Indigenous Expertise Research Articles

Māori Academic Challenges: Delivering Mātauranga Māori During COVID-19

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted academic educational programmes in universities across the world, including Aotearoa New Zealand. For Māori academics who implement mātauranga Māori as a pedagogy, it became theoretically and practically challenging teaching virtually and online. The Te Taha Tinana, of Te Whare Tapa Wha model, created by aDurie in 1984 (Health Navigator, 2022) regarding the four dimensions of well-being, focuses on the physical presence, physical embodiment, and physical behaviour. This could not be easily taught virtuality through a computer screen during COVID-19 lockdown. For Māori academics transitioning from teaching Mātauranga Māori in person to an online environment brought forth these challenges. The challenges re-emerged in August 2021 when New Zealand went into Level 4 lockdown overnight because of the new COVID-19 Delta Virus variant. In 2022, the Omicron variant caused many universities in Aotearoa New Zealand to continue their first semester teaching online. Mātauranga Māori is a body of knowledge exercised by Māori people in New Zealand. Sadler (2007) argues Mātauranga Māori was first invented by Māori when Pākehā (English people) arrived in New Zealand. He suggests Mātauranga Māori is a paradigm where Māori define the parameters. Royal (2009; 2012) claims this knowledge was brought to New Zealand by Polynesian ancestors and is an evolutionary continuum of knowledge that relates to encountering the world as Māori with the focus on improving humankind. Le Grice, Braun, and Wetherell (2017) state Mātauranga Māori incorporates theories, practices, and protocols that are bound to relationships, people, and places in a world that supports Māori ambitions. This knowledge, for me an Indigenous Māori academic, incorporates the physical and spiritual worlds embracing the energies of the universe handed down by our forefathers. This position paper discusses the pedagogical challenges encountered during COVID-19 Lockdown for Indigenous academics to continue delivering programmes requiring indigenous expertise and human contact. It explores: 1) the Covid 19 Educational Barriers; 2) Online Academic Challenges; 3) Managing Cultural Shifts; 4) Sustaining Indigenous Pedagogy. It asserts that Mātauranga Māori contributes to the growth of Indigenous knowledge on a world stage and the challenges indigenous academics encounter brought by a global pandemic.

An Instructor's Guide to Including Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the Undergraduate Biology Classroom.

Indigenous students are underrepresented in science, and the exclusion of Indigenous knowledge from Western education may be a contributor. Recently, Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers have called for a better integration of Indigenous knowledge systems into Western science. One suggestion from the literature is to integrate Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), or the diverse intimate knowledges and practices that relate to the environment that are commonly held by Indigenous peoples around the world, into our classrooms. However, this approach can be daunting and unfamiliar for undergraduate biology instructors, and they may be hesitant to attempt to include TEK in their classrooms. In this essay, we summarize practical suggestions and caution from the literature on how to include TEK in biology courses for instructors who are interested in increasing Indigenous student belonging using this approach. Suggestions include exploring other ways of knowing, teaching holistically, establishing a classroom culture of respect, explicitly including TEK, consulting Indigenous experts, incorporating Indigenous languages, and using other evidence-based teaching practices. Implementing these practices in biology classrooms may be messy, but engaging in this difficult process is important as we strive for more inclusivity in biology education. We end the essay with suggestions for future research.

Values and Practices to Strengthen Genetic Research Partnerships with Indigenous Communities.

Genetic datasets lack diversity and include very few data from Indigenous populations. Research models based on equitable partnership have the potential to increase Indigenous participation and have led to successful collaborations. We report here on a meeting of participants in four Indigenous community-university partnerships pursuing research on precision medicine. The goal of the meeting was to define values and practices that strengthen opportunities for genetic research. The group accorded the highest priority to developing trusting relationships, ensuring respect for Indigenous community authority, and pursuing research that has the potential to lead to community benefit. Supporting priorities included incorporation of Indigenous expertise in research planning, transparent communication, and development of community capacity, including capacity to participate in formulating research questions, informing research methodology, and leading research projects. Participants also noted the importance of attention to social determinants of health so that genetic contributors to health are evaluated in the appropriate context.

The contribution of Indigenous stewardship to an historical mixed-severity fire regime in British Columbia, Canada.

