5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Universities are powerful institutions of knowledge generation and data production. They also have fraught histories of extracting, exploiting and misusing Indigenous data. Emerging data technologies have enabled universities globally to substantially increase the volume and breadth of Indigenous data that they hold, and their researchers are often required to lodge Indigenous data in university-controlled, centralized data storage repositories. While these obligations are justified under the broad principle that data generated through publicly funded research should be openly accessible, this rationale, and the actions taken by educational institutions to enact it, are in direct conflict with the principles of Indigenous Data Sovereignty. The result is that Indigenous Peoples are being further alienated from access to, or ownership of, their own data, leaving these institutions open to claims of complicity in the ongoing structure of colonisation. This invited session brings together Indigenous academics involved in the Summit on Indigenous Data Governance and Universities held in Melbourne in 2023 to share what they are doing to influence Universities to implement Indigenous data governance, and to support Indigenous sovereignty over Indigenous data, including data repatriation back to communities.