Sociotechnical assemblages in digital work with Aboriginal languages

Abstract

In this paper I consider how three digital resources for the preservation and transmission of Australian Indigenous language function as ‘sociotechnical assemblages.’ The three projects under consideration are a digital archive of materials from a particular era in Indigenous education in Australia’s Northern Territory, an online template for presenting language data under Indigenous authority, and an online course teaching a specific Indigenous language (Bininj Kunwok) in a higher education context. Considering each of these as a sociotechnical assemblage – collections of heterogeneous elements which entangle the social and the technical – and exploring how they constitute connections and contrive equivalences between different knowledge practices, and how they resist such actions, highlights how they can open up spaces for new collaborative work.