Dismantling Postcolonial Narratives

For my evaluation of a digital humanities project I chose Native Land Digital’s map of indigenous territories. The goal of this project is to spread awareness of indigenous territories in order to eliminate colonial ways of thinking in regards to cartography. Native Land Digital is a non-profit organization operating out of Canada. The organization is run by a man named Victor Temprano, the owner of the company Mapster. Victor’s company actively funds the project and the project contributors consist of an indigenous assortment of directors and a multi-racial board of consultants.  This project began in 2015 and is consistently updated. There is a disclaimer before accessing the map which invites viewers to correct or add any information on the map. The intended audience for this project consists of people of all races and countries in order to combat misinformation spread through European colonialism.  The map is separated by three sections; the first section regards indigenous territories, the second identifies various languages spoken by these indigenous people, and the third displays any treaties made between these nations and colonial empires. I believe this project could be widely successful due to it’s easy accessibility and actively dismantles colonial  philosophies and preconceived notions in regards to territorial boundaries. My only question for Native Land Digital would be where they receive their surplus of information from and how the establish it’s credibility.

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