Week 15 Reflection

This week focused on indigenous people, particularly indigenous women and their role as environmental activists. The article titled, “Badass (Indigenous) Women Caretake Relations: #NoDAPL, #IdleNoMore, #BlackLivesMatter” by Kim TallBear especially stood out to me because of its devotion to indigenous women and their relationship to digital activism through these hashtags.  Some important keywords from this week include indigenous, militarism, and colonialism.

The discussion of hashtags and their use and propagation really drew me to TallBear’s article specifically. As a communication major, I have dedicated a lot of time to learning about and understanding hashtag culture and its importance to our society, which is becoming more and more digitized and social media-centered. I especially appreciate the importance of recognizing and admiring social media movements like these, because I am particularly fascinated by the internet and its trends, but also from the perspective of TallBear as the author of this piece, because I know from even my minimal experience writing about similar topics in my undergraduate coursework, people outside of the field are quick to judge and not understand the importance of these kind of pieces for what they are. I love that I have friends who are studying vastly different things from me at Tulane, but it can be hard to always be the butt of the joke for taking classes in reality TV or writing a final paper on Pepe the Frog memes (both real and legitimate things I’ve done in the last four years).