How Nomads Hack Technology
A fascinating look at how nomadic and other remote cultures have hacked technology while maintaining their cultural values and systems.
It was a frosty, early spring morning on the plains of inner Mongolia. Just before dawn Khairulzhan (who’s name means “one who is sought”) had set out for the days trading of horses not too far away from the family’s encampment. He’d charged up his mobile and checked the trading app was still linked to the family bank account. Everything was set and he was excited to get the day underway.
From pastoral Mongolian tribes to the Maasai in Africa and Inuit in the far north of Canada, remote cultures are using digital technologies in fascinating ways to enhance cultural practices, traditions and religious traditions that have been in place for thousands of years.
The Indonesian Bajau people, considered the “sea nomads” use wooden masks and tools for underwater fishing. Their bodies have even developed unique genetic mutations for the amount of time spent underwater. They’ve also been helping scientists track ocean health using mobile devices to input data into a marine management software tool.
As illegal deforestation and mineral mining continues to trouble Brazil’s remote areas, the ancient Yanomami people have begun to use drones to conduct aerial surveys of their own and adjacent lands to detect these activities. They are then sent via satellite communications to government agencies who can then take action, with video evidence.
To many of us in developed countries we don’t tend to think of these remaining nomadic and pastoral cultures using such modern technologies as a key part of their daily lives and cultural practices. Perhaps in some ways, we are jealous of their remaining disconnected from social media and the ails of some communications tools we use.
As we can see however, they’ve very much adopted these technologies, just in interesting and novel ways that have deep consideration of their cultural norms and values while maintaining their way of life. As these cultures are less impacted by the speed of developed nation’s cultures, they have time to consider how a technology will be used and adapted.
They have a unique way of not letting a technology shape them, but rather shaping the technology to their culture. This is quite unique and can offer more “advanced” cultures insights into how we might reshape technology in the future. Should we choose to listen.
The Aboriginal communities in Australia are using smartphones and other devices in mapping their dreamtime landscapes. They use GPS to mark and record sacred landmarks and embed specific songs and stories into those coordinates. Often using multi-layered maps to indicate them on smartphones. This enables younger generations to “walk” traditional routes while also learning from their elders.
Many of these nomadic and pastoral, even hunter-gatherer cultures like the Maasai, see social media platforms as a means of extending their oral traditions and preserving their cultural practices. Apps like WhatsApp or Messenger become ways of staying connected with other tribes and communities. They are tightly controlled to stop non-community actors from engaging within them.
These cultures see digital technologies as an active mediator rather than just a passive tool. Elders often take front and centre on how a technology will be permitted and used within their culture, with input from younger generations, often creating a new and interesting power dynamic.
They will consider how a technology will help them economically, but within the bounds of their economic systems; reciprocity. They’ll also consider how such a tool might help preserve customs and traditions, especially story-telling which is crucial to their cultural practices.
Rather than let the technology re-shape their culture, they carefully consider how the technology must work within their established frameworks. In a way, in Western cultures, we would call this digital transformation but with much better change management practices.
While it is quite innovative and brilliant in its own way, these technologies do present longer-term risks towards younger generations who learn more about the world “outside” of theirs and may leave their culture behind. Yet in some ways, it enables younger generations to modify their future lifestyle to retain their cultural beliefs.
There is a lot “modern” societies and developed nations could learn from these remote cultures and societies. How they see and manage their technologies to how they manage to maintain a degree of societal and communal integrity and govern themselves while keeping new technologies within bounds. To restructure the meaning of technology within their cultural logic.
Perhaps one of the most important take-aways is that these cultural practices show us that Western cultures don’t have to passively accept what new technologies do to us, but rather, we can shape them too, while still progressing. In a time of a loneliness epidemic, we see that these cultures have been able to maintain and even strengthen social bonds and communities.
When we get it right, as we often have, technologies are at their best when they serve our deeper cultural values and societal needs. We’ve done this aeroplanes, trains and other technologies, so can we with today’s communications technologies.