Indigenous cultural re‐presentation and re‐affirmation: The case of Māori IT professionals

Abstract

Abstract Western worldviews dominate the information systems (IS) literature, accepted and taken for granted as the natural way of doing things. While diversity in terms of gender and ethnicity has been studied in the IS field, there is scant research on the experiences of Indigenous information technology (IT) professionals. This study uses narrative inquiry to provide temporal, contextualised accounts of IT professional experiences from the Indigenous (Māori) community in Aotearoa, New Zealand. These accounts demonstrate how participants actively draw from their culture to enact their professional activities. We identify three cultural elements that differentiate the practices of Māori IT professionals from Western approaches that dominate the IS literature: whakapapa (genealogical connections), tikanga (customary traditions) and tino rangatiratanga (collective cultural determination). Further, we theorise how Indigenous IT professionals capitalise on the re‐presentational power of digital artefacts as a vehicle for cultural re‐affirmation to project their Indigenous identity in contemporary society. Our findings are useful for attempts to enhance Indigenous representation in the IT workforce and for designing systems and artefacts that are relevant to and inclusive for Indigenous communities.

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