Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives on data
Behind the numbers reported on the Closing the Gap Information Repository are individuals who have a story. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives on the use, collection and interpretation of data are important.
Below is a series of articles from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics and data leaders on the importance of data to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities in supporting self-determination.
Indigenous Data Sovereignty in Australia
Distinguished Professor Maggie Walter, July 2026
The Indigenous Data Sovereignty movement was born at a 2015 Indigenous Data workshop. Frustrated at nation‑state data practices that consistently portrayed Indigenous identity, ways of life and wellbeing as deficit, Indigenous scholars from Canada, the US, Australia and Aotearoa sought ways to disrupt this narrative while also meeting First Peoples’ data needs. The outcome was a new data paradigm, Indigenous Data Sovereignty: the right of Indigenous people to exercise ownership over Indigenous data through the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination and reuse of data. 1
The Maiam nayri Wingara (MnW) Indigenous Data Sovereignty Collective has led Australian advocacy since it was formed by workshop participants in 2017. At the 2018 MnW Indigenous Data Sovereignty Summit Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders authorised five MnW Principles and agreed definitions of Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Indigenous Data Governance. These principles and definitions continue to guide Indigenous Data Sovereignty policy and processes, nationally. At the 2023 MnW Indigenous Data Governance Summit the approved set of practices provided the blueprint for how Indigenous Data Governance could, and should, work. 2
The hosting of the 2025 Global Indigenous Data Sovereignty Conference, which shared advances and mapped future pathways, underscored Australia’s Indigenous Data Sovereignty international leadership. 3
Over the past decade, Indigenous Data Sovereignty has moved from an untested idea to an integrated aspect of the data environment. References and directions now feature across government agency strategies and frameworks. The data obligations in the AIATSIS Code of Ethics (2020), the Framework for the Governance of Indigenous Data (2024) instructions to government departments on the data they collect and hold, and the recommendation for a Bureau of Indigenous Data contained in the 2024 Productivity Commission Review of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, all attest to a structural shift.
The power driving this data revolution is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People/s. MnW Indigenous Data Sovereignty principles have been adopted, supported and increasingly demanded by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and communities across the nation. Without this broad Indigenous led uptake, Indigenous Data Sovereignty could have remained academically bound, without the authority to challenge the how, why and what of Indigenous data in Australia. The ‘on-the-ground’ embedding of Indigenous Data Sovereignty into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander use, sharing and accessing of data, anchors the growing transformation of the Indigenous data environment.
Challenges, however, remain. Resistance via ongoing attempts to co-opt and/or redesign foundation principles and assert non-Indigenous expertise continue. The acceleration in the value of data via AI poses new and greater dangers. Data about us are increasingly being fed into predictive models, automated decision-making projects and machine learning systems, largely without Indigenous input and largely without recognition of the immense risks such data usage pose to the well-being of First Peoples. Indigenous data leadership is more critical now than ever.
Footnotes
- The book from this workshop can be accessed at https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/series/caepr/indigenous-data-sovereignty - Return to text
- Refer to https://www.maiamnayriwingara.org/mnw-resources - Return to text
- Refer to https://www.gida-global.org/ - Return to text
Indigenous story-telling through the data: Surfacing the hidden histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through the respectful use of data
Dr Scott Avery, July 2025
When you look at the night sky, you see the story of the universe on a grand scale. Individual stars, each with their own histories, group to form constellations. Constellations form galaxies, and galaxies combine to make up the universe. Some stars shine brightly, while others hide in dark matter out of view, even though we know that they are there.
When it comes to the histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, it is data that tells our stories on a grand scale. Each statistic or number in a data report can be traced back to a person – an individual star – who happened to be asked or chose to share their story with others. Even if the only way they were able to share their story was by filling in a form, or relying on someone else to fill it in, data captures a slice of their existence. Then another person chooses to tell their story. Then another. This goes on until there are enough people telling their story and it becomes a picture of a community – the constellations group together to form a galaxy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stories through time.
Just as there is dark matter that exists in the universe which hides the stories of stars and constellations, in the same is true for data. The production of dark matter that sits over the data and stories is the impact of colonialism on Australian modern history. Colonialism sees the stories of some people more important than the stories of others. The telescope focused first on the stars that spoke the loudest and demanded the most attention, and those were the stories that came to be reflected in the data. Dark matter expanded and grew denser, stopping scholars and scientists from looking for other stars. But dark matter did not stop those stars from existing, even if they couldn’t be seen with the naked eye.
For many centuries, colonialism had presumed ownership over the stories that came from the data. This was to the point of co-opting the stories of galaxies that they did not understand, projecting a narrative that suited their view of the universe. Stars hidden behind the dark matter wondered if it was worth shining at all.
But this appropriated and limited view is not what the fullness of the universe intended. The term ‘data’ has modest origins, derived from a Latin phrase that means ‘something given or granted’ (but not taken). Indigenous scholars are leading a renaissance in reading the data universe using a knowledge system that predates colonialism by time immortal, using a vocabulary to share Indigenous knowledges for contemporary times. There is the term ‘disaggregation’ that describes constellations within galaxies that show a distinct pattern when the stars were joined. Then, for the constellations that could not be, there is ‘intersectionality’. Intersectionality teaches us not only that dark matter exists, but why it exists and how do we see through it.
The renaissance of Indigenous knowledge in data is packaged within the discipline of Indigenous Data Sovereignty. This is an ethical framework for the collection of data and telling of the narrative that emerges from it. For analysts and users of Indigenous data, respecting Indigenous Data Sovereignty requires users to be faithful to the data that comes from those who have granted you their story, and to acknowledge the existence of those have who have, for whatever reason, chosen not to. Indigenous Data Sovereignty is not simply a set of findings, but gives you the method for getting there through a voyage of respectful co-discovery that will keep pushing the data universe to its outer limits.