Just lately, my DATAVERSITY colleague Mark Horseman shared that he’d been getting much more questions on Indigenous knowledge sovereignty. We each agreed it will make a fantastic matter for this month’s column.
What’s Indigenous knowledge sovereignty, why does it matter, and the way can we be taught extra about it?
To answer these questions, it helps to contextualize the idea of data sovereignty in the historical context of data colonialism. Data sovereignty makes sense in light of a past history that has been oppressive to certain groups, such as Indigenous peoples.
Before moving further into this topic, I think it’s important for me, as an non-Indigenous person, with no direct lived experience, to acknowledge that my understanding of this topic is informed by the work of those with lived experience. It’s through courses like OCAP® offered by the First Nations Information Governance Centre, books, talks, and other resources that I’ve come to understand this topic. I will include references to all of these resources so that you might also benefit directly from them.
“Research Is a Dirty Word”
Several years ago, while I was doing research about data ethics, a professor suggested a book to me, “Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples” by Linda Tuhiwai Smith. It was an eye-opening learn on many ranges and an excellent primer for understanding the background and historic context for knowledge sovereignty. Smith writes:
“From the vantage level of the colonized, a place from which I write, and select to privilege, the time period ‘analysis’ is inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonialism. The phrase itself, ‘analysis’, might be one of many dirtiest phrases within the indigenous world’s vocabulary. When talked about in lots of indigenous contexts, it stirs up silence, it conjures up dangerous recollections, it raises a smile that’s understanding and distrustful.”
This angle could be very totally different from Euro-centric western notions of analysis. We are inclined to fetishize analysis as a optimistic factor. It’s how we’ll advance our scientific data. We don’t have a tendency to consider the downsides or impacts of analysis as a result of a lot of the time, we’re not the direct topics of analysis. The analysis can be being carried out within the context of our western cultural and authorized context.
We are able to consider the method of analysis as inextricably linked to gathering knowledge. The e book goes on to stipulate quite a few situations the place the analysis course of of knowledge assortment and knowledge processing have resulted in hurt to numerous Indigenous communities.
The Havasupai Tribe vs. College of Arizona
One story that stands out for me is that of the Havasupai tribe in Arizona. Members of the tribe had consented to permit researchers from the College of Arizona to gather genetic knowledge (DNA) for analysis functions associated to Sort 2 diabetes. Consent was given as a result of Sort 2 diabetes was an issue that the group was experiencing and so granting this knowledge assortment and use made sense on this context. Nonetheless, the college researchers took this as blanket consent to then go on to make use of the information for a spread of different analysis initiatives, together with some that started to problem the tribe’s historic understanding of itself and had been deeply in battle with the tribe’s values. Shockingly, tribal members discovered about this purely by chance!
This talk from Carletta Tilousi and Dianna Sue Uqualla of the Havasupai group goes into way more element and is useful in understanding the fuller context of this case. There have been essential non secular and cultural the reason why the blood samples collected from tribal members wanted to be returned, that stretch effectively past the concept of those being merely knowledge for analysis.
It’s essential to know this can be a pretty current case. The analysis came about within the Nineties, the lawsuit was filed in 2004 and it was settled in 2010. That is current historical past, but it surely’s additionally emblematic of the larger sample of analysis like this that has been happening for a really very long time. Different nations, corresponding to Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, have comparable tales.
What Is Knowledge Sovereignty?
Put merely, knowledge sovereignty pertains to who has the facility to control knowledge. It determines who’s legally empowered to make choices in regards to the assortment and use of knowledge. We are able to take into consideration this within the context of two governments negotiating between one another, every having sovereign powers of self-determination. Indigenous governments are claiming their sovereign rights to their folks’s knowledge.
On the one hand, this can be a response to the atrocities which have taken place with respect to knowledge gathered and brought past the management of Indigenous communities by researchers, governments, and different non-Indigenous events. But, as knowledge turns into more and more essential, many nations are looking for to set regulatory requirements for knowledge. It is smart the Indigenous governments would assert comparable rights with respect to their folks’s knowledge.
Possession, Entry, Management, Possession
In Canada, the First Nations Information Governance Centre (FGNIC) is an unbiased not-for-profit group whose early roots harken again to well being analysis. The FGNIC has developed a framework for knowledge governance referred to as OCAP® – which stands for possession, entry, management, and possession. They supply coaching within the OCAP® framework (it’s a fantastic course!), which takes an expansive and holistic strategy to knowledge. As their web site explains:
“Knowledge on this context encompasses knowledge from First Nations, together with languages, cultures, data, tales, songs, and ceremonies, knowledge about First Nations corresponding to demographics, housing, well being, economies, labor, training, and knowledge on or about First Nations lands and sources, which incorporates waters, medicines, and animals.”
Knowledge sovereignty is a vital a part of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation calls to motion. The FNIGC governs the related processes for these looking for to work with First Nations in Canada to appropriately entry knowledge.
The United States Indigenous Data Network and different international organizations serving Australia, New Zealand, and sure European nations present comparable sorts of coaching, data sharing, and knowledge governance protocols.
Extra Sources
Along with already famous web sites and organizations, there’s a wealth of books, articles, movies, podcasts, and different content material obtainable. Listed below are a few of my favorites:
Ship Me Your Questions!
I might love to listen to about your knowledge dilemmas or AI ethics questions and quandaries. You may ship me a observe at [email protected] or join with me on LinkedIn. I’ll maintain all inquiries confidential and take away any doubtlessly delicate data – so please be at liberty to maintain issues excessive degree and nameless as effectively.
This column will not be authorized recommendation. The knowledge supplied is strictly for instructional functions. AI and knowledge regulation is an evolving space and anybody with particular questions ought to search recommendation from a authorized skilled.
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