91快色

Dr. Sabrina Peri膰, PhD, has received a $25,000 award from SSHRC Partnership Engage 鈥� the maximum grant under the program 鈥� to help design a community-based data sharing protocol for a long-running study into wildlife changes on the traditional territories of the Kluane First Nation, in southwestern Yukon.

Peri膰, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology in the Faculty of Arts, is involved in the D盲n Keyi Renewable Resources Council鈥檚 (DKRRC鈥檚) Wildlife Observations Project (WOP). The Yukon project started in 2013 and is collecting one of the largest community-based datasets into environmental change in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. It documents change in vegetation, wildlife migrations and waterways, and includes interviews, wildlife journals and camera trapping.

鈥淚t's been an incredible resource for tracking climate change in the North,鈥� says Peri膰. 鈥淐ircumpolar regions are the fastest changing regions in the world, and they鈥檝e become a canary in the coal mine for how climate change is going to affect the rest of the world.鈥� As more scientific knowledge is incorporated into broader climate change policy, more organizations are asking for Northern data, including DKRRC鈥檚 WOP.

Yet, there is also 鈥渁n increasing call鈥� from Indigenous and northern communities to 鈥渁ssert authority over their own data,鈥� says Peri膰. Communities want to ensure they have access to their own information and that the data is not misused.

鈥淭here's been a big push to develop data governance protocol that respect Indigenous approaches to data and Indigenous rights,鈥� she says.

One of the reasons why data sovereignty is so important is because it's traditionally been denied to Northern communities.

Southern scholars have long researched changing Arctic and sub-Arctic environments. 鈥淪ettler researchers have come and done research in the North and taken this data away, and communities never see them, they aren't able to use this data, it doesn't become actionable to them in decision-making around policy,鈥� says Peri膰. 鈥淎 lot of this is due to the ongoing settler colonial structure of universities and the way that most research is done.鈥�

Peri膰 will spend a year working with the DKRRC on a community-based research project about data sovereignty of local and traditional knowledge. Jointly, they will engage in further research, host workshops and create the data sharing protocol.

鈥淎 lot of the research is going to be focused on seeing what community members want and realizing that a lot of management protocols that are used in the South are really inappropriate in the North,鈥� she says. Storing large data sets in the cloud, for example, is not ideal for the North with slow, satellite-based internet.

Further, people in the North don鈥檛 always want their data online for public use. 鈥淎 lot of Northern communities have a problem with that,鈥� she says. 鈥淧eople have misused data that was taken from them, so they don't necessarily want all this data to be available online for just anyone to analyze.鈥�

When the data protocol is developed, it could be used in other Northern and Indigenous communities around the world, places with their own distinct needs. 鈥淐ommunities could look to one another for a data governance model,鈥� says Peri膰, 鈥渞ather than to other Southern or Western institutions that may not be appropriate at all for a Northern setting.鈥�

ii鈥� taa鈥檖oh鈥檛o鈥檖, the 91快色鈥檚 Indigenous Strategy, is a commitment to deep evolutionary transformation by reimagining ways of knowing, doing, connecting, and being. Walking parallel paths together, 鈥榠n a good way,鈥� U91快色 is moving toward genuine reconciliation and Indigenization.