Global Information Resurgence: Transforming Indigenous Archival Sovereignty through International Indigenous Relationality

This article examines the development of global and transnational alliances built over the past twenty years in the fight to protect Indigenous information and knowledge, particularly in the context of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) passed in 2007. It focuses specifically on the foundational history, radical resurgence, and survivance of activists’ groups enacting change within spaces where Indigenous information is held in archives, libraries and museums, especially in non-Indigenous repositories, agencies and institutions. Examined through the lens of Indigenous Archival and Data Sovereignty, this article highlights the major challenges, as well as advances, made by transnational alliances of Indigenous activist groups, professional organizations and individual activists within the United States, Canada, and Australia, focused specifically on how they persevered during the foundational stages of information policy development in their respective counties, as well how they collaborated together to implement new protocols, policies, and procedures at the national, regional, and local level. Through the use of Indigenous research methods, including Indigenous storywork and reflexivity, this work argues that the foundational activist work of Indigenous activists fighting to bring awareness of Indigenous information rights has paved the way for the contemporary work within repositories. These Indigenous transnational alliances show the importance of collaborating on a global scale to assert Indigenous radical resurgence and political sovereignty. It concludes by proposing suggested ways forward in the fight for Indigenous Archival Sovereignty by activating global and national protocols and declarations at the local level.