How are we supporting Indigenous data stewards?: Aligning Indigenous and federal environmental science research ethics guidelines

Abstract:

For decades, government agency researchers have been conducting studies on Tribal lands with little accountability regarding how that research impacts those communities. Tribal communities are working to restore inherent rights over their knowledge systems, languages, and practices after centuries of suppression and genocide driven by settler colonial agendas. In the U.S., Indigenous communities recognize an ongoing need for improving access to data that reflects the needs, values, and priorities of their communities, rather than externally driven agendas. Scientific forums are also increasingly recognizing the importance of Indigenous knowledge systems for addressing the complex and dynamic challenges we face today, such as extreme climate variability, and social and environmental justice issues. Our main research objective focuses on answering two critical questions: 1) What factors and indicators represent effective and ethically responsible research practice in Indigenous communities? and 2) To what extent are these factors and indicators represented in codes of ethics and responsible research guidelines that U.S. federal agencies currently provide to tribal, agency, and academic researchers? We are centering this study around existing Indigenous ethics frameworks/guidelines, such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the International Society of Ethnobiology Code of Ethics, to build our analytical framework that we will then apply to federal research guidelines for Indigenous environmental research. We will use our findings to help communicate how agencies can refine their guidelines to ensure the ethical responsibility of researchers and to support capacity for Indigenous data stewards.