Indigenous Data Governance and Sovereignty

Hi everyone. Um, my name is Jenny Fster. I'm the director of the humanities, arts, social sciences, and indigenous research data commons at the ARDC. Welcome. Uh, and I say Nina Mani. Thank you. Today I want to briefly introduce the ARDC and the H and Indigenous RDC, but more importantly, I'm going to talk about how research infrastructure can support indigenous data governance. and I'm under instructions to do this as quickly as I possibly can. So, buckle in, guys. Okay. The ARDC is Australia's leading research data infrastructure facility and we're enabled by the Australian government's national collaborative research infrastructure strategy. Um, and I have completely forgotten to go with my slides. There we go. So, you can read about the purpose and mission there very quickly. read fast. Okay. Um, this slide provides a snapshot of the humanities, arts, social sciences, and indigenous research data commons and the breadth of work that we support across it. The Hassan Indigenous RDC was established in 2021 to provide national digital research infrastructure that helps researchers, data custodians and communities discover, connect, manage, share, and analyze HS and indigenous data. And this supports research that addresses real world challenges and tells stories that matter that go against the monocultural perhaps. The six focus areas shown here each address a different part of that challenge. The improving indigenous research capabilities program focuses on embedding indigenous data governance and supporting indigenousled approaches to research infrastructure, ensuring that indigenous communities have greater authority over how their data and knowledge are managed and used. Excuse me. Connection strengthens the links between researchers, institutions, and data collections, helping to create a more coordinated national ecosystem. The Language Data Commons of Australia preserves and enables access to Australia's rich linguistic heritage, including significant indigenous language collections, supporting language maintenance and revitalization. The social science research infrastructure network improves access to social and administrative data and develops the tools and frameworks needed for responsible policy relevant research. Australian creative histories and futures connects cultural collections and creative practice to support new forms of research and storytelling. And the Australian Internet Observatory provides infrastructure to study digital platforms and online behavior, helping researchers understand the social impacts of our increasingly digital world. What ties these activities together is that they're not simply about building technology. They're about building trusted infrastructure that connects people, data, collections, and communities. for indigenous activities in particular. That means thinking carefully about governance, partnerships, capability building, and ensuring that infrastructure supports community priorities and delivers community benefit. Indigenous data governance isn't confined to a single box on this slide. While IIRC provides dedicated leadership, indigenous data and indigenous perspectives intersect with all of these activities, reflecting our view that indigenous data governance is indeed a whole of ARDC activity. Moving right along, sorry Gavin, I'm going as fast as I can. Okay. As such, a key point I'd like to highlight today is that the indigenous data governance isn't the responsibility of a single project or even a single research data commons. It is a whole of ARDC and indeed a whole of sector responsibility. Indigenous data intersects with every research area from health and environment to cultural collections, languages, social sciences through to biodiversity and so on. And this means that indigenous data governance needs to be considered across all domains. At ARDC, we think about this uh about three connected areas. First is data where we work to support indigenous data governance and encourage the complimentary application of both fair and care principles. Second is infrastructure. Ensuring that the platforms and services we build can support appropriate governance and stewardship. And finally, there's capability. Building trusted infrastructure isn't just about technology. It's about investing in training, community partnerships, and growing an indigenous workforce that can help shape the future of research data. For me, this is what good research infrastructure looks like. Not simply making data more accessible, but creating an ecosystem that supports indigenous authority, participation, and benefit across that research ecosystem. Okay. So, research infrastructure is often thought of as merely technical platforms, software, GPUs and so on. But good infrastructure also has to include governance frameworks, relationships, standards, community protocols, and capability building. Infrastructure shapes what research is possible. And as such, in infrastructure development, we have an obligation to make sure that we keep people at top of mind. So good research infrastructure isn't simply about making data easier to access. It's about ensuring that data can be managed, shared, and reused in ways that reflect community priorities and values for ARDC and the House and Indigenous RDC. Indigenous data governance isn't a separate activity. It's an essential part of building infrastructure that is trusted, sustainable, and fit for the future. Indigenous data governance isn't simply about data. It's about who has authority, who benefits, and how research infrastructure can support