First Nations are also using broadband-enabled applications to create employment and business opportunities. These applications can increase productivity, improve access to market and technical information, and lower transaction costs. They provide opportunities to access financial services in regions that lack physical banks.
Economic development activities are sometimes critiqued as a way to incorporate formerly autonomous local economies into global capitalism. Critics point out that inequalities and dependency relationships emerge and persist in a constant search for new markets. For these reasons, economic development initiatives that utilize broadband-enabled applications must be carefully scrutinized to ensure they meet the needs of all community members.
That said, Indigenous peoples are involved in projects that use broadband-enabled applications as platforms for economic development. Such initiatives can help stimulate local employment by supporting both online (digital media) and place-based industries like artistic production and regional tourism.
In the Inuit region of Nunavik in Quebec, carvers and musicians utilize the Internet to promote and sell their creations to buyers around the world. These types of projects are reflected in commercial applications such as Facebook Marketplace (which is very popular in many Northern and Indigenous communities) or Indigenous-created apps like Exchange Avenue, a barter and trade app for sharing goods and services that is inspired by the Ahupua‘a system, a Native Hawaiian land division that connects people from mountain to ocean to share goods, services, food, or knowledge. According to the app developers, their mission is “to re-claim and preserve the ancient supply lines that were once utilized by our ancestors.”
Broadband applications also help Indigenous institutions secure greater control over resource extraction and development projects taking place in their territories. For example, in 2007 the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council in B.C. created the Tsilhqot’in Stewardship Planning Portal, a web-based land use information management and planning system designed to increase First Nation participation in land and resource management.
Another example is the decades-long work of the Inuit media production and distribution organization Isuma, which means “to think, or a state of thoughtfulness” in Inuktitut. Isuma uses Inuit-controlled connectivity and content to bridge local and global contexts. The organization started in the mid-1980s to document stories and Inuit traditions in Igloolik.
Decades later, this work continues. In 2021 Isuma launched a television channel called Uvagut TV that distributes Inuktut language programming via cable companies like Arctic Coop Cable and Shaw Direct, and through online streaming. Isuma’s live-streaming and broadcasting capabilities encourage transparency and input in resource extraction, such as during the environmental review hearings for one of the world’s largest open-pit mines at Mary River on Baffin Island. The recent launch of Ungava TV provides Isuma with a robust platform to monitor and engage in these and other environmental review processes, enabling more people in Northern communities with opportunities to participate in such activities.