Indigenous land stewardship and mixed-severity fire regimes both promote landscape heterogeneity, and the relationship between them is an emerging area of research. In our study, we reconstructed the historical fire regime of Ne Sextsine, a 5900-ha dry, Douglas fir-dominated forest in the traditional territory of the T'exelc (Williams Lake First Nation) in British Columbia, Canada. Between 1550 and 1982CE, we found median fire intervals of 18years at the plot level and 4years at the study-site level. Ne Sextsine was characterized by an historical mixed-severity fire regime, dominated by frequent, low-severity fires as indicated by fire scars, with infrequent, mixed-severity fires indicated by cohorts. Differentiating low- from mixed-severity plots over time was key to understanding the drivers of the fire regime at Ne Sextsine. Low-severity plots were coincident with areas of highest use by the T'exelc, including winter village sites, summer fishing camps, and travel corridors. The high fire frequency in low-severity plots ceased in the 1870s, following the smallpox epidemic, the forced relocation of Indigenous peoples into small reserves, and the prohibition of Indigenous burning. In contrast, the mixed-severity plots were coincident with areas where forest resources, such as deer or certain berry species, were important. The high fire frequency in the mixed-severity plots continued until the 1920s when industrial-scale grazing and logging began, facilitated by the establishment of a nearby railway. T'exelc oral histories and archeological evidence at Ne Sextsine speak to varied land stewardship, reflected in the spatiotemporal complexity of low- and mixed-severity fire plots. Across Ne Sextsine, 63% of cohorts established and persisted in the absence of fire after colonial impacts beginning in the 1860s, resulting in a dense, homogeneous landscape that no longer supports T'exelc values and is more likely to burn at uncharacteristic high severities. This nuanced understanding of the Indigenous contribution to a mixed-severity fire regime is critical for advancing proactive fire mitigation that is ecoculturally relevant and guided by Indigenous expertise.

Challenges of Community-Based Rehabilitation as an Empowerment Tool for Rural People with Disabilities in Umguza District, Zimbabwe

The purpose of this study was to establish challenges that stakeholders face in implementing community-based rehabilitation for people with disabilities in one rural district of Zimbabwe. This was dependent on the realisation that there are notable disparities in the quality of life led by people with disabilities who reside in rural areas as compared to their counterparts in urban settings. An inclusive society that imparts independent living skills to all its members using locally available resources is desirable. This study employed the qualitative research design. Convenient sampling was used to select 1 ward councilor, 5 village heads, and 5 village health workers. Purposive sampling was used to select 32 caregivers (parents/guardians) and 20 persons with mild to moderate disabilities to participate in the study. Focus Group Discussions (FDGs) were conducted with caregivers and persons with disabilities. Face-to-face interviews were carried out with the village heads, village health workers, and the ward councilor. Data were analysed thematically. The findings of the study were that caregivers assumed greater responsibility for empowering and serving the needs of individuals with disabilities than other stakeholders. The study recommends that community-based rehabilitation programmes should be intensified in rural areas by utilising locally available resources and indigenous expertise to improve the functionality of people with disabilities within their settings.

Sovereign Entrepreneurs: Cherokee Small-Business Owners and the Making of Economic Sovereignty

