In this episode of Warm Regards, we talk to two Indigenous scientists about traditional ecological knowledges and their relationship with climate and environmental data. In talking with James Rattling Leaf, Sr. and Krystal Tsosie, Jacquelyn and Ramesh discuss how these ideas can challenge Western notions of relationality and ownership, how they have been subject to the long history of extraction and exploitation of Indigenous communities (practices which continue today), but also how Indigenous scientists and activists link sovereignty over data created by and for Indigenous people to larger sovereignty demands.
You can find a transcript of this episode on our Medium page:
https://ourwarmregards.medium.com/indigenous-climate-knowledges-and-data-sovereignty-4fc756b9476e
James Rattling Leaf, Sr.
North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center
https://nccasc.colorado.edu
Rising Voices:
https://risingvoices.ucar.edu
GEO Indigenous Alliance
https://earthobservations.org/indigenoussummit2020.php
Oceti Sakowin
http://aktalakota.stjo.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8309
https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/plains-belonging-nation/oceti-sakowin
Tribal Climate Leaders Program:
https://cires.colorado.edu/news/tribal-climate-leaders-program
Krystal Tsosie
You can follow her on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/kstsosie
Native BioData Consortium
https://nativebio.org
United States Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network
https://usindigenousdata.org
CARE Principle for Indigenous Data Governance
https://datascience.codata.org/articles/10.5334/dsj-2020-043/
Finally, you can listen to Good Fire at their website or wherever you get your podcasts:
https://yourforestpodcast.com/good-fire-podcast
Further reading:
Several of Kyle Whyte’s papers informed out team’s understanding as we prepared this episode:
Indigenous Climate Change Studies: Indigenous Futures, Decolonizing the Anthropocene
https://kylewhyte.marcom.cal.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2018/07/IndigenousClimateChangeStudies.pdf
Indigenous Lessons About Sustainability Are Not Just “For All Humanity”
https://kylewhyte.marcom.cal.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2018/07/IndigenousInsightsintoSustainabilityarenotforAllHumanity.pdf
Too late for indigenous climate justice: Ecological and relational tipping points
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wcc.603
Dominique M. David-Chavez and Michael C. Gavin, A global assessment of Indigenous community engagement in climate research.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aaf300/meta
Eve Tuck & Wayne Wang 2012, Decolonization is not a metaphor
https://clas.osu.edu/sites/clas.osu.edu/files/Tuck%20and%20Yang%202012%20Decolonization%20is%20not%20a%20metaphor.pdf
For more on how climate change impacts Shishmaref, see Elizabeth Marino’s book, Fierce Climate Sacred Ground:
https://www.alaska.edu/uapress/browse/detail/index.xml?id=528
Scott Kalafatis et al., Ensuring climate services serve society: examining tribes’ collaborations with climate scientists using a capability approach:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-019-02429-2
Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals
http://www7.nau.edu/itep/main
This Teen Vogue article is a nice introduction to land acknowledgements
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/indigenous-land-acknowledgement-explained
For more on the Land Back movement:
https://landback.org/
This Flash Forward episode (with lots of links for further reading)
https://www.flashforwardpod.com/2020/11/10/land-back/
The 2Land2Furious project by the Métis in Space podcast creators
https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/back-2-the-land-2land-2furious
http://www.metisinspace.com
Jacquelyn would especially like to thank Katherine Crocker, who has deeply influenced her own thinking about Indigenous sovereignty and ethical partnerships. Check out her essay, Cricket Egg Stories: http://carte-blanche.org/hiyoge-owisisi-tanga-ita-cricket-egg-stories/