Abstracts
Abstract
This article explores the contemporary use of open-access video-sharing sites by Inuit youth and young adults. Based on 12 months of cyber-fieldwork and focused specifically on YouTube, it explores how Inuit young people across the Canadian Arctic are using online spaces to post short excerpts from their lives and connect with others. The paper situates these digital autobiographies in the recent trajectory of Inuit storytelling, showing that Internet technology allows individual narrators the freedom to bypass established rules and institutions of cultural representation. Self-produced videos posted online are more multivalent, dialogical, and provocative expressions of Inuit selfhood than those texts that may have circulated in the past. While the Internet has been celebrated for its global reach, many of the social relationships and dialogues seemingly fostered by this technology are intimate and localised. Inuit youth and young adults use video-sharing technology to creatively mediate pasts, presents, and futures in the creation of new social worlds.
Résumé
Cet article explore l’utilisation contemporaine par des jeunes et jeunes adultes inuit de sites internet de libre accès avec vidéos partagés. S’appuyant sur 12 mois de cyber-terrain spécifiquement sur YouTube, il explore comment les jeunes inuit de l’Arctique canadien utilisent l’espace virtuel pour partager de courts extraits de leur vie et interagir avec les autres. L’article situe ces autobiographies numérisées dans la récente trajectoire des pratiques de mise en récit inuit, montrant que la technologie Internet offre aux narrateurs individuels la liberté de contourner les règles sociales et les institutions de représentation culturelle établies. Les vidéos auto-produites affichées en ligne sont des expressions plus polyvatentes, dialogiques et provocatrices du soi inuit que les textes qui ont circulé dans le passé. Bien que l’Internet ait été célébré pour sa portée mondiale, la plupart des relations sociales et des dialogues apparemment favorisés par cette technologie sont intimes et localisés. Les jeunes et les jeunes adultes inuit utilisent la technologie vidéo comme médiateur créatif entre divers passés, présents et avenirs possibles dans la création des nouveaux mondes sociaux.
Appendices
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