Mobilising control and dissent: navigating the digital landscape in a remote Aboriginal community

ABSTRACT

A remote Aboriginal community has adopted the online digital landscape in today’s globalised culture and the free market. At the same time, their lives intertwine with a predominantly white Australian affluent neighbourhood on their traditional lands. The development of their traditional lands by a multinational mining company extends the complexity of their traditional lifestyle into a corporate world of trade, boom and economic crisis. This interaction between the affluent mining community of non-Aboriginal residents and the intersection of the digital world made up of smartphones, and social media has flow-on effects within the community. Aboriginal self-determination persists, supported by mobile and internet technology, and involved members from the higher echelons (traditional owners) to the social outliers. This study looks within the community and between the clans. In this ethnographic study, the authors attempt to discuss the effects of social media and mobile technologies that enable power and agency. Our findings bring to the fore a different perspective, inspired by Aboriginal peoples’ use of the digital landscape for collective reflexivity. For collective reflexivity to occur, all relationships, according to our generous study participants, are in a continuous cycle of deconstruction and reconstruction.

KEYWORDS:

• Mobile technology
• media
• power
• agency

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the elders, past present and emerging as well as the Traditional Owners that gave us their permission to understand youth challenges in the community in order to find pathways for resilience.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kishan Kariippanon

Kishan Kariippanon is a medical doctor and researcher in the healthy ageing field, combining public health, design and social innovation. He was born in Malaysia and worked as a refugee health doctor in Timor Leste in 2006. He continued to Monash University, Australia, to do a master's in public health, with a focus on global public health before pursuing doctoral studies in public health in a remote Aboriginal community. He is a coauthor in the Oxford Research Encyclopaedia for Global Public Health chapters on Traditional Medicine: Indigenous health in Indigenous hands, and Wellbeing & Mental Wellness.

Glen Gurruwiwi

Glen Gurruwiwi is an experienced Aboriginal Health Practitioner and Senior Elder in the Northern Territory of Australia with over 20 years of experience in social marketing, community engagement and leadership. He has presented at International conferences in Australia and New Zealand. Glen integrates traditional medicine and the western biomedical model in his work and is a mentor to Kishan on public health and youth wellbeing knowledge. Glen is also a Senior Elder in the community where he resides and promotes a healthy lifestyle and encourages youth wellbeing.