Hailey Maria Salazar
Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge (ITECK) has sustained biodiverse ecosystems for millennia. In the current technological landscape, the collection and digitization of these knowledges may create new vulnerabilities to appropriation and privatization of life. The Regenerative Relations Initiative (RRI), stewarded by Copyleft Cultivars, a nonprofit organization, is focused on protecting biodiversity, revitalizing traditional agricultural practices, and advancing land stewardship, food sovereignty, and data sovereignty through Indigenous-led regenerative practices. RRI aims to respond to this challenge by centering Indigenous self-determination in how AI agricultural systems are designed, implemented, and governed. By developing community-specific data sovereignty protocols that protect both the digital representations of traditional knowledges and the plant relatives that embody generations of wisdom and stewardship, this initiative represents a deliberate approach to walking forward while looking back to the knowledges that have sustained us since time immemorial by drawing on Indigenous sciences and technologies to inform contemporary data governance frameworks. This presentation will explore how Indigenous Knowledge Systems and community deliberation may inform contemporary data governance decisions, examine the technical and ethical dimensions of protecting knowledges in digital ecosystems, and discuss emerging frameworks for ensuring that AI technologies serve Indigenous self determination rather than replicating colonial patterns of knowledge extraction and resource appropriation. The RRI is open to dialogue with Indigenous communities, organizations, and tribal nations interested in developing data sovereignty protocols for ITECK within AI education systems.