Focusing on the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) and their homeland, the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina, Courtney Lewis’s Sovereign Entrepreneurs addresses a striking lack of ethnographic research on Native American small-business owners. More importantly, this monograph responds to prior scholarship that has overwhelmingly associated economic sovereignty and self-determination with large operations overseen by tribal governments, especially casino gaming. Lewis persuasively argues that small businesses play a crucial role in mitigating Indigenous economic precarity by lessening tribal governments’ administrative burdens and fostering economic diversification that has combatted the effects of a single-industry (tourism) market and allowed the EBCI to brave the economic downturn of the Great Recession.Lewis’s in-depth coverage of issues relating to Eastern Band entrepreneurs is the product of months of participant observation research among business owners, government officials, and classmates in an “Indianpreneurship” course; personal experience as a Cherokee small-business owner; and familiarity with comparative cases of Indigenous entrepreneurship. Her analysis at times surpasses the promises of her introduction. For example, though she contrasts her understanding of economic sovereignty with Kevin Bruyneel’s idea of a “third space” of sovereignty (13), much of her evidence speaks brilliantly to this concept. She highlights how land trusteeship and blood-quantum reckoning of citizenship devised to facilitate Native assimilation ultimately serve Eastern Band economic and cultural sovereignty by protecting national assets from outsiders and underwriting the cultural capital of Native space, even as the former forces some Cherokees off the Boundary in search of property, and the latter prevents children of exogamous marriages from inheriting businesses.Despite such nuanced analysis, Lewis could have engaged more deeply with the implications of the capitalist nature of entrepreneurship. In her first chapter, while acknowledging that Eastern Band entrepreneurs have often worked to redistribute wealth and support their community, she echoes Philip Deloria, Daniel Usner, and Alexandra Harmon in noting how Native small-business owners defy settler colonial myths that cast Indians as inauthentic for engaging with capitalism, accumulating wealth, or failing to conform to business models of “social entrepreneurship” (24). For the remainder of the study, though, she implicitly equates Native entrepreneurship with social entrepreneurship, as though all small-business owners have contributed equally to the politics of sovereignty regardless of their relative prioritization of profit.Ultimately, though unquestionably valuable for students of history, anthropology, and Native studies for demonstrating that tribal governments and casinos are not the be-all and end-all of modern sovereignty struggles, this book’s interpretive contribution is additive rather than transformative. Lewis provocatively calls into question the celebration of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act by such scholars as W. Dale Mason and Laurie Arnold by pointing out how the 1988 law leaves Native nations beholden to state governments and restricts the spending of gaming profits, and she points out many unique advantages of small businesses: economic diversification, support for casinos and the tourism sector, multiplier effects, community wealth creation, augmentation of the tribal tax base, retention of Indigenous expertise, and the psychological effects of Native success in business. Many of these benefits, though, are dependent on tribal government support, including loans (significant because trust lands cannot serve as collateral), casino-dividend payments that provide capital and off-season support, tax breaks to citizen business owners, training programs, and Chamber of Commerce publicity. Furthermore, the EBCI government itself plays important roles in economic diversification, as Lewis herself acknowledges in noting existing and proposed tribal investment in an indoor water park, a bank, and medicinal marijuana production, among many other tribally controlled avenues of revenue generation, particularly through casinos, to which she devotes perhaps more space than would be expected in a book on small businesses. Nevertheless, Lewis has done important work to balance the equation of economic sovereignty.

COVID-19, a blessing in disguise: the experience of a Nigerian radiotherapy engineer

The health technology sector of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is bedeviled by performance failures that make it a significant obstacle to effective patient healthcare interventions. The predominant factors behind the sector’s poor performance have been identified as (a) inadequately trained technical personnel and (b) the unserviceable condition of medical equipment. Past studies show that after adequate training, there is an increase in the proficiency of in-hospital biomedical engineers, but the studies have been limited to the maintenance job description of the engineers. We present a case study of the successful installation of sophisticated medical equipment by an in-hospital engineer to demonstrate that comprehensive training can also develop the installation expertise of local engineers. The installation, which is usually accomplished by the equipment manufacturer, was delegated to the trained in-hospital engineer due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the bulk of medical equipment in LMICs is imported, which has led to an over-dependence of their health sectors on non-indigenous technology to the detriment of local alternatives and know-how. The World Health Organization estimates that 7 out of 10 sophisticated medical equipment imported by LMICs are unserviceable due to the issue of compatibility and adaptability with the setting. Previous research focuses on equipment subsidy, frugal innovation, and health technology management to better adapt foreign equipment to the environment. Still, this paper explores the option of indigenous technology and expertise to provide in-country development of suitable and sustainable medical equipment.

What Do You Call an Indigenous Woman with a PhD in Law? Resisting the Subjugation of Indigenous Expertise in Legal Spheres

In this article, the author explores manifestations of ongoing anti-Indigenous racism and colonialism in the legal academy. She situates Indigenous education as a colonial project, providing a brief overview of Forced Assimilative Education regimes in Canada and the intergenerational fallout of the same. Discussions of trauma and ethno-stress experienced by Indigenous learners in post-secondary education generally flow into an analysis of the particularities of the lived experience of legal education. The author explores ongoing efforts towards the decolonization and Indigenization of education systems and the legal profession, and she proposes actions to resist the continued subjugation of Indigenous knowledge within the legal academy.

