ROUND TABLE 13 | DAY 2 | 9:30am-10:30am | BALLROOM H

| BETH Y. DAVIS, Graduate Research Assistant and MS Student at the University of Maine &

| JENNIFER SMITH-MAYO, Graduate Research Assistant and PhD Candidate at the University of Maine 

This presentation shares collaborative experiences from ongoing efforts between the Maine-eDNA (environmental DNA) project, Wabanaki Tribal Nations in what is now Maine, Local Contexts, and the ENRICH Cultural Institutions Network. Maine-eDNA participants have ongoing shared interests and commitments to engage in ethical research and data sharing practices. Maine-eDNA researchers are collaborating with Wabanaki Tribal Nations in collaboration with their Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPOs) to mobilize Biocultural (BC) Notices and Labels, a decolonizing approach to data management that shifts toward responsible research practices. BC Notices and Labels are innovative and extralegal interventions that provide the local and research communities with structured ways to acknowledge, respect, and operationalize FAIR and CARE principles of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in data. BC Notices and Labels highlight the connections between biocultural, spiritual, relational, and scientific ways of knowing. They draw awareness to the entangled and messy process of doing science in Indigenous homelands, and can attend to past, current, and future research projects. These pathways elevate traditional knowledge and Indigenous data sovereignty, and move settler-founded institutional research efforts towards more responsible and ethical data collection, sharing, and management practices. We discuss multiple dimensions of engagement with BC Notices and Labels including power dynamics, differences in academic praxes (the different ways research is understood, conducted, taught, and practiced), accessible database technology, and the graduate student perspective. We hope to create a conversation with other conference members and generate ideas to improve practices and continue this work.