An indigenous geographic position on producing data in colonial conditions

Abstract

AbstractIn a historically colonial field, what are the possibilities of a geography informed by Indigenous and Anti‐Colonial ethics and onto‐epistemologies? This article suggests engaging in a critical study of data from an Indigenous geographic standpoint, with a focus on imperialism and colonialism in settler nation‐states. I begin by emphasizing the pervasive and long‐standing imposition of geographical data collection in Indigenous life, naming the binds of engaging with the production of data for and with colonial institutions. I then review prominent spatial analytics within critical Indigenous studies, Indigenous geography, and aligned Anti‐Colonial geography, including Indigenous place‐based knowledge and onto‐epistemologies, (racialized) colonial dispossession, sovereignty and recognition, environmental colonialism, and mapping and cartography. Last, I suggest that studies of colonial data dynamics and Indigenous data production strengthen Indigenous and Anti‐Colonial geographies by emphasizing the co‐constitution of good relations and good data. Future research avenues include the need to push beyond the geo‐historical bounds of the category settler colonial, and to build co‐rejections of racial empire with other fields of study including Black, Queer, and Feminist geographies.