Great! Christina is offering the only thing that can make a difference
on this issue -- offering to help! We all sometimes make suggestions
about what "ought" to be done; now someone follows that up with an offer
of action.
I (and Gary, among others) have discussed this aspect of Nativenet in
light of what happened with AICOM, the short-lived attempt at an
"Indian network" a few years back. Seems to me we should learn from
their experience. The project had some real quality (for example --
Ellen Kemper provided weekly summaries of all Indian-related items
in the Federal Register), but few takers. At the time, it seemed that
there were too few computer-types in tribal offices to get the
number of participants high enough to sustain the net. If this
idea is going to go this time, it has to build on what AICOM folks
did -- to avoid their mistakes and to stand on their successes.
But let's don't let anyone say that the problems of "reservations"
and "urban Indians" and other "nuts and bolts" problems are not
amenable to networked information. If there are enough computers
now in tribal offices, it should be easy to show why something like
what Ellen used to provide is essential info.
And, while we're at it, let's remember that the basic issues of
"development" involve the same actors in the domestic scene as in the
international scene. This means that at least some overlap will
occur in a network devoted to "reservation Indians" and a network
devoted to "global indigenous peoples."
-- Peter d'Errico phone: 413-545-2003 Legal Studies Department fax: 413-545-1640 University of Massachusetts/Amherst 01003 dErrico@titan.ucc.umass.edu[ I have sent a note to Christina thanking her for her offer of help and suggesting some possibilities for providing that assistance. I've also heard from a couple of others as well, and have a few leads on actual organizations which work to serve native people which are operated by native people. I'm hoping that more of you out there will offer your help also, or at least make further inquiries. Thanks.
--Gary ]