Decolonizing Technology: Presence, Caring, Sharing, and Orality Within the Indigenous Friends Mobile App

MayoralBaños’s chapter reflects on his process in creating the Indigenous Friends App, an app by, for, and about indigenous youth. His chapter traces the ethical, social, and technical dimensions of his project, situating it amongst scholarship reorienting digital social media in ways that account for the unique needs and approaches of diverse indigenous identities and communities. Focusing on possibilities for decolonizing virtual environments, and designing digital spaces capable of attending to emotional bodily and spiritual realms of experience. His project draws upon traditional knowledges through dialogue with elders. Banos’s approach connects emotional embodied social and cultural realms of indigenous youth experience through design and implementation. Digital technology becomes framed in new ways that help us envision possibilities for attending to indigenous youth as dynamically involved in reorienting social media as tools for embodied belonging, community building, and empowerment.