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Towards Haudenosaunee research sovereignty: Investing in local research and training to support community developmentThe article emphasizes the importance of Indigenous Research Governance in Six Nations of the Grand River, addressing the harmful historical effects of academic research on Indigenous Peoples and advocating for structural changes that promote Indigenous data sovereignty and community ownership of research. In both Canada and the United States, academic research has long been part of the colonial project (Hodge, 2012; Williams et al., 2020). The impact research has had on Indigenous Peoples has resulted in a legacy of deep mistrust and negative perception of research by many Indigenous communities (Garrison et al., 2023). Indigenous scholars and leaders who have advocated for repairing this relationship have led major transformations away from the way in which research has traditionally been approached and administered. Most recent paradigm and policy shifts seek to support the establishment of self-determined Indigenous Research Governance (Garba et al., 2023; Morton et al., 2017), which encapsulates many interconnected key concepts, including Indigenous data sovereignty (Schnarch, 2004; Kukutai & Taylor, 2016; Cannon et al., 2024), Indigenous research ethics (Castellano, 2004; Kuhn et al., 2020; Fournier et al., 2023), Indigenous/ decolonizing methodologies (Kovach, 2009; Smith, 2021), and Indigenous epistemologies (McGregor et al., 2010; Karanja, 2019).
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Indigenous Fire Data Sovereignty: Applying Indigenous Data Sovereignty Principles to Fire Research
Indigenous Peoples have been stewarding lands with fire for ecosystem improvement since time immemorial. These stewardship practices are part and parcel of the ways in which Indigenous Peoples have long recorded and protected knowledge through our cultural transmission practices, such as oral histories. In short, our Peoples have always been data gatherers, and as this article presents, we are also fire data gatherers and stewards. Given the growing interest in fire research with Indigenous communities, there is an opportunity for guidance on data collection conducted equitably and responsibly with Indigenous Peoples. This Special Issue of Fire presents fire research approaches and data harvesting practices with Indigenous communities as we “Reimagine the Future of Living and Working with Fire”. Specifically, the article provides future-thinking practices that can achieve equitable, sustainable, and just outcomes with and for stakeholders and rightholders (the preferred term Indigenous Peoples use in partnerships with academics, agencies, and NGOs). This research takes from the following key documents to propose an “Indigenous fire data sovereignty” (IFDS) framework: (1) Articles declared in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as identified by the author and specified in Indigenous-led and allied Indigenous fire research in Australia, Canada, and the U.S.; (2) recommendations specific to cultural fire policy and calls for research in the 2023 Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission report; (3) research and data barriers and opportunities produced in the 2024 Good Fire II report; and threads from (4) the Indigenous Fire Management conceptual model. This paper brings together recommendations on Indigenous data sovereignty, which are principles developed by Indigenous researchers for the protection, dissemination, and stewardship of data collected from Tribal/Nation/Aboriginal/First Nations Indigenous communities. The proposed IFDS framework also identifies potential challenges to Indigenous fire data sovereignty. By doing so, the framework serves as an apparatus to deploy fire research and data harvesting practices that are culturally informed, responsible, and ethically demonstrated. The article concludes with specific calls to action for academics and researchers, allies, fire managers, policymakers, and Indigenous Peoples to consider in exercising Indigenous fire data sovereignty and applying Indigenous data sovereignty principles to fire research.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2335568
- PAR ID:
- 10564934
- Publisher / Repository:
- MDPI
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Fire
- Volume:
- 7
- Issue:
- 7
- ISSN:
- 2571-6255
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 222
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/fire7070222
