Creating Indigenous sovereign virtual spaces : accountability to land, community, Elders, and ancestors

This thesis explores the possibility of creating Indigenous-led sovereign virtual spaces. Thinking critically about the inherent tension between Indigenous people–whose struggle is primarily land-based–and the disembodied experience of virtual spaces, my research explores how we as Indigenous people might be guided by Indigenous philosophies of reciprocity and relationality to build frameworks of accountability to land, community, Elders, and ancestors that lead our development of sovereign virtual spaces. My methodology draws on research-creation and autopedagogy to guide the documentation of three Indigenous new media projects I developed over the course of my degree: Sage Plains, Last Words, and Sickle & Sash. Through Sage Plains, an RPG video game dealing with themes of Métis displacement, I explore accountability through visiting, particularly as it relates to my expansion of the game through a process of visiting with an Elder, and later integrating Métis Cree words and phrases into the gameplay. Through Last Words, a virtual art piece applying the concept of imagining otherwise to working with historical archives, as well as the exploration and interrogation of creative, ethical uses of artificial intelligence, I explore accountability to ancestors and land. Through Sickle & Sash, a podcast centered on Métis political discussion in opposition to cultural imperialism, I explore accountability to the sovereignty of my featured guests. All three projects explore unique points of engagement with Indigenous new media, as well as unique points of tension. By documenting, reflecting on, and analyzing my successes and failures in exercising accountability throughout the creation and development of these three projects, I affirm the outlined accountability structures as an essential framework for the creation of sovereign virtual spaces, and argue that these processes are essential aspects of modern-day decolonial praxis. Going further, I provide additional nuance on the application of these accountability structures as they pertain to the ethical boundaries that must be considered when translating traditional understandings of reciprocity and relationality to the realm of virtual spaces.