Kara-Kichwa Data Sovereignty Framework: Reference Point for Indigenous Data Authority Renaissances in LAC

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Kara-Kichwa Data Sovereignty Framework, a living legal-ethical guide rooted in Indigenous law, to empower Indigenous data authority and counter systemic invisibility in digital transformation across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Contribution

It presents a novel Indigenous-informed data sovereignty framework based on customary law, storytelling, and relational ethics for guiding data governance and authority.

Findings

Framework codifies five Indigenous customary pillars.

Guides data lifecycle respecting Indigenous laws and ethics.

Serves as a reference for Indigenous data authority in LAC.

Abstract

For Indigenous Peoples of the Apya Yala (or Abya Yala), particularly in the Kara and Kichwa citizens of the Pan-Andean-Amazonian biocultural region, data is not merely a knowledge or information resource, it is the extension of Khipu Panaka (Indigenous data authority), treading the data lifecycle, genealogical and relational memory held within customary law and collective responsibility. This perspective paper presents the Kara-Kichwa Data Sovereignty Framework, a living legal-ethical instrument developed through autopoietic Indigenous storytelling, rights to story and place, and Indigenous-informed scope review to engage with external Indigenous data frameworks, counteracting intellectual gentrification and the systemic invisibility of Andean-Amazonian Indigenous Peoples within global digital transformation. The framework codifies five customary pillars, Kamachy (self-determination, community owns data about itself), Aylu-laktapak kamachy (collective authority and polygovernance), Tantanakuy (collective deliberation and relational accountability), Wilay-panka-tantay (physical custody of data and knowledge confidentiality), and Sumak kawsay (biocultural ethics and intergenerational responsibility), to guide the data lifecycle from generation to expiration. While this framework arises from Kara-Kichwa customary law, the pillars outline how its governance logics serve as a reference point for Indigenous data authority renaissances in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), through respectful adaptation by other Indigenous nations on their own terms.