Format: Paper presentations with discussion
Convenors:
Desiree Martinez, Gabrieliño (Tongva), California State Polytechnic University, California, USA, desireerm@gmail.com)
Neha Gupta, The University of British Columbia, British Columbia, Canada, neha.gupta@ubc.ca
Sarah Kansa, Alexandria Archive Institute, California, USA
Christopher Nicholson, Center for Digital Antiquity and tDAR, Arizona State University, Arizona, USA
Growing availability of digital tools and technologies has the potential to facilitate anti-colonial methods in archaeological practice. The social context of archaeology, ownership of the past and the digitisation of heritage are major themes underlying how archaeologists collect, use, manage, interpret, share and circulate archaeological data in 21st century. From the 1960s onwards, Indigenous, Black and racialised groups, archaeologists and heritage scholars have highlighted power relations in terms of inequalities in access to strategic resources (material, social and ideological), ownership of, and control over cultural heritage, the protection and preservation of their ancestors and ancestral sites, and the authority to create narratives about their past. While fruitful, these efforts have typically obscured computing and digital tools in the practice of archaeology, underestimating the interweaving of power, space, technologies and knowledge making. In light of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), archaeologists and Western holding institutions are increasingly using global data governance principles, such as the CARE (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, Ethics) and FAIR (Findability, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) in the collection, use, management, sharing and circulation of Indigenous data. Researchers concurrently use regional Indigenous data governance principles such as the OCAP® (Ownership, Control, Access, Possession), and the Maori Data Sovereignty Principles to shift power differentials, and restore decision-making about archaeology and digital heritage to Indigenous Peoples. This session invites presenters to showcase, share and discuss specific examples on how they are using Indigenous data governance principles to conceptualise, develop, and assert Indigenous rights to heritage data, and what challenges and barriers they have experienced in implementation. We especially encourage Tribal, Aboriginal, First Nation groups and scholars, early-career researchers and historically underrepresented scholars to contribute to the session.
This is a panel/discussion session that will include brief presentations with slides. Please email Desiree Martinez (desireerm@gmail.com) and Neha Gupta (neha.gupta@ubc.ca)with questions, or interest in participation.
Papers:
Reducing Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Complexity Under the Colonial System of DSuz (Data Suzerainty)
Katherine Thomas, Ashley Wilkinson, Chris Antonopoulos, Clay Law, Daniel Young, Jonah Honeysett and Alex Watson, Taungurung Land and Waters Council RAP, Australia
Dr Serene Ho, University of Melbourne, Australia
Prof Helen Sullivan, Australian National University, Australia
Systemisation of knowledge is a key focus area of our current generation. The rise of spatial decision support systems (GIS/LIS/Databases/) with adjacent predictive modelling tools has led to the reduction of Indigenous Knowledge Systems into a formula or layer to be employed in planning decisions. Within Victoria, Australia the recent funding of Strategic Aboriginal Heritage Assessments (SAHAs), heralds the further reduction of Indigenous Knowledges into a layer for the spatial geodatabases driving the Victorian State planning decisions. This paper discusses the recent work of Taungurung Land and Waters Council (TLaWC) to address this movement away from cultural expressions into a state led reduction of culture into a value. TLaWC are investigating alternative pathways and policy positions to advocate for Indigenous Data Sovereignty, to strive for appropriate data governance, and to find ways to acknowledge the manifold issues of the colonial system of DSuz (Data Suzerainty).
What Strategic Resources do Communities and Institutions Need to Implement Data Governance Principles?
