Indigenous Data Inclusion and the Colonial Politics of Recognition

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. disproportionately harmed Indigenous peoples and brought long-standing calls for increased data collection and data accuracy about systemic issues in Indian Country to national attention. Advocates believe data can help support Indigenous people and address past harms. However, we explore two consequences that arise from data inclusion within the context of Indigenous peoples’ relationship with the U.S. colonial state. First, we assert that data demands often lack direct collaboration with Indigenous nations and agencies, resulting in data inclusion that reifies and legitimates exploitative U.S. colonial structures of power and domination. Second, the articulation of Indigenous life using statistical data analyses risks solidifying the racialization and categorization of Indigenous people in ways that obviate their political authority and self-determination by rendering them as populations rather than polities. We conclude by offering two Indigenous-led examples of data collection and data communication that refuse Indigenous erasure and advance Indigenous futures. These represent an invitation for future scholarship to actively consider the multiple ways data can be used and refused in efforts to end U.S. colonial domination, especially given that data has long been used to pathologize and criminalize Indigenous peoples.