Indigenous Media Futures: An Introduction

Abstract

This collection of essays engages the ways in which anthropological understandings of Indigenous media can be expanded and reimagined through a focus on futurity.Throughout, the contributors pose two distinct yet interconnected questions: What does the future of Indigenous media hold?And, how is the future itself being increasingly asserted through Indigenous media production?In a sense, then, the collection serves as both retrospective and opening.We reflect on the history of Indigenous media scholarship in tracing the trajectory of emerging forms and content, while also considering how the future is mobilized as a means for establishing temporal sovereignty in relation to anachronistic pasts (see Rifkin 2017).In doing so, we aim to provoke new questions about the histories, politics, and futures of Indigenous self-representation.Despite seemingly dire circumstances for Indigenous communities, nations, and their media, we find more creative and political Indigenous assertions of sovereign futures than ever before.Recognizing that Indigenous media are not a panacea, we nonetheless emphasize that these mediations can have transformative