Indigenous issues, rights, and sovereignty

In this chapter, we apply the Indigenous Data Sovereignty movement to the topic of issues, rights, and sovereignty. Within Australia, contemporary Indigenous statistics might be regarded as an early pulse check on the ongoing effectiveness of settler colonialism. The Indigenous statistics landscape is dominated by non-Indigenous peoples, with the data needs and rights of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples largely absent. This trend is amplified by the excessive collection of BADDR Data: Blaming, Aggregate, Decontextualised, Deficit, and Restricted; yet, the Indigenous data landscape is on the cusp of a transformation underpinned by Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Indigenous Data Governance. These concepts build upon the application of a rights-based framework as articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and work undertaken by Indigenous peoples globally. This chapter begins by detailing the current Indigenous data landscape, critiquing how these data are collected by the Australian state. We then detail the growth of the Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous data governance movement in Australia. We argue the movement is an important foundation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to grow strong and positively shape the social and political landscape.