First Peoples’ Digital Data Strategies: Decolonization and Sovereignty

Karine Gentelet, Abeona-ENS-OBVIA Chair on AI and Social Justice, and Alexandra Bahary-Dionne, PhD student at the University of Ottawa, co-authored the following article published in the journal tic&société, Vol.15, No.1, on the theme “Algorithmic Logic and Societal Reproduction: Social Mediations Seized by Algorithms”:

First Peoples’ Digital Data Strategies: Decolonization and Sovereignty

In this article, the authors propose a reflection from an allied position on the issues of informational decolonization and data sovereignty. Considering the increasing use of digital data by a plurality of actors, we seek to contribute to reflections on digital governance by integrating certain informational issues faced by First Peoples in Canada. We then propose various observations that support the thesis that First Peoples’ digital strategies, based on traditional epistemologies and certain structures of informational control, have the potential to implement a decolonized governance of the digital data that concerns them. These strategies would then testify to the digital agentivity of First Peoples.