Digital transformation is often imagined through the language of innovation, infrastructure, and connectivity. We measure progress by the expansion of networks, devices, and digital skills. Yet beneath these conversations lies a quieter question that is too often overlooked: who gets to define what meaningful digital participation looks like?

This question sat at the heart of Mendengar dari Dalam: Tantangan Partisipasi Digital Masyarakat Adat Suku Anak Dalam, a public webinar convened by DEEP EnGender as a way to amplify our reflection on the Digital Re-Grow Initiative.

Rather than asking how Indigenous communities should adapt to an increasingly digital world, the conversation invited us to reverse the gaze. What if digital futures were shaped by Indigenous ways of knowing? What if participation began not with technology, but with relationships, reciprocity, and care?

Bringing together 67 participants from across Indonesia, from Aceh to Kupang, the webinar became more than a space for sharing research findings. It became an invitation to listen. Students, researchers, academics, civil society organisations, local government representatives, and community facilitators gathered to reflect on what digital participation means when viewed through the everyday realities of the Suku Anak Dalam community in Jambi.

Insights from the Digital Re-Grow Initiative reminded us that digital technologies are never separate from the social worlds they inhabit. A mobile phone is not simply a device; it can become a bridge between families, a record of ecological change, a medium for preserving stories, and a space where women and young people negotiate new forms of participation. Digital life, in this sense, is woven into the ordinary practices of sustaining community.

Yet listening also requires us to remain attentive to complexity. As reflected throughout the discussion, digital inclusion cannot be celebrated uncritically. Questions of gender, power, safety, and representation remain deeply embedded in digital spaces. Expanding access does not automatically dismantle patriarchal structures, nor does technological innovation necessarily strengthen collective ways of living. Without careful reflection, digital transformation can reproduce the very inequalities it promises to overcome.

For DEEP EnGender, these conversations reaffirm a simple but profound commitment: communities are not merely beneficiaries of innovation; they are producers of knowledge. Their lived experiences, ecological wisdom, and collective practices offer critical insights into how more just and caring digital futures might be imagined.

Perhaps the most meaningful outcome of this gathering was not a set of conclusions, but a shift in perspective.

Before asking how Indigenous communities can participate in digital transformation, perhaps we should first ask:

What can digital transformation learn from Indigenous communities?

The Digital Re-Grow Initiative continues to remind us that transformative change begins not with designing solutions for communities, but with listening to them, with humility, with curiosity, and with the willingness to be changed by what we hear – because listening is not the beginning of our work. Instead, listening is how we work.

We are pleased to share that Sadar Ginting, DrPH, PhD, Co-Founder & Executive Director of DEEP EnGender, contributed to the Symposium on Strengthening Evidence on the Outcomes of Locally Led Adaptation (LLA), hosted by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), held on June 3–4 in Bangkok, Thailand. The symposium brought together researchers, practitioners, and organizations committed to advancing knowledge and evidence on community-led responses to environmental and climate-related challenges.

Drawing on DEEP EnGender’s engagement with Indigenous Suku Anak Dalam (SAD) communities. Sadar Ginting, DrPH, PhD, contribution explored how local communities understand and respond to environmental change through their own knowledge systems, food practices, and relationships with forests and rivers. The work highlighted the importance of recognizing Indigenous knowledge and lived experiences as valuable foundations for adaptation planning and environmental governance.

The contribution also examined the challenges faced by Suku Anak Dalam communities, including reduced access to forests, changes in traditional food systems, and the impacts of land conversion on community livelihoods. At the same time, it emphasized the resilience of Indigenous communities in maintaining ecological knowledge and adapting to changing environmental conditions while preserving their cultural identity and connection to the land.

Through this symposium, DEEP EnGender contributed perspectives from Indonesia to broader international discussions on locally led adaptation, environmental justice, and community-based knowledge production. The event provided an important opportunity to share lessons from the field while learning from diverse adaptation practices across different regions and contexts.

Sadar Ginting, DrPH, PhD, participation reflects DEEP EnGender’s ongoing commitment to advancing research and advocacy that center Indigenous perspectives, ecological justice, and locally grounded solutions to environmental change. We look forward to continuing these conversations and strengthening collaborative efforts toward more inclusive and sustainable futures.

DEEP EnGender participated in the AIFIS–MSU Conference on Indonesian Studies 2026, “Making Knowledge, Making History: Producing the Indonesian Past, Present and Future” (26–30 May 2026), organized by the American Institute for Indonesian Studies (AIFIS) and Michigan State University. The conference brought together scholars, researchers, and practitioners to examine how knowledge about Indonesia is produced, contested, and transformed across different social, political, and historical contexts.

Within this space of critical dialogue, Daniel Jeremia Natanael Nababan (Researcher, DEEP EnGender) presented a paper examining the representation of Indigenous women in news coverage of the ecological conflict between the Pandumaan–Sipituhuta communities and PT Toba Pulp Lestari (PT TPL) in North Sumatra. The research explored how environmental conflicts are not only struggles over land and natural resources, but also sites where gendered inequalities are produced, maintained, and challenged.

Drawing on media framing analysis, the study highlighted how Indigenous women continue to experience multiple forms of exclusion, including marginalization, subordination, increased burdens of care and livelihood, violence, and stereotyping. At the same time, the research demonstrated how Indigenous women have actively participated in defending customary forests, sustaining community livelihoods, and shaping collective resistance, despite their contributions often remaining underrepresented in dominant media narratives.

Across conference sessions and discussions, recurring questions emerged regarding whose knowledge is recognized, whose experiences are made visible, and whose voices continue to be marginalized within public discourse. These conversations resonate strongly with DEEP EnGender’s commitment to advancing research and advocacy that center Indigenous perspectives, gender justice, and community-based knowledge in addressing environmental challenges.

Insights from this conference will contribute to DEEP EnGender’s ongoing research, organizational learning, and public-facing knowledge production. Participation in AIFIS–MSU 2026 further strengthens our commitment to supporting more inclusive forms of knowledge that recognize the experiences, agency, and leadership of communities at the forefront of ecological and social transformation.