Indigenous Data Sovereignty, governance and the link to Indigenous policy

This chapter argues that Indigenous data in modern nation states are the product of how that nation state “sees” its Indigenous population (as per Scott 1998). Data generated as the evidence base for Indigenous-related policy, cross-nationally, results in a remarkably similar statistical narrative of Indigenous deficit. Simultaneously emphasizing and disguising Indigenous difference, these data can be directly implicated into the long, similar, record of Indigenous policy failure found in the colonizing nation states. Deficit-based data also exclude the production of data needed by Indigenous Peoples for nation rebuilding. The Indigenous response to this data/policy problem is Indigenous Data Sovereignty a global advocacy movement and its activating mechanism Indigenous data governance.