The internet has reached a remote Indigenous community in the Brazilian Amazon, connecting it with the good — and the bad — of the world wide web. But as the Marubo people deal with their digital connection to the modern world, what about their neighbors in the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory — in particular members of 19 tribes that have not been contacted by modern society? Will they soon be connected, too? And if so, is there an ethical way of making contact with them?
Northeastern University’s Getty Lustila, an expert on Indigenous philosophy and a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, says if contact is to be made, it should be made by a local expert. “You have to — at the very least, have people who are local to the area — and have the degree of knowledge not only about the tribes in question, but also about the different power dynamics at play in the region,” says Lustila, an assistant teaching professor of philosophy and religion at Northeastern. “It would have to be very local coordination.”
