The Politics of Text
The dream of the virtual library comes forward now not because it promises an exciting future, but because it promises a future that will be just like the past, only better and faster.
—James J. O’Donnell, Avatars of the Word
Rather, what counts as legitimate knowledge is the result of complex power relations and struggles among identifiable class, race, gender, and religious groups. Thus, education and power are terms of an indissoluble couplet. It is during times of social upheaval that this relationship between education and power becomes most visible. Such a relationship was and continues to be made manifest in the struggles by women, people of color, and others to have their history and knowledge included in the curriculum. Driven by an economic crisis and a crisis in ideology and authority relations, this relationship has become even more visible in the past decade or so in the resurgent conservative attacks on schooling. "Authoritarian populism" is in the air, and the New Right has been more than a little successful in bringing its own power to bear on the goals, content, and process of schooling (Apple, 1988a).
(Apple, 1992)
"Managers of cultural institutions and those responsible for policy matters related to digitization often find themselves struggling not only to understand the new technologies, but also, and more importantly, to grasp the implications of those technologies and to understand what digitization of their collections means for their institution, its patrons, and the public" (Smith, 1999).
This quote resonated with me after taking ETEC 521 - Indigeneity, Education, & Technology. I am reminded of the value indigenous communities place on taking time to consider the longterm, ecological and societal/cultural impact of our actions. If the platforms and technology we use could be viewed or considered as non-human kin, might we be more thoughtful, reflective, and humanitarian when considering the adoption of new methods and strategies? Digital technology is changing our world so dramatically and so rapidly -- with each iteration a remediation from of last.
What is being lost? What is being gained ... ecologically, societally, and culturally? How has the/our design of web 2.0 platforms impacted our own thinking and ways of being as an audience, as consumers? In other words, what has shaped us and how have we been shaped by the platforms we use?
“Indigenous communities worldwide have retained the languages and protocols that enable [them] to engage in dialogue with [their] non-human kin, creating mutually intelligible discourses across differences in material, vibrancy, and genealogy” (Lewis et al., 2018). If we can consider digital technologies as non-human kin, can the iterative development of new technologies incorporate indigenous ways of knowing and being? Is there an opportunity to slow down the speed by which technology iterates to allow for growth which is more reflective, seeking to consider and care for each future user?
"And it is perfectly natural for a new technology to mask itself as the old technology, and for all genres to persist into the new genre" (Brown University, 2017).
"Memory is not about the past; it is about the future. Imagination really is about memory in the future tense, and the whole purpose of memory -- of remembering things -- is so that the brain can build this model of the world.[T]hrough cultural resources, we have a cultural model of what is right and wrong in the world and we can make predictions about what is going to happen" (Brown University, 2017).
"As many neuroscientists have said, memory is the crux of consciousness because it is our tool for intentionality" (Brown University, 2017).
"We need to be documenting the communities we actually feel the least comfortable with [...] and as we go forward, we need to start thinking about an ecosystem of digital collecting webs that we can specialize in [...] and that we actually develop these community based approaches to web archiving" effectively creating a navigable network of perspectives and content (Brown University, 2017).
"Ultimately, the texts that we decide to digitize are not simply stored, but integrated into the living, ever-changing network that we have built to become our digital memory. We do not add text to the technology, the texts are the technology" ([8.1] Why Digitize? Digitize what?: ETEC_V 540 65A 2024W2 Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing. n.d.).
Page References
[8.1] Why Digitize? Digitize what?: ETEC_V 540 65A 2024W2 Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing. (n.d.). Retrieved March 4th, 2025, from https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/151736/pages/8-dot-1-why-digitize-digitize-what?module_item_id=7553231
Apple, M. W. (1992). The Text and Cultural Politics. Educational Researcher, 21(7), 4–19. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X021007004
Brown University (Director). (2017, July 11). Abby Smith Rumsey: “Digital Memory: What Can We Afford to Lose?” [Video recording]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBrahqg9ZMc
Lewis, J. E., Arista, N., Pechawis, A., & Kite, S. (2018). Making Kin with the Machines. Journal of Design and Science. https://doi.org/10.21428/bfafd97b
Smith, A. (1999, February). Why Digitize? • CLIR. CLIR. https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub80-smith/pub80-2/