Indigenous Expertise as Cultural Expertise in the World Heritage Protective Framework

This paper focuses on the engagement of Indigenous peoples with the international legal framework which seeks to protect world heritage. Significant concerns have been raised as to the role which Indigenous expertise can play in this framework.There have been numerous criticisms regarding the Eurocentric nature of the framework, and concerns over its the decision-making processes, e.g. in respect of inscription of sites on the World Heritage List. All 3 of the UN mechanisms specific to Indigenous peoples (UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) have called on the World Heritage Committee, UNESCO and heritage advisory bodies to take remedial measures and to expand the role of Indigenous peoples in the protective framework. There have also been recommendations made as to how the World Heritage Committee, UNESCO and States can align the implementation of the World Heritage Convention with the principles and requirements of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. As part of the move to be more inclusive of Indigenous voices, an Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on World Heritage was established in 2017, however an Indigenous expertise deficit still remains within the world heritage framework. As cultural expertise is necessary to appreciate the context and background of cultural sites, and their status as ‘culture’, deserving of recognition under the world heritage framework, this paper addresses the role of Indigenous expertise as cultural expertise in the world heritage framework and underlines why Indigenous expertise is necessary in order to ensure that the framework is representative and valid.

From Resilient to Thriving: Policy Recommendations to Support Health and Well-being in the Arctic

In 2018 – 19, eight Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals from Canada, Greenland/Denmark, Sweden, and Alaska/United States came together to address research questions relevant to Arctic nations’ shared challenges and opportunities. Our work incorporated critical, community-based perspectives on Arctic health and well-being and promoted strengths-based approaches developed in partnership with Arctic communities. In this article we describe the group’s 16 action-oriented policy recommendations to support health and well-being in the Arctic in four thematic areas: 1) acknowledge and integrate Indigenous rights and knowledges, 2) implement meaningful action to address Indigenous determinants of health, 3) expand health-oriented monitoring and assessment programs, and 4) implement community-led, critical research approaches that focus on partnerships, reciprocity, adherence to ethical guidelines, and funding community-based research. Our recommendations are actionable guidelines for policy and research aimed at reducing inequities, supporting Indigenous expertise and existing knowledge, and promoting thriving communities in the Arctic.

The right to burn: barriers and opportunities for Indigenous-led fire stewardship in Canada

Indigenous fire stewardship enhances ecosystem diversity, assists with the management of complex resources, and reduces wildfire risk by lessening fuel loads. Although Indigenous Peoples have maintained fire stewardship practices for millennia and continue to be keepers of fire knowledge, significant barriers exist for re-engaging in cultural burning. Indigenous communities in Canada have unique vulnerabilities to large and high-intensity wildfires as they are predominately located in remote, forested regions and lack financial support at federal and provincial levels to mitigate wildfire risk. Therefore, it is critical to uphold Indigenous expertise in leading effective and socially just fire stewardship. In this perspective, we demonstrate the benefits of cultural burning and identify five key barriers to advancing Indigenous fire stewardship in Canada. We also provide calls to action to assist with reducing preconceptions and misinformation and focus on creating space and respect for different knowledges and experiences. Despite growing concerns over wildfire risk and agency-stated intentions to establish Indigenous Peoples as partners in wildfire management, power imbalances still exist. The future and coexistence with fire in Canada needs to be a shared responsibility and led by Indigenous Peoples within their territories.

Empowering Indigenous Knowledge in Deliberations on Gene Editing in the Wild.

Proposals to release genetically engineered organisms in the wild raise complex ethical issues related to their safe and equitable implementation. While there is broad agreement that community and public engagement is vital to decision-making in this context, more discussion is needed about who should be engaged in such activities and in what ways. This article identifies Indigenous peoples as key stakeholders in decisions about gene-editing in the wild and argues that engagement activities need not only include Indigenous peoples but also be designed, conducted, and analyzed in ways that confront longstanding power imbalances that dismiss Indigenous expertise. We offer specific recommendations to guide deliberative activities to not only be inclusive of Indigenous peoples but also to empower their diverse, situated knowledges. We call on those committed to the inclusive design of broad public deliberation to pursue strategies that shift dominant power dynamics to include Indigenous communities in more meaningful ways.

