Trauma, Shared Recognition and Indigenous Resistance on Social media

Abstract

This paper investigates the ways in which Indigenous Australians respond individually, and collectively, to racial vilification by means of social media sites. Introducing the concept of "shared recognition" this paper describes the collective sense of anger and frustration experienced by Indigenous people when traumatic events in the public domain act as reminders of ongoing colonialism. Three examples are explored to demonstrate collective trauma as a result of racist and discriminatory acts that are made public, and the ways in which social media is utilised by Indigenous Australians to make sense of and cope with trauma.

Considering the Impact of Social Media on Contemporary Improvement of Australian Aboriginal Health: Scoping Review

“…Common alternate names used included, but were not limited to, cocreation, self-determination, 2-way communication, and self-design [11,20,25,26]. Most studies focused on the positive elements of improving Aboriginal health; this is in contrast to much of the previous literature, which framed their research around “disease” and the problems associated with the disease rather than “health.” Other work has investigated social media and its role in racial vilification [9]. The examples analyzed in this study show that social media has significant negative and detrimental impacts on Aboriginal people as they are reminded of colonization.…”

“…The examples analyzed in this study show that social media has significant negative and detrimental impacts on Aboriginal people as they are reminded of colonization. However, the authors acknowledge that their findings highlight the potential vehicle of social media to have conversations that promote change [9]. In addition, a recent study has found that Australian Aboriginal people interact about their health using social media [27].…”

“…In addition, some evidence suggests that much of the media portrayal of Aboriginal people is negative and may lead to poorer health outcomes [8]. Racial vilification, where the collective trauma of Aboriginal people is publicized, triggers painful reminders of colonialism [9]. Moreover, sexually explicit content is readily available to the youth of illegal age [3].…”

A State‐of‐the‐Art Review of Indigenous Peoples and Environmental Pollution

“…The arts (e.g., music, storytelling, photography) have been particularly effective at relaying IPs' fights against pollution to global audiences and inspiring social and policy action towards pollution issues affecting IP (Branagan 2005; Gillespie 2013; Horton 2017). Increasing presence of IPs on social media (Carlson et al 2017; Nunn 2018) is also contributing to give visibility to conflicts around pollution (Örestig and Lindgren 2017). For example, contestation of resource extraction can be traced through digital media in Inuit communities (Scobie and Rodgers 2013).…”

Social media and health information sharing among Australian Indigenous people

“…A 2014 survey with a national sample of 400 Indigenous participants estimated that 60% of Indigenous people used Facebook, compared to 42% of the Australian population at that time (McNair Ingenuity Research, 2014). Other research has found that social media is used in a range of ways by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, including developing and expressing Indigenous identity (Carlson, 2013; Kral, 2014; Rice et al , 2016,), seeking and offering help for issues relating to suicide and self-harm (Carlson et al , 2015), citizen journalism (Sweet et al , 2013), online activism and countering racism and negative stereotypes (Petray, 2013; Sweet et al , 2015; Korff, 2016; Carlson et al , 2017).…”