The internet as a multifaceted space

Circulation, knowledge production, and identity building for black and indigenous communities

Abstract

In dialogue with authors investigating the relationship between Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and society, it can be said that access to the internet is a significant social phenomenon (Collado, 2008; Wajcaman, 2000; Lima & Oliveira, 2020). The internet and technologies then construct meanings in subjects, becoming spaces for forming communities and central to the more complex process of subjective formation. This article, based on research by InternetLab with support from the Wikimedia Foundation, aims to contribute to reflections on the production and circulation of online and offline knowledge by black and indigenous people. We start from the understanding that the internet is a central place in the identity construction of these subjects. Through the narrative analysis of interviews conducted with three black and three indigenous women belonging to different generations, different locations in the country and who research and/or work with the internet, we sought to understand how the trajectories of these subjects, mixed with their activism and/or research themes, shed light on a deeper understanding of how the internet becomes a central mediator in the process of transforming the experience of self and collective language. Among the conclusions, we highlight that while the internet, in the case of black women, plays an important role in their identity construction processes, in indigenous narratives, this environment is understood as a means of circulating and disseminating indigenous epistemologies.