Presenting on “Achieving Indigenous Data Sovereignty” at the AAA Annual Meeting
In November 2022, Towagh Behr, Director of Research and Operations at Kwusen, presented on "Achieving Indigenous Data Sovereignty" at the American Anthropological Association (AAA)’s Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA.
In his presentation, Towagh discussed how the Community KnowledgeKeeper (CKK) supports Indigenous data sovereignty. Using the CKK, Indigenous communities have complete ownership and unfettered access to their data stored in the system. Towagh's presentation highlighted an important project Kwusen is undertaking with Gitxaała Nation: the Wap nłuudisk a txa’nii ndaa (Everywhere Museum) Project. As part of this project, Kwusen is developing features to support digital repatriation of museum records to Gitxaała’s CKK.
Indigenous data sovereignty establishes Indigenous peoples, communities, and Nations as the owners of their own knowledge and data. This includes the ability to repatriate, control access, and contextualise information in keeping with the Nation’s laws and protocols.1
The Wap nłuudisk a txa’nii ndaa Project is a three-year undertaking to create a fully Gitxaała-controlled "repatriation database" containing digital records of community belongings held in museums around the world. The project will also create a virtual museum to display these records to community members and the public within curated pages. Kwusen is developing specific features for this project that will be released in the redeveloped CKK, including collections management features to support the virtual museum.
Gitxaała will control access to all information stored in the repatriation database and virtual museum features of the Gitxaała CKK. Records in the virtual museum will be categorized, contextualized, and described according to community values and protocols. The museum will highlight Gitxaała culture, language and knowledge on their own terms.
We were pleased to see this important project presented to and discussed among academics in the field of anthropology this November and look forward to continuing our work on this project with Gitxaała Nation.
Towagh presenting “Achieving Indigenous Data Sovereignty” at the AAA’s Annual Meeting in November 2022.
While at the AAA Annual Meeting, Towagh had the pleasure of attending a film screening of “The Salmon People,” a Children of the Setting Sun Productions (CSSP) documentary. The film features Indigenous communities in Washington State and Oregon working on salmon restoration projects, including fighting to remove dams from salmon-spawning rivers in their territories.
The screening event was put on by AAA in collaboration with the Society for Visual Anthropology and hosted at a SIFF cinema downtown Seattle. Learn more about the film on CSSP’s website, watch the trailer, and share with your friends!
Children of the Setting Sun dancers at “The Salmon People” film screening in Seattle, WA.
1 University of Toronto Libraries. “Indigenous Data Sovereignty.” utoronto.ca. August 23, 2022. https://guides.library.utoronto.ca/indigenousstudies/datasovereignty#:~:text=Indigenous%20Data%20Sovereignty%20is%20the,created%20with%20or%20about%20themselves