Embodying the Alternative : Indigenous Activism Online in Response to Reconciliation with Canada.

Abstract: This thesis investigates strategies of digital activism pursued by Indigenous activists in the age of Reconciliation in Canada. The point of departure is the relationship between Indigenous people and the settler establishment, which has been historically informed by several attempts to assimilate the Natives into the white majority. Discarding the integration concept in IMER research as colonial, this study focuses instead on anticolonial advocacy strategies pursued through Indigenous knowledge within digital environments. It does so by adopting digital ethnography as method and conducting participant observation of one selected Indigenous association on Instagram. In line with these premises, Indigenous theories are operationalized into a context-specific analytical framework. This approach leads to two overarching results. On the one hand, four recurrent motifs are identified as key in Indigenous digital advocacy in the age of Reconciliation in Canada. On the other hand, a full set of anticolonial strategies is recognized as the alternative response to Reconciliation.