First Nations Innovation - Publications

Book Chapters and Journal Articles
#61 (2014)

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Publication #61 2014, April - First Mile Challenges to Last Mile Rhetoric: Exploring the Discourse between Remote and Rural First Nations and the Telecom Industry

Reference: Philpot, D., Beaton, B., Whiteduck, T. (2014) First Mile Challenges to Last Mile Rhetoric: Exploring the Discourse between Remote and Rural First Nations and the Telecom Industry. Journal of Community Informatics, 10 (2).

Abstract: Solving Canada’s digital divide remains a significant issue, particularly considering how broadband networks have an impact on remote and rural areas politically, economically, socially, and culturally. Attached to this, as well, are the politics of the historical relationship between remote and rural First Nation communities, corporations, and the government. The way in which the relationship between remote and rural First Nations, the federal and provincial governments, and the telecommunications industries is reproduced is largely through discursive means. One of the consequences of this is that many outsiders to this issue are largely misinformed through documents and press releases. These documents frame remote and rural First Nations as helpless and dependent upon government and telecom industry intervention in order to secure their dependence upon their services. We argue that this is another form of political colonialism; a form of colonialism which seeks to create dependence upon the service economy for its own survival. In this article, we examine the discourse surrounding the issue of remote and rural broadband connectivity as a means of exploring the reproduction of established narratives of First Nations dependence upon aid and service.