ACM Celebrates Native American Heritage Month, November 2022

While the internet has permeated almost every aspect of daily life, Native American communities still face critical challenges such as limited telecommunications infrastructure and underrepresentation in computing research and industry. How are Native American netizens using social media? How can they take advantage of technology to reinvigorate their cultures? What challenges do researchers face? And what can we learn from indigenous perspectives? November is Native American Heritage Month. During this month and beyond, we invite you to visit these four research projects selected from our digital library that engage with and are inspired by the Native American experience.

1. Am I Native Enough: Exploring American Indian Identity Through Language Learning
   Speaking/learning an indigenous language is key to the survival of Native American culture and the self-perception of one’s indigenous identity. Based on first-hand interviews, a team of researchers from the University of Michigan designed an online community called Minowe. Through its video chat feature, the app enables Peripheral American Indians to learn Ojibwe—a language with fewer than 50,000 speakers—by interacting with fluent Ojibwe speakers. Read more here.
2. #Indigenous: Tracking the Connective Actions of Native American Advocates on Twitter
   What are Native American netizens' biggest concerns? A group of researchers sheds light on how Native American advocates are using social media to propagate political information and how the community's lack of communications infrastructure limits their potential for political engagement. Learn more here.
3. Designing a Mobile Game That Develops Emotional Resiliency in Indian Country
   Meet ARORA, a networked mobile game designed for Native American communities. Leveraging augmented reality and cultural themes, the game hopes to encourage social and emotional learning activities among Native American youth and adolescents. How did the researchers approach the project and what critical challenges did they face? Read more here.
4. Artificial Intelligence and Indigenous Perspectives: Protecting and Empowering Intelligent Human Beings
   Faced with the prospect of creating AI systems that may defy human understanding, how do we co-exist with intelligences different from our own? In this paper, Suvradip Maitra suggests that we might find inspiration from indigenous traditions such as the Hawaiian and Lakota ontologies. Learn how their stories might teach us how to frame our relationship with AI here.