Jocelyn Chee Santiago
One of Genomics’ most important duties is to understand the complexity of what makes life life. To accomplish this duty, the field relies on the large-scale collection and sharing of data through open access among universities and other institutions. Many of these datasets are gathered and generated through fieldwork in Indigenous territories, raising ethical and social concerns in regards to consent, the cultural pertinence of applications and the epistemic assumptions guiding those projects. The potential of biodiversity genomics data scales to other fields such as synthetic biology, as genomic sequences are often considered raw material for scientific innovations. This process often enables the decoupling of data from location, individuals, and consent, bypassing the rights of Indigenous Peoples and falling onto the risk of perpetuating biocolonialism. Therefore, complex issues about the origin of data, the relationship between land, knowledge systems and our non-human kinship arise. These issues are central to ongoing discussions on Indigenous Data Sovereignty, which is the acknowledgment and recognition of Indigenous peoples’ and communities’ rights to exercise authority, agency, and autonomy over their stewarded genetically-associated knowledges and data. We are reporting findings from qualitative research via an international-scale survey conducted to understand how biodiversity genomics researchers perceive their academic work, their praxes, and their relation to extractivism as well as their understanding of Indigenous genomic data sovereignty. By identifying key gaps in knowledge and institutional support, the study will enter a coproduction phase to provide recommendations complying with Indigenous Data Sovereignty Frameworks.