The arts of indigenous online dissent: Negotiating technology, indigeneity, and activism in the Cordillera

The online communicative environment is expected to revolutionize political discourse as it expands to cover underrepresented groups and ideas. In this platform, marginalized groups such as indigenous communities from the developing world can articulate claims, strategically mobilize and participate in the forms of meaning-making that constitute them. However, there is skepticism on the actual value of online spaces in effecting agency in an internet-mediated environment. Using James Scott’s notion of ’hidden transcripts’ and Andrew Feenberg’s ’democratic rationalization of technology’, the paper explores strategic approaches and historical, social, and political conditions embedded in the construction, negotiation, and transformation of indigenous online activist media. In-depth interviews and textual analysis of online spaces were conducted to understand the experiences and online articulations of two indigenous groups based in the Philippines, Tebtebba and Cordillera People’s Alliance with specific attention to the: (a) forms and characteristics of online struggles, (b) dynamics and strategies behind the production and distribution of online dissent, (c) process of negotiation of technological use, and (d) perceived implications of online mediations on group identity, culture and struggle. Problematizing the complex interaction of technology and indigenous identity, the paper finds that indigenous activists’ online media engagement constitutes a sustained balancing act between accommodation and resistance and online spaces are used creatively with reflection on the dangers and benefits of online spaces to the organization and the struggle.