communities to steward their own knowledge on their own terms. I hope you enjoy the master class and come away with new ideas, connections, and perspectives. And I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to the organizing team for their hard work in making this event possible. I'm going to hand now to Robert Mlelen. Um, and I haven't got the bio, but I can talk about Robert quite easily without the bio or probably just get some things wrong. Robert is a proud Goring Goring man from the Wide Bay Bernett River region of Queensland. He's a dear friend of mine and a colleague. We've been working together over a number of years. He is the senior program manager for the language data commons of Australia and he's also uh industry fellow at University of Queensland. Please join me in welcoming Robert. All right. Well, um, thank you. Thank you. Firstly, thank you, Uncle Mickey, for that really lovely and warm orientation to uh, Ker country. It's it is um beautiful uh morning. It's a beautiful day today actually with the sun shining and uh it's lovely to be here. However, I am off country and so I would like to acknowledge So, as Jenny did uh reference, I'm a growing growing person and our country extends south of Bundberg in Queensland, south to the Barum, uh the Barum River, north of Gladston to Raglin Creek, west to about MTO, Rawbell, Three Moon, and then cutting in before Childers in the Southwest. Um, I'm also the, as Jenny mentioned, the program manager for the language data commons of Australia, which is a national digital research infrastructure project led by professor Michael at the University of Queensland. Uh, let me also too recognize our colleagues from the improving indigenous research capabilities project led by Melbourne laurate professor Marcia Langden at the University of Melbourne. And also to I would like to recognize our uh colleagues working to support the Hass and Indigenous Research Data Commons led by Jenny Fster at the ARDC. Effective governance of data is critical to the self-determination of individuals, families, and communities and other collectives about whom data is amassed. This is particularly crucial for data that are gathered without the informed consent and active participation of those um of those uh from whom that data has been extracted. The centrality of the statement nothing about us without us is clear. Uh it's also pertinent in the management of historical indigenous cultural and social data as well as well as in the contemporary decision making regarding its stewardship. It emphasizes an imperative that indigenous peoples be fully engaged in all aspects of decision making concerning their data thereby upholding their rights to autonomy and self-determination in the governance of indigenous data. So welcome all to the ARDC indigenous data governance masterass for 2026. And it's truly a wonderful feeling uh to be in the company of each and every one of you. Thank you all for giving up your time to be here. And let me also acknowledge those joining us online. I know the online experience is never quite the same as being here in person. Uh but nevertheless, thank you. Um thank you for your um thank you for your commitment. Sorry, I should get my slides together. I'm just going to roll through. Um, also too, what is most exciting about this event, I think, is the diversity that's among our audience. Each and every one of you brings something unique and special to this forum. The impact of events like these are often marked by the uh the contributions of our presenters. Yes. but also by the active participation um from all of you as well as the conversations that occur within the sessions outside during lunch breaks um and most importantly what you take back with you uh into your own areas of work and we're all joined together through a mutual respect and consideration for advancing indigenous rights and aspirations through data governance. So all that to say your engagement here makes this space um a safe and engaging colloquium. Uh and in that sense together we keep the fire burning. So this morning I have the absolute pre uh privilege to give you the opening address. But in doing so I just want to make two things clear. I think noting noting the diversity in the room, I I really wish to appeal to the intellectualism that is here uh and indeed online also. But importantly, I do not intend for this presentation to be conclusive by any means. Rather, my aim is simply to provoke uh some some of the thoughts and conversations that will no doubt follow throughout today and tomorrow. Okay. So data sovereignty is the concept that data are subject to the laws of the country or the region where it was first generated. Uh convergently indigenous uh sovereignty indigenous sovereignty has been articulated among the multitudinous discourses underscoring indigenous rights knowledge identity and self-determination since the 1970s. However, there's a notable resurgence in 2007 with regard to indigenous data sovereignty through the drafting of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples with indigenous peoples reaffirming rights to self-determinations as political entities whilst also emphasizing a certain uh propensity to strengthen indigenous control over indigenous data. But although self-determination as a fundamental right of indigenous populations globally is accorded within UNRIP, the Australian state has consistently failed to understand and to accept the right of its indigenous peoples to be granted the fullest rights of self-determination. Further, in Australia, there are still no dedicated legislative