Caring for data now and in the future: Perspectives on and approaches to data sovereignty in community, institutional, and educational contexts

Authors : Mary Ingraham

Pages : 85-107

View : 27 | Download : 24

Publication Date : 2025-07-30

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :Authority, access, and return have been growing preoccupations of ethnomusicologists and institutions in relation to First Peoples’ musical knowledges over the past 35 years. In recent years, this work has become increasingly aligned with developments in Indigenous Data Sovereignty. However, agency, authority, and power in relation to new tools and media for creative and cultural resistance and thrivance have much longer histories. These histories are evident in Indigenous broadcasting, communications, and media movements over the past 50 years in Australia, Canada, and elsewhere. It is also shown in First Peoples’ accounts of creative responses to changing environments from deep history to the present. This article presents an abbreviated version of a roundtable delivered to the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance in Aotearoa/New Zealand (ICTMD), 8 – 16 January 2025, exploring these themes. The roundtable comprised two speakers from Australia (Tiriki Onus and Sally Treloyn) and three from Canada (Bert Crowfoot, Sandra Crowfoot, and Mary Ingraham), all of whom had met previously in Australia and Canada, and online. The intention of the roundtable was to present perspectives on and approaches that are relevant to data sovereignty across a range of historical and contemporary, community, field, and institutional contexts. The goal of the panel, and it follows this article, is to support a dialogue about and develop practice in relation to data sovereignty in institutional and disciplinary contexts, where community-based creative action, archiving, and research are held as authoritative and critical spaces.
Keywords : Indigenous, data sovereignty, Australia, Canada, community archiving

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