Localization plays an important part in the adoption and safe use of internet freedom technologies. Given this, Global Voices mapped and documented the language-related challenges facing their digital rights networks from dozens of communities working in under-resourced languages. This included both indigenous and other minority languages in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
Global Voices is an international network of writers, translators, and human rights advocates working to build understanding across the world of the internet. Its digital inclusion arm, Rising Voices, helps bring new voices from communities speaking endangered or indigenous languages to the global conversation by facilitating the creation of peer-learning networks to leverage the internet and digital media for their self-determined needs.
In 2022, Rising Voices collaborated with researchers from 18 unique indigenous language communities across Africa, Asia, and Latin America to better understand the challenges and unmet needs of these communities in relation to digital security. These language communities included Dagbani, Gĩkũyũ, Igbo, IsiZulu, Sesotho, Twi, Yorùbá, Angika, Eastern Tharu, Odia, Torwali, Kichwa, Kaqchikel, Mapudungun, Mixe, Yucatec Maya, Wayuunaiki, and Zapotec.
The researchers formulated their own approach and research questions. While oriented around a broad framework of exploring digital security in relation to indigenous language communities, each researcher led the decision-making, from identifying the research question, choosing research participants, and methods for data collection, to analyzing findings and deciding how to communicate those findings back to study participants. Importantly, they also decided what not to publish or share with the public—since their agency at every stage of the research, including how it was shared, was integral to the participatory nature of the process.
Community practices for preserving and defending indigenous languages were centered in inquiries, from the conservation of basgharas in Nepal (communal knowledge-sharing spaces held in Eastern Tharu) by taking them online during the Covid-19 pandemic, to the use of the hashtag #GîkûyûTwitter in the face of backlash.
The project resulted in eighteen case studies of everyday lived experiences that can contribute to tailored digital security interventions. Researchers also wrote blog posts about the study, published in English and translated into the respective local languages.
Ultimately, the study calls into question the efficacy of conventional methods of research that do not enhance the agency of the communities being studied, and demonstrates the power of participatory research as a strategy for effective localization of digital security technologies.
More about Rising Voices’ Digital Security + Language research study:
This post is the first of a four-part series on Rising Voices’ Digital Security + Language research study that explored the intersection of digital security and linguistic rights in collaboration with 18 researchers, from 18 different language communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Read the rest of the blog series: