Through Water and Air: Digital Infrastructures for Indigenous Land Management

Abstract

In many parts of the world, digital connection has become the norm, constantly present and overbearing. However, there are, at the same time, marginalized groups in more remote places who are suffering from a lack of connection. This thesis argues that those groups have the right and need to be connected, but in the building of those connections, there are opportunities to consider alternative forms and customs in the digital infrastructure that can support different systems of values. Along the Klamath River in Northern California, the Yurok tribe, one of those marginalized groups, has been managing the forest for centuries, caring for the land and shaping it to suit their needs. Building on their grounded connections and worldview of land and nature as sacred, my goal is to design a digital network that improves their quality of life while allowing them to continue and evolve their way of living.