Siwazi Rowaihuuze Auwe - Xavante network: connectivity, data management and internet appropriation by indigenous people

• Grant number: 18/23094-4
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: December 01, 2019
• End date: November 30, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Agreement: MCTI/MC
• Principal Investigator: Francisco Antunes Caminati
• Grantee: Francisco Antunes Caminati
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Presidente Prudente. Presidente Prudente , SP, Brazil

Abstract

We propose to carry out, in close collaboration with an indigenous community and with technical partners, a research situated in the interface between anthropology and computing to address issues related to the indigenous demand for connectivity - the ability to connect to the Internet and other networks - and for the ability to operate information networks.This indegenous demand will be addressed from the local practices of Internet use, which will also be taken as non-use practices (since the access service is not always available) and as mediated mainly by mobile devices. We will also address the challenges of data management and digital information storage in the face of free services and distributed and uncontrolled sharing practicesin social networks. These problems will be addressed through: 1) ethnography of the use of the Internet, considering the articulations and networks that produce the conditions for not having access, and dealing with the means and tactics undertaken to overcome the lack of connectivity; 2) software development for a distributed data management system and implementation of resolutions to overcome the lack of connectivity, reestablishing satellite connection points and installing a GSM network between 3 villages. The articulation between the two fronts will occur in the processes of technical development and implementation, as well as in the generation of products of a technological and theoretical nature. The role of Anthropology will be to produce a language of friction for the encounter between technical knowledge and local knowledge, which will treat technology from a situated perspective so that technological resolutions can be produced considering and in dialogue with local technical and logical capabilities in order to be implemented in a appropriated manner to these capacities and local conditions. (AU)