Neha Gupta, The University of British Columbia, Okanagan, Canada
Scholars, policy makers, governments in the digital age have converged on the need for ‘good’ data governance. Interest in data governance principles draws from the realisation that all databases are not the same, not neutral, not stable or constant. Rather, data and databases require steady resources to make them useable, and maintain them for a given purpose. These developments coincide with assertions by Indigenous Peoples, Black and racialised descendant groups, of rights and responsibilities to databases that represent their communities. In terms of heritage databases, community-led efforts focus on making relevant data and maintaining databases that accurately represent and serve the individual and collective interests of the community. A second stream focuses on redress of colonial narratives through critical analysis of terminology, and classification systems used in western holding institutions, and (re-)making databases as a means to connect them to originating communities. A third stream, typically in university-community contexts, engages descendant communities so that they have voice, and decision rights in the conceptualisation and design of research, and throughout the data lifecycle. Drawing upon three collaborations in the Canadian context, I provide an overview of financial, social, ideological and technological resources that each stream needs to implement data governance principles.
Digital Mapping, Storytelling, and the Ethics of Indigenous Data Stewardship
Annick Thomassin, Centre for Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies, Australian National University, Australia
Over the past decades, Indigenous communities have increasingly used digital tools—such as collaborative mapping, knowledge survey applications, digital storytelling (ArcGIS Storymaps), and archival repatriation—to reinscribe their presence and steward their knowledge. This paper draws on findings from two projects: the Walbunja Environmental Stewardship Resurgence Project and the ANU Japan Zenadth-Kes digital return initiative for Torres Strait Islander archival materials.
The Walbunja project examines how digital mapping and storytelling support sovereignty by enabling Indigenous communities to control representations of their territories, cultural heritage, and knowledge. It also explores how these tools foster dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. The ANU Japan-Zenadth Kes project focuses on the ethical return of research materials, emphasising digital caretaking methodologies that ensure repatriated knowledge remains accessible, meaningful, and governed by community protocols.
Both projects engage with principles of Indigenous data governance frameworks, such as CARE (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, and Ethics), FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), and OCAP (Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession). These principles help shift power over cultural heritage back to Indigenous communities. By addressing ethical, social, and ontological challenges, this paper contributes to broader discussions on decolonising digital heritage and fostering sustainable Indigenous-led data stewardship.
Gaining and Losing Control: Limits to Sustaining Indigenous Participation in Digital Projects
Desiree Martinez, California Polytechnic State University, Pomona, USA
Anthropologists and archaeologists in the United States have gathered, collected, coerced, and stolen data from Native American communities for hundreds of years. These interactions, or lack thereof, have left Native American community members questioning how their Tribes have benefited from these research projects while struggling to survive in their daily lives.
With inspiration from Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s book Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, scholars are now creating collaborative digital projects that surrender development, access and control to their Indigenous collaborators. However, are there limits to sustaining these projects? Using digital projects that involved members of the Gabrielino (Tongva) community in southern California as examples, this talk discusses some of the obstacles that have limited the full participation of Native American community members. These obstacles include lack of financial support, lack of capacity, and complex interpersonal relationships between Tribal community members to name a few.
Ethical Access to Archives for African American Descendant Communities: A Case Study
Rachel Watkins, University of Pennsylvania, USA
FAIR principles were established as part of advocating for more accessible approaches to data sharing. However, the lack of attention to community rights and interests led to the development of CARE principles, which attend to: 1) community rights and interests in accessing and disseminating data; 2) structures that naturalise barriers preventing their access to data; and 3) the different ways that communities assign meaning and significance to data. While these principles were rightfully adopted to better support and align with indigenous data sovereignty, FAIR and CARE principles can be useful in addressing the lack of data access that self-identified African American communities experience. Struggles for data access often accompany initiatives to reclaim the sacredness of burial sites and other aspects of historic preservation and interpretation.
This paper offers an example of applying FAIR and CARE principles in a grant-sponsored partnership between a local history museum, and Black descendants in a historic Maryland (United States) town. Specifically, the principles supported Black descendants’ leadership in developing metadata and access criteria for archival documents about their ancestors. The case study illustrates how the broad application of FAIR and CARE principles mitigate data access needs for historically disenfranchised groups in the Americas.