The term “indigenous knowledge”
usually refers to the understanding of natural processes, such as ethnobotany
or ethnomedicine. Yet Native American knowledge systems include many aspects
of contemporary information technologies, and native communities have become
increasingly adept in appropriating computing and communication devices
for their own use. I refer to this complex of indigenous and appropriated
information technologies as Native American Cybernetics. The term “cybernetics”
was coined by mathematician Norbert Wiener to describe his vision for a
unified science of control, communication, and computation in both natural
and artificial systems. Cybernetics is particularly appropriate for Native
American technological practices, in which the flow of information across
mental and material, natural and human, and mundane and spiritual domains
have been so important.
Software (web-based applets):
SimShoBan
(simulation of Shoshoni social ecology)
Yupik
Star Navigator
Publications:
Related web sites
Aamayetli-cybernetics (reflections by Shoshone Odess)
The Iroquois Confederacy as a model for the US constitution: symbolism of the arrows