FMURF Project Overview:

Project Overview: 

Indigenous scholars and advocates worldwide are addressing colonial problems related to data, knowledge, and information. Under the label Indigenous Data Sovereignty, these efforts have articulated Indigenous-based critiques of Western knowledge systems and both revived and elaborated new forms and methods of Indigenous knowledge production. Drawing on this development and on work in decolonial theory, Caribbean Studies, and feminist scholarship, Dr. Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz and Dr. Lorraine Cruz del Rio have launched an exploratory project on the problems and prospects of data sovereignty for Puerto Rico, a United States colony since 1898. This project is motivated by a desire to collaborate with Puerto Rico-based researchers and activists to foment locally-grounded manifestations of data sovereignty.

An initial step in the project, undertaken with the determined assistance of undergraduate student Lynda Otero, was a review of the scholarly literature on Puerto Rico’s data system. This review involved the collection and examination of an interdisciplinary, bilingual collection of academic articles, book chapters, op-eds, and public commentaries. This work reveals numerous limitations, weaknesses, and omissions in Puerto Rico’s official data infrastructure. As Indigenous researchers have argued, we understand data problems—absences, inaccessibility, externally imposed categories, institutional dependency, among others—as symptomatic of colonialism and have serious consequences for colonized peoples, including Puerto Ricans. However, our review not only identifies major problems but also suggests several ways to proceed with our project and the broader struggle for Puerto Rican data sovereignty.