protections for indigenous data sovereignty. This means that indigenous data has remained vulnerable to misuse and exploitation for decades and with decision-making all too often occurring in isolation of indigenous communities. This means that consequently indigenous data has often been collected, stored and reused in ways that disconnect it from the very people and the communities that it relates to. This emphasizes the importance of indigenous data governance. It is the mechanism through which indigenous data sovereignty may be enacted in practice. It focuses on who makes decisions about data, how those decisions are made, and how indigenous rights, values, and priorities are embedded throughout the data life cycle. The Australian legislature does not accurately reflect the data needs of indi indigenous individuals and communities. And one of the examples I often share is a sample of community voices through consultative reporting uh where both Sara and Williams argued that the western governance lens does not adequately understand the full impact that colonization has had on the indigenous human physical and sacred worlds often compromising the indigenous episteems and world views. This is also articulated in the literature with Rose Etel um which I'll share with you shortly. There's a triadic network there. They recognize that indigenous they recognize indigenous data as an asset class which indigenous individuals and communities held an interest to prior to the assertion of sovereignty over so-called Australia by Britain in 1770. Only now, however, is there a gradual realization that uh indigenous individuals and communities maintain inherent interests in data by virtue of their distinct identity. uh beyond the uh beyond the Australian context, indigenous governance systems are further developed in other regions globally, particularly in the United States where the reclamation uh reclamation of self-ruule and self-determination has prominently shaped indigenous governance over the past 50 years. Um the term rebuilding native nations encompasses much of the scholarship. Uh and I'll acknowledge Miriam Jorgensson from the University of Arizona for a lot of that work. Um this work includes a series of case studies illustrating how native nations across the American continent assert their rights to self-determination through varied governance instruments and structures ranging from theocracies and chieftdoms to tripartite systems even uh resembling some western governance models. I haven't had time to put it in here, but I will uh mark the term domestic dependent sovereignty, which I'd urge everyone to have a look into. What I'm referring to is the 1831 course uh court case uh which involved the Cherokee Nation versus the state of Georgia in which Chief Justice John Marshall recognizes tribes as being distinct self-governing uh political entities that hold inherent sovereignty but still remaining under the ultimate authority and protection of the federal government. uh domestic dependent sovereignty. So governance is a broad discipline unto itself as well as something that is it's a prominent feature that I'd say is transdisciplinarily situated across many many many fields of study. But it's so it's so broad in fact that no consensus has been made on its definitions despite a multiplicity of um uh of different definitions emerging across those fields. The lack of consensus however underscores the flexibility of governance as a concept reflecting its application across diverse fields and within day-to-day life also from informal social structures to complex institutional frameworks. However, it is in part consisting of, I would say, key constituents that form the basis for informed and substantiated decision making by an appropriate delegation of individuals which extend to specific roles and responsibilities. And I know there's a level of subjectivity in that definition also. That's what it's that's what our role is to work out how we do that, how we do that ethically. It encompasses a wide range of concepts, processes and structures related to decision making, authority and accountability. Governance in all forms plays a crucial role in shaping how power is exercised, how decisions are made and how policies are implement implemented. Um the point is governance is therefore incredibly relational. Um and key literature supports the notion of data governance as an organized system comprising intersecting roles and responsibilities all with a degree of dependency upon each other. um what I referenced before Rose Etel. They build upon a scholarly understanding of the three distinct roles within data governance by visualizing ownership, custodianship and steward uh stewardship through a triadic network known as the OCS model of data governance. So the role of the data owner is to determine all purposes for which and means by which a data asset is generated, stored, accessed, processed and destroyed. The role of the data custodian is to supply data storage and access services. And the role of the data steward is to supply data processing services which includes creation, linkage, modeling, analysis and destruction. The relationship between the data owner and the c data custodian determines the custodianship whilst the relationship between the data owner and the data steward uh ultimately determines stewardship. uh the data custodian supplies custodianship services for the data owner and they supply the data steward uh with access and storage services and then the data steward provides stewardship services for the owner. So ultimately you're seeing that