Indigenous data sovereignty
Artwork by ledger artist John Isaiah Pepion (Blackfeet) for the Urban Indian Health Institute’s Decolonizing Data initiative
We’ll be sharing a few data equity tools at the Natives In Tech Conference 2025.
Register here for the
Natives In Tech Conference
Oct 14-16 2025
Here below are some relevant work and resources on indigenous data (not a comprehensive list nor one recommended over another).
“To us, data isn’t just numbers. It’s our relatives, it’s our stories, it’s our history, and it’s our future” –Ariel Richer
Decolonizing Data video
More than a dozen leaders share their perspectives as an introduction to indigenous data and colonizer data in this recording for the 2024 Natives in Tech Conference.
Jesse Grey Eagle (Oglala Lakota), conference presenter
Author, Indigenous Systems Thinking, and Founder, Indigenous Futures OS
Abigail Echo-Hawk, MA (Pawnee), conference advisor
Director, Urban Indian Health Institute; Executive Vice President, Seattle Indian Health Board
Urban Indian Health Institute
UIHI, a division of the Seattle Indian Health Board, has created a wealth of tools and resources for “decolonizing data, for Indigenous people, by Indigenous people,” including their Decolonize Data Toolkit, a Data Dashboard, Best Practices for American Indian and Alaska Native Data Collection, technical assistance and grants.
“Indigenous data sovereignty is the right of each Tribe to exercise sovereignty over the collection, ownership, and application of data that aligns Indigenous customs, values, and ways of knowing” –Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Toward an agenda
Affirming Indigenous data sovereignty in collaborative wildlife conservation in the era of open data, Oct 2025
Erin Tattersall, Warren Cardinal-McTeague, Isla Myers-Smith, Deborah A. Jenkins, Andrew Cole Burton
The Power of Storytelling in Medicine, Sept 2025
Suzette Brewer (Cherokee Nation)
Data genocide, as defined by UIHI, is “the elimination of Indigenous people in data resulting in the non-fulfillment of treaty and trust responsibilities due to ‘lack’ of data on urban and rural tribal communities.”
How Should Epidemiologists Respond to Data Genocide?, January 2025
Abigail Echo-Hawk, MA, Sofia Locklear, PhD, Sarah McNally, MPH, Lannesse Baker, MPH, and Sacena Gurule, MPA
Taking care of knowledge, taking care of salmon: towards Indigenous data sovereignty in an era of climate change and cumulative effects, May 2024
S.E. Cannon, J.W. Moore, M.S. Adams, T. Degai, E. Griggs, J. Griggs, T. Marsden, A.J. Reid, N. Sainsbury, K.M. Stirling, Axdii A. Yee S. Barnes, R. Benson, D. Burrows, Gala'game R. Chamberlin, B. Charley, D. Dick, A.T. Duncan, Kung Kayangas M. Liddle, M. Paul, N. Paul Prince, C. Scotnicki, K. Speck, J. Squakin, C. Van Der Minne, J. Walkus, K. West, Kii'iljuus B. Wilson , The Indigenous Data Sovereignty Workshop Collective
Decolonizing Data for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, February 2024
Tiana Teter (Koyukon Athabascan)
‘Data genocide’ drives epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous people, Aug 2023
The American Bar Association
The Dark Side of Data: The Underrepresentation of Indigenous Communities, May 2023
Jesse Grey Eagle
Decolonizing Data, 2023
Autumn Asher BlackDeer, PhD, MSW