Implementation of Indigenous Knowledge on Local Spatial Management: A Case Study in Orchid Island (Lanyu), Taiwan

Spatial management consists of land property and land use management, both on land and in the ocean. From the perspective of ‘social-ecological systems’, local spatial management represented the resilience of adaptation that indigenous knowledge and environment change were interrelated. This study aims to extract critical components that contribute to the dynamic maintenance of the stability and sustainability of local spatial management. The indigenous knowledge of Yami people on Orchid Island was investigated as a case study to highlight how indigenous institutions functioned in a more suitable and adaptable way for local spatial management. Empirical data were collected by participatory mapping and an in-depth interview with indigenous experts. Differently from the official policy, the results show that the cultural-specific spatial regulations, including land ownership and land use, were strictly maintained with landscape structure and social organizations by the Yami indigenous institution. Local cultural spatial management with regulated and comprehensive institutions could cope with challenges immediately and dynamically, and enhance resilience more than official institutions that are simplified and controlled by the state. It is argued that spatial regulations, landscape structure, and social organizations from indigenous knowledge were recommended to be introduced into official spatial management institutions, to validate the values of indigenous knowledge and improve the resilience of local spatial management.

Building Global Indigenous Media Networks: Envisioning Sustainable and Regenerative Futures around Indigenous Peoples’ Meaningful Representation

Asserting the right to meaningful representation, challenging the epistemological and methodological expansion of global corporate capitalism and its impacts on Indigenous Peoples’ territories and cultures, aligns with the implementation of global treaties and conventions that are part of key international laws regarding issues of climate change, biodiversity conservation, education, global health, human rights, and sustainable development. Indigenous Peoples have been consistently excluded from nation state visions of modernity and development, which continues to limit their full participation in global sustainable development initiatives and their meaningful representation therein. Increasing the visibility of this struggle is imperative for Indigenous Peoples, particularly around the strategic areas in which the implementation of global sustainable development treaties, policies, and goals continues to affect their rights. This article inquires whether Indigenous Peoples’ emancipatory appropriation of media means from a transnational perspective that breaks their regional enclosure can contribute to decolonize the world. More specifically, it questions how a new Indigenous global media network would contribute to decolonize the relations between Indigenous Peoples and nation states. A wider mapping of Indigeneity that decolonizes sustainable development becomes critical in order to formally document the efforts of Indigenous Peoples to reconstruct and restore their epistemic and material relations. This article questions how an Indigenous global media network around new nexus research can benefit Indigenous Peoples, and make visible the incorporation of the recommendations and principles from international law emanated from the self-determined voices of Indigenous leaders, experts, and policy makers to decolonize global sustainable development goals.

Kundige inlanders - Indigenous Contributions to Jacob Breyne's (1637-1697) Work.

During the seventeenth century, the Dutch East India Company employees often made it their task to collect rare exotic plants in the colonies that reachlied the botanical gardens in their native country and from there, the rest of the world. One of them was Willem ten Rhijne, a doctor and botanist, who acquired plants not only for the garden in Amsterdam but also for the scientist Jacob Breyne, a citizen of Gdańsk. A fracture of their correspondence is kept in the Gotha research library, encompassing five letters from Ten Rhijne, written between 1680 and 1686. Those documents draw attention to the titular kundige inlanders, indigenous experts on botany. Analyzing these documents, this article argues that indigenous scientific systems influenced the works of Breyne to a retraceable extent but also emphasizes that their impact was heavily mediated by his and Ten Rhijne's understanding of themselves as European scientists and the latter's association with the company.

Mining Language: Racial Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge, and Colonial Metallurgy in the Early Modern Iberian World

Mining Language: Racial Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge, and Colonial Metallurgy in the Early Modern Iberian World

