Data Sovereignty for Indigenous Communities in the Arctic: Ensuring Ethical Control of Information and Knowledge for Indigenous Partners through Digital Tools

Summary

The Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA, eloka-arctic.org) partners with Indigenous communities in the Arctic to create online products that facilitate the collection, preservation, exchange, and use of local observations and Indigenous Knowledge of the Arctic. ELOKA has created numerous digital products guided by Indigenous partners, ranging from atlases preserving and visualizing Indigenous Knowledge and information, to online databases allowing for Arctic residents to upload local observations to share among other individuals, villages, and organizations. This paper will overview various online tools, prototypes, and partnerships that demonstrate how digital tools can enable information, data, and knowledge sovereignty for Indigenous communities in the Arctic to ensure full control over their information. These efforts include extensive consultation with communities, technical strategies to restrict or open sharing based on community needs, and plans to build infrastructure to ensure community control over information. Our focus on data sovereignty ensures that deeply embedded local and Indigenous Knowledge cannot be used in ways that can bring harm to the communities and their Knowledge holders and that the communities have full control over how the information is used and shared.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 19940