Introduction: The Online Future of Inuit Tradition Introduction : L’avenir numérique de la tradition inuit

We live in an era inundated with digital technologies, to the extent we often acquire and use them without a second thought. They make our lives easier. They extend our reach in the world; allow us to become faster, more efficient and more effective at what we do. Aside from the initial price tag, cost is seldom measured. So why, in a digital age, is the use of such technology by Inuit considered worthy of critical research? Is there novelty in a population identified with historical traditions adopting modern computing to facilitate their everyday? Do Inuit have unique digital needs, or does the Internet—so often characterized as a level playing field for democracy, access and possibility—somehow treat them differently? As pointed out repeatedly in the papers in this issue, Inuit—like everybody else—use digital technology to better realize, communicate and document who they already are. Despite its ethereal qualities, the Internet is a tool like any other. And it is treated as such by many Inuit, with the same sense of pragmatism that has accompanied their adoption of other Western materials over the last century. It is undeniable that digital technology has driven change in certain Inuit practices, but the extent of its involvement is ultimately more “co-producer” (Castleton, this issue) than principal director of their identities and lifestyle. In the Arctic, digital technology is commonly engaged as a medium rather than lifestyle. This is not to say that absorption in a screen never occurs: Netflix, Facebook, online shopping, the ubiquitous games of Candy–Crush. Even as entertainment, the internet is often seen by Inuit as a new lens to view their world, rather than a different world unto itself. There is a seamless ability to access and navigate global content and communities, while still remaining tethered to local priorities of family, ancestry and land. The popularity of social media platforms in the North—Facebook and Bebo—says less about the population’s hunger for new content and connections, than their desire to further entrench themselves in existing social and cultural relationships. As exemplified through multiple case studies in this issue, the stories that Inuit tell about themselves online are often grounded in the language, experience and social expectations of their off-line existence. They are not escapist, nor re-inventive. They channel the surrounding world of people, needs, and knowledge into a voice that asserts itself as belonging to its physical environment’s distinct time and place. As Alexander Castleton (this issue) explains, “technology and computer-mediated communication bring proximity to cultural practices, activities, and the land rather than provoking distance and alienation from reality.” Since the rise of widespread internet use in the Canadian Arctic, the study of Inuit digital media has been split by the question of assimilation vs. appropriation, which broadly asks “whether Inuit can appropriate digital media in order to preserve their culture or whether the technology will cause Inuit to be assimilated into a dominant global culture.” (Dunn 2015; Dunn and Gross in this issue). At play in this debate is the question of whether the specific affordances of a technology—what it functionally allows people to do, or prevents them from doing—has a dramatic impact on shaping the ways that Inuit exist online. This debate, it should be noted, extends back to earlier concerns regarding the impact of television and radio on Inuit culture. Is technology simply a vehicle for a population’s needs and self-expression, or is it actually sitting behind the wheel? Does plugging in equate to tuning out? It was a similar line of questioning that gave rise to this issue’s theme of ‘the online future of the Inuit tradition.’ In …