the ownership is incredibly important in this triadic network. So it's critical for operationalizing data governance. However, these roles and the articulation of these roles and responsibilities aren't always immediately distinguishable in the context of indigenous data. So the authors extend upon this model to consider the implications um the implications upon the governance of indigenous data assets whereby in many cases Australian federal and state and territory governments presume all three roles of data owner custodian and stewardship. As a as an example, it's recognized that the characterization of indigenous data assets as archival records in particular uh postures contemporary govern government departments and agencies with a practical authority associated with the role of the data owner from historical actors. And these are the present day government departments and agencies that have now replaced those responsible for past injustices against indigenous um peoples. whilst at the same time avoiding other negative associations from those actors. We're going to take a little deep dive now into the word of sovereign. I don't know if you know that reference as a precondition to examining sovereignty in the context of data governance and the assertion of indigenous rights through data. It must not be presupposed that the concept of sovereignty retains a timeless, a fixed or even universal meaning. Rather, sovereignty is an historically contingent and contested concept whose meaning has evolved across diverse political, legal, theological and social context. Its enduring significance lies not in any singular definition but in the plurality of meanings that have become attached to it across time and space. This uh the conceptual fluidity provides a critical foundation upon which to examine the diverse meanings that have become attached to the term and the ways in which these meanings have been mobilized across time. The linguistic and conceptual reorientation of sovereignty within legal and political discourse, particularly in modernity, reinforces the need to treat sovereignty as an object of inquiry rather than an uncontested foundation. Consequently, this analysis is concerned not merely with what sovereignty means, but with how and why its meaning has varied across historical context and how these variations have shaped institutional arrangements, political authority, systems of government, uh, systems of governance, and relations of power. An ethmological and conceptual examination of sovereignty emphasizes that the term has never been static. Instead, its meaning has been continually negotiated, acknowledged, imposed, and reconstructed in response to changing historical conditions. Understanding this conceptual evolution is in essential to examining how sovereignty has been invoked, interpreted and contested, including within contemporary discourse, underscoring indigenous rights, self-determination, and data governance. It is therefore necessary to consider the historical genealogy through which sovereignty became associated with supreme authority uh territorial jurisdiction and political uh rule within the semantic history of sovereignty, power and rule um sorry within the semantic history of sovereignty. The word power and rule acquire increasingly hierarchical and also at times pjorative connotations. The term derives from late Latin supanis which means that that which is above emerging between uh the fifth and 8th centuries. So it's pretty early term. By the 11th and 12th centuries, forms such as sovereign or sovereign appeared in old French, denoting what was highest, supreme or chief. The term entered middle English by the 13th century and was well established by the late 1300s. Yet the modern doctrine of sovereignty as supreme and exclusive territorial authority emerged considerably later. The political conception is most commonly associated with the writings of Gene Bodton in the 16th century and also Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century and with the treating making processes surrounding the past of Westfallia in 1648. Together, these developments are seinal to the emergence of a state- centered conception of sovereignty grounded in territorial jurisdiction, supreme authority and political independence. These developments sit alongside earlier theological framings um of authority in biblical texts. Also, so while the term sovereign does not appear in the original Hebrew, Ara, Aramaic or um um coiny Greek texts, English translations frequently render divine authority through lord or king and at times sovereign lord. In these context, authority is genu generally articulated in relational and covenantal terms rather than as abstract centralized supremacy. So read dironically, this genealogy highlights sovereignty not as a stable foundation but as a contingent and shifting vocabulary of authority that has been progressively abstracted into the language of exclusive rule. This abstraction is often read as drawing upon theological conceptions of divine supremacy wherein an ordained authority, albeit ostensible, is attributed to a singular ultimate source beyond human contestation. In its political rearticulation, however, this context is transformed into a doctrine of human rule over human for which no intrinsic justification is self-evident outside its own institutional and historical formation. It is this discontinuity between theological models of absolute authority and their secular political deployment that renders sovereignty both functional yet contested, particularly where it has been embedded within colonial legal