Creating Sovereign Indigenous Data in Australia: A Guide for Indigenous Communities

Indigenous communities and nations in Australia have a right to data and information to determine their priorities, to make decisions and to monitor progress against their priorities. Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDSov), offers a philosophical approach, while Indigenous Data Governance (IDGov) offers practical considerations to achieving IDSov (Taylor & Kukutai, 2016). To date there are few community driven IDSov projects have defined and applied IDSov principles in a way that operationalises Indigenous nation (re) building. This presentation outlines the development of a practical guide for Indigenous nations and communities in Australia to use in their own data journey. It outlines four key stages of the Indigenous nation/community data project of (1) Governance, agreement making and policy, (2) Priority setting, (3) Data design, collection, compilation, management and reporting, and (4) Partnerships and translation.

We will outline the elements of each stage, and provide an applied example from an Indigenous community in Australia identifying key lessons learned. The model and guide are presented in a way so other Indigenous communities can pick it up and implement it within their respective communities/organisations.