An indigenous geographic position on producing data in colonial conditions

Abstract

In a historically colonial field, what are the possibilities of a geography informed by Indigenous and Anti-Colonial ethics and onto-epistemologies? This article suggests engaging in a critical study of data from an Indigenous geographic standpoint, with a focus on imperialism and colonialism in settler nation-states. I begin by emphasizing the pervasive and long-standing imposition of geographical data collection in Indigenous life, naming the binds of engaging with the production of data for and with colonial institutions. I then review prominent spatial analytics within critical Indigenous studies, Indigenous geography, and aligned Anti-Colonial geography, including Indigenous place-based knowledge and onto-epistemologies, (racialized) colonial dispossession, sovereignty and recognition, environmental colonialism, and mapping and cartography. Last, I suggest that studies of colonial data dynamics and Indigenous data production strengthen Indigenous and Anti-Colonial geographies by emphasizing the co-constitution of good relations and good data. Future research avenues include the need to push beyond the geo-historical bounds of the category settler colonial, and to build co-rejections of racial empire with other fields of study including Black, Queer, and Feminist geographies.