Decolonizing Digital Heritage Practices for Indigenous Literacy: A Multimodal Analysis of iPad Tellagami Videos

• In Event: 65.080 - Roundtable Session 24
  In Roundtable Session: 65.080-16 - Eyeing Curriculum Studies at the Crossroads of Decolonizing, Transnational, and Indigenous Inquiry

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how digital media practices can be used as a form of cultural remembering that serves a decolonizing function in the school curriculum for Indigenous students. Applying critical race theory and multimodal semiotics, we analyze multimodal "Gami" videos created by Indigenous Australian elementary students using the Tellagami iPad application. We demonstrate that the students' "Gamis", which applied the literary form of historical narrative poetry, provided a voice for Indigenous students to share counter-narratives to Euro-centric accounts of the first contact between Aboriginal and white Australians.

Authors

• Kathy Ann Mills, Australian Catholic University

• Beryl Exley, Queensland University of Technology