Matching Items (3)
Description
Development approaches have historically been driven by external forces, and they are short-term and lack fit and inclusiveness. For Indigenous communities, this approach to development has been severely disruptive to their means of livelihood as well as their social and cultural norms. This has led to rethinking development as a process that places greater emphasis on engaging communities to ensure that their context-specific needs are met. Simultaneously, rising interest in information and communications technology (ICT) has drawn elite attention from development agencies about its potential roles in enhancing development through inclusion. However, the growing literature on ICT for development (ICT4D) is vague on how to nurture inclusion to pursue development activities in Indigenous communities. This qualitative study examined a) the processes required for formulating local development objectives in Indigenous communities in the Rupununi Regions of Guyana, b) the potential roles that ICT can play in enhancing those development processes, and c) the institutional and policy innovations warranted to facilitate this kind of inclusive development with ICT. The results suggest that Indigenous communities can be empowered to determine their development processes and objectives, and ICT can aid the processes. However, policies are required to ensure that the people are empowered to participate in development processes, equitable access to ICT is provided to the communities, and training and awareness of ICT are provided to guard against the dark side of ICT and to ensure that citizens are able to perceive the value of ICT. The findings i) challenge established development orthodoxies, ii) give voice to the Indigenous communities to craft their own development goals and objectives, iii) guide policymakers about the use of ICT4D in Indigenous communities, iv) generate discussions on ICT-led approach for inclusive development, v) and improve the literature on ICT-enhanced inclusive development strategies in Indigenous communities.
ContributorsPersaud, Girendra (Author) / Scornavacca, Eusebio ES (Thesis advisor) / Chhetri, Netra NC (Committee member) / Parmentier, Mary Jane MJP (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
The San Francisco Peaks rise to a height of over 12,000 feet on the Colorado Plateau of Northern Arizona. The remnants of an extinct volcano, the Peaks are sacred to thirteen Southwestern Indigenous nations; they are home to the Kachina spirits of the Hopi, and they mark the eastern boundary of Dinétah, the Navajo homeland. For residents of the city of Flagstaff, which lies just south of the Peaks, the mountains are a source of water, a symbol of the community, and a crucial part of the regional economy. In the summer, tourists from the hot deserts of central and southern Arizona are drawn to the Peaks for a respite from temperatures that routinely reach the triple digits. In the winter, the Arizona Snow Bowl ski area, located on the western slope of the Peaks, provides winter recreation that is crucial to the winter economy of Flagstaff. The intersection of Indigenous religion with Flagstaff’s tourist economy, as well as environmental concerns, has made the Peaks a flashpoint for community conflict numerous times over the last half century. This dissertation explores the Hart Prairie Controversy, a conflict over use of the Peaks that began in 1969 when landowner and developer, Bruce Leadbetter, proposed a ski village to be located at Hart Prairie, just 1,000 feet of elevation below the base of the Arizona Snow Bowl. Leadbetter’s plans for a commercial and residential development to support thousands of tourists and newcomers alarmed neighboring landowners, local environmentalists, and Northern Arizona’s tribal nations, especially members of the Hopi and Navajo tribes. For almost a decade, Indigenous and non-Indigenous actors formed a loose coalition, sometimes working together, sometimes with differing aims, to oppose the Snow Bowl Village proposal through appearances at public hearings, statements in the local media, and when necessary, legal action. This dissertation shows the Hart Prairie Controversy as an example of a time when a confluence of social movements and increased legal and political access, especially among American Indians, coalesced to preserve unique spiritual and ecological ground from development and desecration.
ContributorsHolly, William C (Author) / Lim, Julian (Thesis advisor) / Tebeau, Mark (Committee member) / Miller, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
The complexity of the U.S.-Mexico border is rooted in a fixation on establishing a clear separation of land that is unsafe and safe, between them and us. Chicana cultural theorist Gloria Anzaldúa states, “A border is a dividing line, a narrow string along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition” (Anzaldúa 1987, 3). In her 1987 semi-autobiographical work, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, she examines the U.S.-Mexico borderland as an in-between space that allows for physical, emotional, and creative transformation through the lens of nepantla, a Nahuatl term for the “space between, in the middle of, or in the midst of.” Recognizing that collective landscapes, specifically that of the U.S.-Mexico border, are separated through policy and physical barriers, filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu (b. 1963, Mexico City, Mexico) explores the permeability of the U.S.-Mexico border desert landscape through his mixed reality immersive installation, Carne y Arena (Virtualmente Presente, Fisicamente Invisible) (Flesh and Sand: Virtually Present, Physically Invisible) (2017). This thesis analyzes the use of virtual reality technologies as immersive storytelling tools in Carne y Arena through a social history of art and scholar Gloria Anzaldúa's reinterpretation of the concept of nepantla as a liminal space of transformation. González Iñárritu’s Carne y Arena makes visible the perils Latin American migrants face when crossing the Southwest desert in an experiential presentation. Through a socially conscious lens, he depicts real-life individuals and their stories with humanity and empathy. Carne y Arena draws attention to the dehumanization of Latin American migrants and transforms the U.S.-Mexico border landscape into a political theater of imagination, empathy, and memory.
ContributorsZacarias, Deliasofia (Author) / Fajardo-Hill, Cecilia (Thesis advisor) / Hoy, Meredith (Thesis advisor) / Gonzalez, Rita (Committee member) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024