October 11, 2021
Data tabs should help iwi track tribal knowledge
To mark Indigenous People’s Day in the United States, New York University has announced a collaborative project with the University of Waikato to expand tools which protect Indigenous communities’ rights over their own knowledge and data.
A two-year grant of $750,000 from the Andrew W Mellon Foundation will expand work with Māori communities in New Zealand and other first nation communities in the United States, Canada, and Australia.
The Enrich project allows indigenous communities to put traditional knowledge and biocultural labels on their data so they may benefit from its use.
The project is led in Aotearoa by Maui Hudson, director of Waikato’s Te Kotahi Research Institute, and in New York by legal scholar Jane Anderson.
The group has been supporting digital repatriation of material from Ngā Taonga, the National Sound and Film Archive, to the people of Whakatōhea, and is also working with Ngāti Maru in Taranaki and Te Roroa in Hokianga to recognise iwi rights to mātauranga Māori and genetic resources.