August 9th is the celebration of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. On this day, but also on all the others, we consider how the World Data System (WDS) can do the essential work of reconciliation within our data domain. In our overarching goals, we are working towards Indigenous Data Sovereignty and following the CARE principles. We strive to improve our own knowledge and practices, and we are also working to promote learning and improved practices at data repositories worldwide. Today, we hope to share some resources and ways we have been working towards this goal.
Firstly, we are excited to share our newly publicized Zotero library focusing on resources for CARE and Indigenous data governance. The library is still new and fairly small, but it includes some great resources such as the paper on implementing the CARE principles for earth science data repositories. We will continue to grow this library over time as we discover more resources.
This fall at International Data Week (co-organized by WDS) one of the key themes of the conference is CAREful Indigenous Data Governance. The session on this theme will focus on the CARE principles and will discuss different perspectives on the challenges of Indigenous data governance.
Following IDW is the Polar Data Forum in Hobart, AUS — A partnered event with the Arctic Data Committee and Standing committee for Antarctic Data Management. Our lead Polar semantics and interoperability research associate, Chantelle Verhey as an Organizing committee chair, has ensured Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Community led research is represented at the PDF.
The Arctic Data Committee has made beginning strides to incorporate Indigenous Data Sovereignty resources on their website. Highlighting Indigenous initiatives such as Local Contexts, governance documentation from ICC, ITK, and others, as well as the Arctic Data Standards Initiative.
Local Contexts is an organization that provides Indigenous communities across the globe with digital tools to reassert authority over their data through the use of Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Biocultural (BC) labels. At WDS, Reyna and Emilie are involved in Local Contexts’ Technical Implementation Working Group, which discusses the technological implementation of the labels within metadata and databases.They are also part of the Canada Regional Network. Regional networks connect people within a region who are interested in Local Contexts. The goal is to support others with similar problems and needs, as well as to increase regional interest and usage of Local Contexts. These working groups and networks are open to join if you are interested!
The staff at WDS are committed to gaining knowledge about Indigenous Data Sovereignty through many outlets, but a significant portion of our learning is acquired through trainings. We have all completed the newly revised Fundamentals of OCAP course, which is a thorough training on respecting the OCAP principles. Some staff have also completed the BBRIC and IRLET courses, which focus on doing research in collaboration with Indigenous communities. We are also partaking in the yearly program 4 Seasons of Indigenous Learning, where we complete a set of learning modules and have a monthly presentation from an Indigenous speaker. This is such an engaging course and can be taken by anyone!
We hope that you will honour this international day in part by looking into some of these resources or courses and considering what steps you can take to better respect Indigenous data sovereignty.