formations and doctrines of territorial sovereignty. This tension becomes particularly visible in indigenous contexts where authority is often understood through relationality, responsibilities and uh continuity with country and place rather than through claims of exclusive territorial sovereignty. Yet while the language of sovereignty retains significant political resonance, it is also conceptually and legally fraught in contemporary indigenous contexts. Uh in Australia, indigenous sovereignty is not formally recognized within the state legal frameworks and therefore lacks enforcable standing. This creates a fundamental tension. Indigenous communities may assert sovereignty over data, but without institutional mechanisms to uphold these claims, the practical exercise of authority over data remains constrained. The concept of sovereignty traditionally associated with supreme authority, independence and self-governance within the defined territorial boundaries has been a foundation of international law and political theory. In the West Valley model of nation states, sovereignty encompasses a territorial integrity, legal authority, and non-intervention principles. However, applying this concept to indigenous context particularly when addressing indigenous data prevents uh presents significant uh theoretical and practical challenges. The transposition of traditional sovereignty concepts to data governance encounters several challenges both epistemologically and ontologically. uh the digital nature of data transcends geographical boundaries complicating jurisdictional deline deline delineation. Further, the frequent traversal of um data across multiple legal jurisdictions problematizes the assertion of exclusive sovereign control. This complexity is particularly acute for indigenous peoples whose existence within nation states that claim overarching sovereignty create structural constraints on the assertion of data rights. In Australia, data are held by government authorized custodians under Australian law granting substantial rights to control to state institutions uh and departments as statutory bodies. Moreover, there is no explicit recognition of indigenous people, indigenous data or indigenous data rights currently within the data availability and transparency act of 2022. Beyond these structural comp uh constraints, sovereignty also carries a complex and contested historical legacy in indigenous contexts. Emerging from European political thought, it was instrumentalized through colonial expansion to justify the dispossession of indigenous lands and governance systems. The doctrine of discovery demonstrates this process, providing um a theological legal rationale for the assertion of colonial sovereignty over indigenous territories, effectively undermining and disavowing pre-existing indigenous authority. indigenous engagements with sovereignty contemporaneously may be understood now as both strategic but also paradoxical. So we have a a reclamation or expropriation of historically a a historically exclusionary concept in order to articulate rights within the very legal systems that once denied them. However, critics also argue that sovereignty may not align with indigenous worldviews that prioritize relationality, accountability, stewardship, and collective responsibility over hierarchical and territorial authority. And this point gives pause for reflection. I'm reminded of the words of Audrey Lord who is an African-American writer, professor, philosopher who said, "Survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular, and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. In this context, indigenous data sovereignty emerges as a strategic articulation of indigenous authority in relation to data. It provides a political and ethical vocabulary through which indigenous people can assert rights, responsibilities, and interests in data concerning their communities. Notwithstanding the constraints imposed by state legal frameworks. As such, it functions as a translation of indigenous aspirations through governance into terms legible with western legal and political systems though not always fully aligned with indigenous epistemologies or relational ontologies. And I think the key word of this presentation is relationality. Thus, indigenous data governance offers a complimentary and more operational framing. Rather than foregrounding abstract claims to supreme authority, it centers the practical management, control, and use of data. This approach is sufficiently flexible to accommodate diverse indigenous knowledge systems while enabling engagement with existing legal institutional frameworks because ultimately that is what we're up against. It aligns with principles of stewardship, responsibility, and collective decisionmaking and facilitates collaboration with governments, researchers, and cultural institutions while platforming indigenous control and cultural integrity. The distinction, however, is not merely semantic. Sovereignty tends to presuppose a bin a binary relationship with the state, either recognized or denied. Whereas governance is relational, it's iterative, and it's adaptable. It enables indigenous communities to negotiate authority over data in ways grounded in indigenous law, values, and relational worldviews while supporting engagement with external systems on indigenous terms. At this point, at this point, I wish to invoke the learnings from Professor Mary Graham, a Kumba Mary person and definitely one of our most revered critical theorists. It is through the ex uh it is through the explication of the relationalist ethos that