Settler colonial AI (introducing a special issue): Jessica Russ-Smith, Holly Randell-Moon, ‘AI and Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Knowing, Engaging, and Learning in New Data Contexts’, Somatechnics, 15, 3, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler colonial AI (introducing a special issue): Jessica Russ-Smith, Holly Randell-Moon, ‘AI and Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Knowing, Engaging, and Learning in New Data Contexts’, Somatechnics, 15, 3, 2025

23Dec25

Excerpt: The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has generated debate and discussion about knowledge practices in social, political, and institutional spaces. Although the development of new data systems raises important ethical and professional practice issues, these developments also take place in a digital context informed by older colonial knowledges and systems. Technologies such as AI prompt renewed considerations and examinations of the sustainability and importance of Indigenous Data Sovereignty, as data governance remains an ongoing priority for First Nations communities (Tapu and Fa’agau 2022; Whaanga and Mato 2021). Whilst a substantial body of research, policy and law development has focussed on developing ethical standards for AI use (Kakar 2021), this work has largely excluded First Nations communities. To achieve ethical AI use, if even possible, First Nations communities, knowledges and Data Sovereignty are essential to resist producing and reproducing colonial data norms. This special issue focuses on AI, Indigenous Data Sovereignty and the impact of technology on data decision-making in knowledge, engagement, and learning contexts. Furthermore, this issue explores and examines these intersections from the perspectives of diverse sovereign First Nations peoples, cosmologies and ways of Knowing, Being and Doing.

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