Applied Sovereignty: Dialogues in Indigenous Data

The program included a tour of campus data centers and an incredible lineup of speakers and panels featuring: Emily Hagle (Kern River Indian Community, Southern Paiute), from the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, Salem Ynostrosa (Northern Arapaho) from the Northern Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Office, Albert Mason (Eastern Shoshone) and Xaiver Michael-Young (Seminole Tribe of FL) from the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative, Travis Shakespeare (Northern Arapaho) from UW Ecosystem Science & Management, Brigida R. Blasi from the American Heritage Center, Karen Driver (Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa), Senior Advisor to the President for Native American Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and Andrew Martinez (Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community) from the Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance.
 

The speakers covered topics like data sharing agreements and MOUs, Indigenous owned data repositories, the CARE Principles, IRB protocols and IDSov informed research guidelines, highlighting the importance of infrastructures and relationships rooted in the collective benefit and authority of Indigenous communities. 

Five representatives from UW Libraries were able to attend the vibrant convergence, read some of their thoughts below: 

Kendall Lowe, Library Specialist, Digital Scholarship Center 

The Applied Sovereignty event challenged a common assumption in library science: that data is neutral. It isn’t -- data is shaped by decisions about what gets collected, how it’s categorized, and who gets access to it. In a state shaped by a long history of settler colonialism, Indigenous data sovereignty is a present responsibility for libraries, universities, and other institutions that hold and manage data. Libraries are part of systems that have too often excluded, extracted from, and misrepresented Indigenous communities, and responding to that can’t stop at passive support for Indigenous-led governance. It requires resourcing tribal data governance, closely following community protocols, and deferring to Indigenous leadership in decisions about use and access. The Applied Sovereignty workshop offered important insight into concrete practices already challenging these institutional norms. 

Jordan Hemingway, Data Services Librarian 

While often discussed as if it were disembodied, objective, and perhaps even a commodity, data is relational. Data has context, and is further (re)contextualized as individuals, communities, governments, and institutions interact with it (and with one another). Sound data management practices rely on nurturing good relationships across communities; there is no good practice without good relationships. Good relationships require honest, ongoing communication, and Applied Sovereignty: Dialogues in Indigenous Data offered a beautiful way to engage in this work locally.
 
Frameworks like the CARE principles, describing central elements of Indigenous data stewardship, suggest one way to honor IDSov in our day-to-day work with existing and future data. Like data, principles don’t exist in a vacuum. Their application requires ongoing reflection and re-consideration of habits and assumptions. Integrating the principles calls for us to make a sustained commitment to learning about Indigenous data protocols and to continue having local conversations about putting these approaches into action. The respect, intentionality, and transparency needed for this process contribute not only to more meaningful insights through data, but can also be a step towards connection, repair, and honorable partnerships with Tribal nations, which precede collaborative research and affirm Indigenous sovereignty in how research is conducted, communicated and applied.  

Esther Perez, STEM Digital Scholarship Librarian 

The Dialogues in Indigenous Data event made me aware of the need for continued conversation and relationship building between Native Nations and those of us at the University for the sake of stopping the perpetuation of harm that stems from the historical erasure and robbing of their culture and resources. Additionally, that any projects undertaken toward reparation should always include Indigenous voices, involve tribal leaders at some level, and respect Indigenous folks' sovereignty as a nation and people. 

Amber Lotspeich, Electronic Resources Librarian 

As someone new to Wyoming with an interest in Indigenous Data Sovereignty, I really appreciated the workshop as an opportunity to learn more about the Wind River Reservation and its relationship with the University of Wyoming. I enjoyed meeting people from across the campus and state and hearing about both the challenges and opportunities they’re facing around data management. The speaker lineup was incredible and I was happy that the workshop attendance was more than double the initial projections. I tried to approach the workshop with my Collections Management hat on and identify resources that the Libraries do not provide but potentially could. My hope for the Libraries is that all of us who attended can take what we learned as a jumping off point to improve our collections and services.
 

Kendra Cowley, Graduate Research and Engagement Librarian 

Indigenous Data Sovereignty is a practice of disengaging from colonial enclosure and capture, including the ontological imperative of the University (and other sites of colonial research) to know, and assume one has the right to know, about Indigenous life. For centuries, research done about Indigenous people, without Indigenous people, has been used to uphold colonial structures of dispossession and extraction. IDSov recognizes that Indigenous communities have the right to govern their own data, including the right to refuse access to outside parties. This is not, as Xaiver Michael-Young from the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative (WRTBI) told us, about ownership but about sovereignty – the ability to make decisions about how, when, and for what purpose data is collected and used.
 

Importantly, Albert Mason, also from WRTBI, illuminated the connection between data sovereignty and land stewardship. Data is material and has material consequences. Indigenous knowledge is central to how Tribal land is both governed and cared for. How communities live on and with the land shapes and is shaped by data stewarded by individual nations. IDSov affirms the right of these nations to make decisions that prioritize collective benefit for generations to come. 

This requires those of us in the library, who often curate and manage data, to audit our own processes and policies to see how they might better align with principles of IDSov. Applied Sovereignty has given us the tools to start this conversation, and I am excited to be a part of a community foregrounding Indigenous sovereignty in our work.  

If you want to learn more about Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Governance, please visit the UW Libraries Research Data Management & Sharing Guide.  Additionally, visit Coe Library this June to see our Celebrating Indigenous Knowledge and History book display.  

 

Photos provided by Nichole Lamadue from HIPARI