First Nations dancers watch the Canada Day celebrations in Calgary, Alberta, in 2022. Photo by Dwayne Reilander, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples on August 9 is an annual United Nations holiday celebrating and honoring the estimated 476 million Indigenous Peoples living in the world today. Indigenous people speak a majority of the world’s 7,000+ languages and encompass a rich diversity of cultures. This year’s official theme is Indigenous Peoples and AI: Defending Rights, Shaping Futures, with the UN noting that “While AI can support cultural revitalization, youth empowerment, and even adaptation to climate change, it often reinforces bias, exclusion, and misrepresentation towards Indigenous Peoples.

Monkox Chiquitana indigenous women representing their culture through clothing. Image from Wikipedia. CC0 1.0

Global Voices is exploring a similar topic in our Special Coverage “AI in the Global Majority,” which is interrogating how large-language-model technology and generative machines are being used in Global South countries and Indigenous communities. We found that often, these technologies are being built without input from Indigenous groups, and therefore perpetuate systems of exploitation, bias, and abuse. However, in some cases, Indigenous groups are working to claim the technology as their own and make technologies that center their own languages, ideals, and lived experiences, making the topic more complex than it might initially appear. 

This phenomenon of marginalization and exploitation of Indigenous groups isn't limited to technological advances. It can happen in the fields of art, culture, music, politics, the environment, and more. But no matter what the sector, one constant is that there are always trailblazers pushing back and working to raise awareness about Indigenous languages, traditions, and cultures. 

Six nations of the Grand, Pow Wow Dancers. Photo by Peter K Burian, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

For example, even as the world becomes more monolingual, Indigenous people across the world are fighting for their language rights and raising awareness about their unique languages, from Taiwan and Indonesia to Colombia and Guatemala. In Nepal, Indigenous writers are working to make the country’s literature scene more inclusive and have been publishing classic folklore in the traditional Tharu language. In Guatemala, activists are translating children's songs into Indigenous Mayan languages. Members of Cameroon’s Apouh community are fighting for their rights to their ancestral land as the government tries to turn it over to corporations. In each of these examples, Indigenous people are finding a way to make their voices heard, even as others in society try to silence them. 

This Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Global Voices will be exploring stories like this as we celebrate the rich tapestry of Indigenous languages and cultures and how people are working to amplify and promote them within their own communities.