Brig and Graham disconcert dominant western ways of thinking within relationalist political ordering. Relational autonomy is a way of of it's a way of being that sits between in the middle preserving one's dignity while staying in tension even amidst conflict or a fight. and thus in relation with others. The cultivation of survivalist tendencies and evolutionary political design over long periods of time have enabled Aboriginal civilizations to develop relationalist systems which support political stability and security. However, the effects of frontier violence and destruction, illegal expropriation of indigenous lands, displace displacement of indigenous peoples, and the imposition of European derived political authority are inestimable. It is circumstances like these which leave indigenous uh it's circumstances like these sorry which leave individuals struggling to consider how to restore and enact Aboriginal relational values and commitments when faced with contemporary colonial colonially derived asymmetries. Graeme elaborates upon an interplay between relationality and survivalism which she believes stems from socially produced and reinforced complexes of behaviors and attitudes. This is a particularly relevant vantage point uh from which we may consider the effectuation of indigenous lifeways within modernity. More so because Brig and Graham's argumentation articulates entrenched European social political complexes of hierarchy and violence as relics of survivalism which are now institutionalized in the notion of sovereignty as supreme authority over a given territory and polity. This is juxtaposed with Aboriginal political ordering where the authors argue the tensions and difficulties of human coexistence are managed relationally rather than through the imposition of a sovereign. Thus introduces the aboriginal socopolitical philosophy of autonomous regard. Graham's foundational underpinning that we become individual in the group establishes a millennial strength of Aboriginal peoples. Our capacity to negotiate through tension and conflict to an outcome uh however iterative and demanding of f of future negotiations down the track and depending on the circumstances within Aboriginal political ordering. Relationalism is argued to be a more powerful, a more appropriate and useful concept than notions of sovereignty as well as the exclusivity typically engendered by common European derived political thought and practice. Two entirely different worlds, black fellow, white fellow, predicate the complexes that many indigenous individuals and communities traverse continually, not necessarily by choice, but by the incessant conditions of settler colonialism, which now force engagement with European derived political terminologies. Indigenous people as the original owners and runners of country on the Australian continent embody an enduring and invaluable sovereignty that faces the de facto power of settler sovereignty. The notion of settler sovereignty existing de facto is not what I wish to context. Right? Rather my interest is to examine the foundational fragilities of this claim through scientific inquiry. and in doing so evaluating the legitimacy of settler sovereignty alongside concepts grounded in Aboriginal political ordering which are intrinsically connected to country and place. We know this for instance Bri and Graham observe and I love this part. The newcomer might say, "I come from a place where the word is sovereign." But the indigenous person might respond, "That is not a place. It is a story. Stories without places will pass like your time will pass." That resonates with me particularly with the with law embedded in country. Our law doesn't change. We belong to this place. So from this view, two forms of sovereignty coexist. However, autonomous regard and its equivalence to relationality, autonomy and proportionality in what the authors describe as a thoroughgoing relationalism transcends the categorical exclusivity by which European derived sovereignty usually conotes. Autonomous regard is a vehicle for pursuing this conceptual and practical work and thus for developing forms of political ordering, belonging and governance that are both bound with and appropriate to the Australian continent but also of wider relevance. Indigenous data governance does not replace sovereignty rather it operationalizes it. It provides mechanisms through which indigenous authority can be enacted in practice even in the absence of formal legal recognition. And I think that is the elephant in the room. While indigenous data sovereignty remains a vital political and ethical claim, data governance provides the institutional and procedural means through which that claim can be exercised in practice. The framework for the governance of indigenous data exemplifies practices such as data linkage in health contexts. Uh for example, linking Aboriginal community controlled health service data with Medicare data sets. Um and also to the reconfiguration of metadata systems within glam institutions to better reflect indigenous knowledge structures just to name a few. and we will unpack that uh within our framework workshops and I really am looking forward to seeing some of your own story uh particularly during those workshops uh and seeing how that fits into the framework or how rather how the framework can support the work the valuable work that you're already doing. So through mechanisms like these, indigenous data governance enables indigenous data futures to be actively shaped, managed and sustained in ways that reflect indigenous laws, values and aspirations. Galingin