142 Garrett Graddy-Lovelace
To help answer these questions, I draw upon two realms of indigenous-led
assertions of indigenous knowledge sovereignty: (1) the 2019 Atateken North
American Regional Declaration on Biocultural Diversity and Recommended
Actions (Atateken Declaration),
2 and the four Atateken Declaration-affiliated
Policy Briefs, concerning Biocultural Indicators; Livelihood, Food Sovereignty,
and Health; Information and Communication Technologies; and Extractive
Contexts
3 ; and (2) the Biocultural (BC) and Traditional Knowledge (TK)
Labels initiative and underlying CARE Principles for indigenous data sovereignty and stewardship. Though largely based in the Kanien’kéha (Mohawk)
regions of C anada and led by Canadian First Nations, the indigenous governance
visions and recommendations of the Atateken Declaration pertain in the U.S.
and beyond. The TK and BC Labels and CARE Principles, though oriented
toward digital object metadata, chart a course for official recognition of indigenous knowledge and sovereignty.
Ironically, I concentrate this chapter on the U.S. so as to help dismantle the
presumptions of American Exceptionalism, and I focus on the contradictions
of this modern nation-state so as to help move scholarship, policymaking, and
coalition-building beyond the nation-state as a dominant scale of reference. Also,
of note, this is an ongoing project at a preliminary stage; this draft highlights a
prominent example of Biocultural Protocols, but more exist. I look forward to
continuing to learn from indigenous, African Diaspora, and local community
initiatives in and beyond the U.S. that work to advance biocultural heritage
rights, recovery, and sovereignty.
Biocultural Protections and Protocols on Turtle Island
and Beyond
Long before the U.S. existed, indigenous communities on the continent were
navigating how to protect biocultural knowledge and practices in the face
of Spanish, French, British, Dutch, and other colonial forces. And of course,
long before the term “biocultural” existed, indigenous movements launched
brave and creative resistance to Iberian conquest and colonial settler invasions,
occupations, and displacements – layers of resistance grounded in the explicit
intersection of realms deemed biological and cultural. Grounded in multiple,
parallel cosmovisions and creation stories, indigenous activists and scholars have
invoked the term “Turtle Island” to refer to North America. Concurrently,
movement leaders and scholar-activists refer to South America as “Abya Yala”,
drawing on the Kuna (indigenous Panamanian) geographic term. Zaragocin
centers Abya Yala as a feminist “Indigenous decolonial imagined geography […]
a utopic territory […] and counter-geography” (Naylor et al., 2018, p. 204).
Within academic publications, Turtle Island figures more prominently in the
work of Canadian-based scholars. Hunt and Steven trace how First Nations
deploy digital counter-mapping for decolonial geographic imaginaries in C anada
(2017); Fitznor draws upon her Cree/Nahayow background from Manitoba to
To help answer these questions, I draw upon two realms of indigenous-led
assertions of indigenous knowledge sovereignty: (1) the 2019 Atateken North
American Regional Declaration on Biocultural Diversity and Recommended
Actions (Atateken Declaration),
2 and the four Atateken Declaration-affiliated
Policy Briefs, concerning Biocultural Indicators; Livelihood, Food Sovereignty,
and Health; Information and Communication Technologies; and Extractive
Contexts
3 ; and (2) the Biocultural (BC) and Traditional Knowledge (TK)
Labels initiative and underlying CARE Principles for indigenous data sovereignty and stewardship. Though largely based in the Kanien’kéha (Mohawk)
regions of C anada and led by Canadian First Nations, the indigenous governance
visions and recommendations of the Atateken Declaration pertain in the U.S.
and beyond. The TK and BC Labels and CARE Principles, though oriented
toward digital object metadata, chart a course for official recognition of indigenous knowledge and sovereignty.
Ironically, I concentrate this chapter on the U.S. so as to help dismantle the
presumptions of American Exceptionalism, and I focus on the contradictions
of this modern nation-state so as to help move scholarship, policymaking, and
coalition-building beyond the nation-state as a dominant scale of reference. Also,
of note, this is an ongoing project at a preliminary stage; this draft highlights a
prominent example of Biocultural Protocols, but more exist. I look forward to
continuing to learn from indigenous, African Diaspora, and local community
initiatives in and beyond the U.S. that work to advance biocultural heritage
rights, recovery, and sovereignty.
Biocultural Protections and Protocols on Turtle Island
and Beyond
Long before the U.S. existed, indigenous communities on the continent were
navigating how to protect biocultural knowledge and practices in the face
of Spanish, French, British, Dutch, and other colonial forces. And of course,
long before the term “biocultural” existed, indigenous movements launched
brave and creative resistance to Iberian conquest and colonial settler invasions,
occupations, and displacements – layers of resistance grounded in the explicit
intersection of realms deemed biological and cultural. Grounded in multiple,
parallel cosmovisions and creation stories, indigenous activists and scholars have
invoked the term “Turtle Island” to refer to North America. Concurrently,
movement leaders and scholar-activists refer to South America as “Abya Yala”,
drawing on the Kuna (indigenous Panamanian) geographic term. Zaragocin
centers Abya Yala as a feminist “Indigenous decolonial imagined geography […]
a utopic territory […] and counter-geography” (Naylor et al., 2018, p. 204).
Within academic publications, Turtle Island figures more prominently in the
work of Canadian-based scholars. Hunt and Steven trace how First Nations
deploy digital counter-mapping for decolonial geographic imaginaries in C anada
(2017); Fitznor draws upon her Cree/Nahayow background from Manitoba to