcasting and broader media. Indigenous peoples have relied on oral transmission of knowledge, contingent on the factors of language, culture, and epistemological senses of the world to self-govern; podcasting creates new territory for this exploration. Contextualizing the importance of oral history and tradition in an Indigenous worldview could give peoples and communities the power to self-determine their lives. In this way, Historically marginalized groups and people of color have the tools at hand to confront the injustice that happens to our communities and allies. By participating in podcast outlets, discourses take place that can create actual change by those in power. Exploring the impacts of communication of oral history mediated by podcasting has the potential to serve as a multi-interactive platform, engaging tribal families, communities, and individuals to promote change for the better.
Works Cited
Bottomley, Andrew J. “Podcasting: A Decade in the Life of a ‘New’ Audio Medium: Introduction.” Journal of Radio & Audio Media, vol. 22, no. 2, July 2015, pp. 164–69. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1080/19376529.2015.1082880.
Channette Romero. “Expanding Tribal Identities and Sovereignty through LeAnne Howe’s‘Tribalography.’” Studies in American Indian Literatures, vol. 26, no. 2, University of Nebraska Press, 2014, pp. 13–25,
Cueva, Melany, et al. “Bridging Storytelling Traditions with Digital Technology.” International Journal of Circumpolar Health, vol. 72, no. 1, Jan. 2013, p. 20717. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.3402/ijch.v72i0.20717.
Day, Lindsay, et al. “The Expanding Digital Media Landscape of Qualitative and Decolonizing Research: Examining Collaborative Podcasting as a Research Method.” MediaTropes, vol. 7, no. 1, MediaTropes, Jan. 2017, pp. 203–28.
Donison, Jeff. Listening to History Podcasting and the Intertextual Stories of Silence: A Canadian Perspective. No. 1, 2021, p. 23.
Gutierrez de Jesus, Maria G. “Technological Sovereignty and Comunalidad : Revitalizing Indigenous Languages through Podcasts in Indigenous Communities of Michoacán, Mexico.” Ab-Original, vol. 4, no. 1–2, Dec. 2021, pp. 124–47. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.5325/aboriginal.4.1-2.0124.
Singer, Jonathan Bentley. “Podcasting as Social Scholarship: A Tool to Increase the Public Impact of Scholarship and Research.” Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, vol. 10, no. 4, The University of Chicago Press, Dec. 2019, pp. 571–90. journals.uchicago.edu (Atypon), doi:10.1086/706600.