TIE/LTI Webinar Wrap-Up: “Data” and Indigenous Studies

Posted on December 23, 2025 in Blog Posts, Webinars

The latest webinar from Toward Inclusive Excellence (TIE), hosted in collaboration with our sister blog, LibTech Insights (LTI), was held on Dec. 16. It featured librarians Kaia MacLeod, the Indigenous Cataloguing Librarian at University of Calgary; Rachel Chong, the Indigenous Engagement and Subject Liaison Librarian at Kwantlen Polytechnic University; and Bronte Chiang, the Digital Literacy Librarian at the University of Calgary, who presented on how academic librarians can effectively balance practices of data collection, organization, and sharing with respect for the protection, representation, and governance of Indigenous knowledges.

It was a dynamic presentation, as evidenced by the lively Q&A session that followed, with ample opportunities for further exploration. You can watch (or re-watch!) the webinar in its entirety on YouTube or skip ahead to the live audience Q&A using the links below. You can also access some of the resources shared live during the webinar, below.

We wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to Kaia, Rachel, and Bronte for sharing work, research, and resource suggestions with our audience on a topic that remains evergreen. Make sure to subscribe to the TIE newsletter for updates on upcoming webinars, blog posts, and resource lists!

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Watch Here

Audience Q&A

• Are there parallels to FNMIIO [First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Indigenous Ontology] and CRKN [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] that apply to Indigenous groups in the United States? [49:21]

• I work at an urban campus with a substantial group of people who do community-engaged research, mostly in urban settings. In supporting their research, I hear many similarities between the approaches and best practices in those conversations: co-creation of goals and research questions, prioritiz[ing] building relationships with community partners, and outcomes that benefit everyone. I wonder if these approaches resonate with best practices in Indigenous research. Are there key differences that we should be aware of? [51:29]

• I’m involved with scholars on identifying Canadian Indigenous plants and find it hard to identify sources. This research takes trust, time, patience, and collaboration, which is difficult for many non-Indigenous peoples. How might we preface our work to respect Indigenous voices, oral traditions, and lived experiences? [1:00:07]

Webinar Resources

Websites

• PCC Task Group for Metadata Related to Indigenous Peoples
• Traditional Knowledge (TK) Labels

Books

• Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 3rd ed. (2021) by Linda Tuhiwai Smith
• Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing By and About Indigenous Peoples, 2nd ed. (2025) by Gregory Younging
• Kaandossiwin: How We Come to Know, 2nd ed. (2022) by Kathleen Absolom
• The Marrow Thieves (2017) by Cherie Dimaline
• Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods (2008) by Shawn Wilson

Articles

• “What is Indigenous data sovereignty and why does it matter?” by Amei-lee Laboucan, University of British Columbia, April 8, 2024.

Access the presentation slides

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Interested in contributing to TIE? 

Email Fatima (fmohie-eldin@ala.org) at Choice with your topic idea.

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Header image is a detail of This is Harlem by Jacob Lawrence. Courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. © 2021 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. For more information, click here.

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