| Cyber-sovereignty emerged as the primary issue during the process of Internet connectivity within a rural community of the Navajo Nation. This qualitative, case study approach explores cultural and technological obstacles between Diné (Navajo) community members and available computer technology within Lake Valley, New Mexico. The researcher was as much part of the process as the community residents in actively confronting the issues of technological change.; Digital Diné is a pun and a working metaphor. Diné know themselves as the Five-Fingered People. Diné have a long history of incorporating implements and techniques of other cultures into their own. Farella (1984) describes this cultural fusion as “incorporativeness, so that entire technologies can be integrated into the culture without causing basic changes, and the culture can be adapted relatively easily to changing conditions” (p. 196). Thus, Digital Diné reflects a persistent association with technology, the current use of Internet technologies, and historical self-image.; Orality and literacy, as contrasting and complementary technologies, intersect with the new communication technologies of the WWW or web culture. Orality, literacy, and the WWW are technologies that differ according to the context of their usage and users. Web technologies, as extensions of visual, aural, tactile, and oral space, share characteristics of orality, and may be more accessible for use as a tool by Diné (Brian O'Connor, personal communication, October 8,1997). The new communication technologies and the process of “becoming digital” (McLellan, 1996; Negroponte, 1995) may share metaphorical relevance with cultures that value orality.; Exploration of the complementarities of orality, literacy, and newer communication technologies takes place within cultural contexts and frameworks of becoming digital. A Navajo grandfather requested the National Indian Telecommunications Institute (NITI) to conduct a computer workshop at his chapter house explaining:; I know nothing about computers or your Internet. All I know is that my daughter went away to college and now she won't come home. Maybe if we bring technology to our reservation, our children will come home. (FCC Testimony, April 12, 1999)... |
