The indigenous community in the Goulburn Valley region
experiences greater socio-economic marginalisation in
comparison to the rest of Victoria (see Tynan, [27]). For this
reason, the majority of ‘development’ (as understood in the
international context as capacity building) has been
Pathways’, the most recent program implemented has centred
on financial literacy in a culturally sensitive manner and thus
provides the groundwork for economic empowerment of
indigenous Australians living in regional communities. This
approach is one of the strategies for economic development and
strongly reflects the growing interest in neo-liberal-oriented
policies, which include the redirection of public expenditure
away from welfare services, increased privatisation and the
deregulation and decreased restriction of market entry. Cahill
examines the implications of neo-liberalism for Aboriginal
communities and explains that under neo-liberalism, production
is re-organised to individuate labour units, forces them to
develop a marketable attribute and thus, compete with one
another (p. 225) [5]. Cahill illustrates this point with the
expansion of the housing boom which is a form of debtfinanced
consumption (p. 225) [5]. In addition to aiming for the
long term sustainability and capacity building of marginalised
indigenous communities, one of the broad aims of the ‘My
Moola: Opening Financial Pathways’ program is how to
balance individual aspirations alongside their broader
community and social ties and obligations. ‘My Moola’ also
speaks to the visibility of alternative economic strategies
directed towards indigenous communities in particular.
Communication technologies play a contradictory role in this
environment: on the one hand, they represent the kind of
codifying commodity that represents engagement with
mainstream society, and on the other hand, they constitute
important tools for embodying and solidifying the existing
social ties and cultural values. In this study, where the
ownership and use of mobile phones was common to the
indigenous community of the region, these factors became
apparent. An emerging aspect of HCI research is the role that
culture and cultural values play in influencing technological
design and user behaviour. This paper will examine indigenous
cultural values and a mode of social capital building which
incorporates ubiquitous use of mobile phones.