modernity

IDSov and the silent data revolution: Indigenous Peoples and the decentralized building blocks of web3

Year

This article explores the technology underpinning the decentralized data revolution and encourages Indigenous Peoples (IPs) to secure their Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDSov) over the Metaverse and Web3. More specifically, this article will survey blockchain technologies, exploring some disturbing colonial uses and providing an international legal framework that IPs can use to advance their IDSov internationally and domestically. This article will consider the role that cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, decentralized oracles, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance (DeFi), and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) might play in advancing IDSov as it relates to western conceptualizations of Web3 and the Metaverse. The worldwide web's global data structure is undergoing a seismic shift that will significantly impact IPs. As inherent sovereigns, IPs are uniquely positioned to use and regulate these technologies in manners consistent with their cultural values and international indigenous human rights instruments. However, the march toward Web3 also looms menacingly over IPs. As such, we intend to examine IPs' novel risks and opportunities with Web3 and the Metaverse. We conclude by encouraging IPs to become fluent in the minutia of these technologies and to exert their inherent sovereignty over these nascent technologies in international and domestic arenas by building culturally informed systems to address their particularized needs. Future research should look toward the specific hurdles, and successes IPs are experiencing as they apply the technologies and principles discussed here.

Resource Type
Citation

Fernandez, Adam and Dillon Dobson. (May 19, 2023). IDSov and the silent data revolution: Indigenous Peoples and the decentralized building blocks of web3. Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics. Sec. Scholarly Communication. Volume 8 - 2023. https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2023.1160566

Indigenous Leadership in a Flat World

Producer
National Centre for First Nations Governance
Year

The world is flat, so we are now told. In his recent book The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Friedman argues that since the beginning of the Twentieth century globalization has evolved at an astronomically fast rate. As a result, the world is now inter-connected in complex ways such that time and space between peoples, nations, and individuals no longer matter. The economic, political, and technological realities of the twenty-first century have profoundly leveled the global playing field and there is no turning back. The argument, although decidedly Eurocentric, shows quite clearly that the fate of Indigenous peoples remains under serious threat of political and cultural annihilation.

In this discussion, we begin from this idea of a flat world and reflect on the idea of leadership and what it means for Aboriginal peoples to survive, not only in a complex modern world, but to thrive as distinctive Indigenous nations within it. The fact is, Indigenous peoples have not fallen off Friedman's flat world. Indeed, whatever the metaphor the dominant culture uses to understand modernity, the world's Indigenous peoples remain an integral part of humanity, and modernity. This paper represents a call to our people, especially our young people, to take up the challenges of so-called modernity and return Indigenous peoples to our rightful place within the global community.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Topics
Citation

Turner, Dale, Audra Simpson. "Indigenous Leadership in a Flat World". Research Paper for the National Centre for First Nations Governance. The National Centre for First Nations Governance. Canada. May 2008. Paper (https://fngovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/turner_and_simpson.pdf, accessed July 25, 2023)