Twitter is an Indigenous Territory

1. Abstract

#DecolonizingDigital is a project that runs out of the Indigenous Life Promotion & Social Action Network Labs at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. The project investigates how Indigenous people are using Twitter for cultural revitalization, well-being, and community connection. This panel offers three papers with findings for stage one of the project. The first paper discusses how Twitter-based Indigenous language revitalization movements enable Indigenous language learners to live their languages in culturally grounded and place-based ways, and present Indigenous languages not as dying but, rather, as vibrant, active, and living. The second paper discusses Twitter as an Indigenous community shaped by beaders who are connecting and sustaining culture, love, identity, healing, and Indigenous trade systems through beading in Twitter’s ecosystem. The third paper discusses how We Matter, an Indigenous youth-led organization, is challenging colonial theorizations of mental health and re-articulating Indigenous health through the lived experiences and knowledges of Indigenous youth.

Ashley Caranto Morford (ashley.morford@mail.utoronto.ca), University of Toronto, Canada, Jordan McVittie (jordan.mcvittie@mail.utoronto.ca), University of Toronto, Canada, Katelyn Ward (katelyn.ward@mail.utoronto.ca), University of Toronto, Canada, Nicole Santos Dunn (nicole.dunn@mail.utoronto.ca), University of Toronto, Canada, Samantha McCormick (samantha.mccormick@mail.utoronto.ca), University of Toronto, Canada, Sewsen Goitom-Igbu (sega_sew@yorku.ca), University of Toronto, Canada and Jeffrey Ansloos , University of Toronto, Canada

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