Digital tools, technological appropriation and cultural strengthening. Reflection from experiences among some Amerindian peoples of Venezuela

Abstract

Ideologies of colonial origin present indigenous cultures and languages as backward or unimportant; they reduce their social visibility and generate racism and discrimination against the Indian peoples. Such phenomena cause feelings of endorsement, ethnic, cultural and linguistic shame, as well as alienation and uprooting in local communities. All this complex of negative evaluations contributes to contempt for one's own and to processes of loss and obsolescence. One possibility of reducing the erosive effects of such valuations, as well as an eventual uprooting, would be to try to link ancestral cultures and languages with digital tools and computer technologies, perceived as emblematic innovations of "technique" and "progress". Although the cultural and linguistic reproduction of indigenous peoples could be strengthened through digital technologies, their adequate appropriation by the communities is far from being a simple process and, even less, transitive.