MAKNA EKSISTENSI LEUIT, SAUNG LISUNG, DAN GOAH DI SUNDA KASEPUHAN CIPTAGELAR DALAM MENJAGA KETAHANAN PANGAN

The traditional Sunda Kasepuhan Ciptagelar community is considered to have achieved food independence because each citizen has sufficient food supplies for the next few years. This community has rules related to food processing, such as storing rice in leuit (barn), pounding rice in saung lisung, and cooking rice in goah (cooking area) according to the teachings of their ancestors (tatali paranti karuhun) and the rules that bind them (tilu sapamilu). The purpose of this study was to see the relationship between the use of leuit, saung lisung, and goah by the community with their success in managing food. So this study is an ethnographic study using qualitative methods with data obtained from field observations, interviews with indigenous experts and local residents, and literature data. The data were analyzed using the theory of the meaning of the environment and architecture of Amos Rapoport, where understanding the meaning of the environment is important so that the physical environment such as buildings can be identified functionally, the value and meaning of their existence. This theory is supported by Edward Relph's theory of space and distance, which states that space has a unique quality where space is able to "command", focus human intentions, experiences, and actions spatially. This study also uses the elements of tatali paranti karuhun and tilu sapamilu to understand the meaning of existence from the perspective of the Sundanese Kasepuhan Ciptagelar community. The results of the study found that each process of rice processing in leuit, saung lisung, and goah became a complete unit and had to be carried out according to ancestral teachings which could not be replaced by modern technology. So that the three buildings are integrated, where the rules for storing rice, calculating when and how much rice is pounded, and the amount of cooking rice are fixed rules. The existence of permanent regulations on paranti karuhun and tilu sapamilu makes leuit, saung lisung, and goah a social institution for the people of Kasepuhan Ciptagelar in terms of food. This makes this community very careful in calculating daily food needs so that it is not excess or lacking and with it this community is able to manage food properly to achieve food sovereignty.

Promoting the 8th International Society for Physical Activity and Health Congress: Engaging Indigenous Ways of Understanding

Background: The International Society for Physical Activity and Health (ISPAH) Congress strives to advance knowledge of the benefits of physical activity for optimal health and well-being across the lifespan. The integration of Indigenous perspectives along with western worldviews promotes inclusive and culturally relevant information that empowers communities across the globe. Purpose: This project focused on increasing Indigenous participation for ISPAH 2021 and investigates the methods used and the outcomes of promoting Indigenous participation at the ISPAH Congress. Methods: Indigenous community leaders in health and physical activity were sent letters of invitation to participate and share their knowledge at ISPAH 2021. Six video vignettes were created to further enhance the promotion and knowledge of ISPAH 2021 in Indigenous communities. Results: The creation of promotional video vignettes, knowledge exchange between western and Indigenous experts, and the promotion of health and wellness initiatives can elicit interest and participation from Indigenous community members. Events that promote the development of health and wellness initiatives can enable greater opportunities for sharing and practicing Indigenous knowledge. Conclusion: The inclusion of Indigenous leaders can increase awareness and understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing, facilitating knowledge exchange between Western and Indigenous perspectives in health and physical activity.

Measurement of expressive vocabulary in multilingual children using the dual-Focus approach method for test development

ABSTRACT Vocabulary tests administered on multilingual populations should take into account the unique linguistic and cultural makeup of the population by adopting test development methods that allow responses in several languages. Our aims were to develop a picture-naming test for multilingual Lebanese school-age children (L1: Lebanese, L2: French and/or English) using the dual-focus approach for test development in order to obtain test items in several languages simultaneously and examine sources of variability in performance across gender, age, and type of schooling. The test compiled pictures with high cultural familiarity, high name agreement, an age of acquisition between 3 and 9 years, and varying frequency of use based on the ratings of 8 indigenous Lebanese experts on the test content. The test was administered to 74 multilingual Lebanese children aged 3 to 9 years. Results showed that older age, studying at a private school and being female contributed to better test performance, although gender was not a significant variable when inserted in a regression model. Psychometric properties of the test revealed excellent levels of internal reliability, good item parameters and sources of validity. This study delineates a method of test construction that accommodates to multilingual individuals in a resource-limited setting.

Arctic Observing Summit 2020: Conference Statement and Call to Action

The Arctic Summit (AOS) is a biennial event convened as part of the Sustaining Arctic Networks (SAON) initiative to guide the design, coordination, and long-term operation of an international network of observing systems that improves our understanding of and response to Arctic change. The 5th AOS was set to take place in Akureyri, Iceland under the theme of Observing for Action. Given the circumstances introduced by the coronavirus disease 2019, the Summit was transformed into an online forum, drawing over 350 participants from 28 countries, including more than 40 Indigenous experts and representatives of Indigenous peoples and organizations. Here, Murray et al summarize the main conclusions of the summit and the calls to action from the participants.