Indigenous Digital Practice

Indigenous Digital Practice

For 2023-24, the Critical Digital Humanities Initiative is pleased to support the Indigenous Digital Practice initiative. This initiative will build strengths among university and community-based Indigenous researchers. We recognize that there are significant strengths in Indigenous digital practice and Indigenous data studies at the University of Toronto, York, TMU, in community, and elsewhere in the region. This initiative will be led by Professor Jennifer Wemigwans, Director, Indigenous Digital Practice. As Director, Professor Wemigwans will establish the IDP initiative; hire and supervise a Graduate Fellow or Research Assistant; and develop programming in support of the IDP initiative’s goals.

Jennifer Wemigwans, Director, Indigenous Digital Practice

Jennifer Wemigwans, PhD, is from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory on Manitoulin Island, Ontario. She is a new media producer, writer, and scholar specializing in the convergence between education, Indigenous knowledge and new media technologies. Her book A Digital Bundle: Protecting and Promoting Indigenous Knowledge Online (2018) explores the prospects of Indigenous Knowledge education and digital projects in a networked world.  Dr. Wemigwans takes pride in working to invert the conventional use of media by revealing the potential for Indigenous cultural expression and Indigenous knowledge through new technologies, education, and the arts. She is an Assistant Professor in the Adult Education and Community Development Program at OISE University of Toronto.

Dr. Wemigwans has completed an Augmented Reality Teaching shared by Dr. Gokoomis (Grandmother) Jacque Lavallee on the meaning of Wendigo. In this 5-minute AR experience, launched through ceremony at the Toronto Biennial of Art 2022, users learn about the history of this territory and how kindness is our connection to land and each other.  Dr. Wemigwans practices cultural ethics of care and Indigenous protocols of creation in her work, which signify Digital Bundles as new spaces for sharing Indigenous Knowledge and challenge non-Indigenous audiences to step outside of their codified systems and learn a new way of being and perceiving the world. In 2023, Dr. Wemigwans won the Award for Excellence in Educational Leadership at OISE.