We invite Indigenous Peoples and/or Tribal Staff to register for this webinar on April 3, 2026 from 12-1pm MST. Registration opens March 20, 2026.
Webinar Description
This webinar explores how the Longhouse people within the Akwesasne and other Kanien’kehá:ka communities are envisioning and building relational infrastructure rooted in Indigenous principles, sovereignty, and long‑term stewardship. Rather than treating infrastructure as a set of technical components, the session highlights how The People of the Longhouse approaches it as a living system shaped by relationships between people, land, data, energy, and governance. Speakers will discuss how Indigenous worldviews guide design choices, showing how values such as relationality, reciprocity, and responsibility become embedded in both organizational processes and technological systems. Guest speaker Marina Johnson-Zafiris will share how the community’s infrastructure work strengthens Two Row principles of non-interference, offering insight into what distinguishes sovereign data practices from externally imposed models. The webinar will weave together examples of how physical systems, energy sources, and sustainability practices are selected and configured to support relational and sovereign goals, emphasizing the importance of circularity and long‑term caretaking. Participants will also learn how the team identified needs, assessed capacity, and developed an implementation strategy aligned with leadership decision‑making. The session will reflect on how community support was cultivated through collective processes, how financial structures were designed to sustain the work, and how the physical placement of infrastructure was determined through cultural, environmental, and practical considerations. By sharing challenges encountered and opportunities that emerged, the webinar offers useful insights for other communities. It concludes with reflection questions to help participants consider how relational infrastructure might take shape in their own contexts, supporting systems built on sovereignty, sustainability, and relational accountability.
Featured Speakers:
Marina Johnson-Zafiris, Ahkwesáhsne Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) Wolf-Clan on her mother’s side and Greek from her father’s side. She is a fourth year PhD candidate at Cornell University in Information Science, with a minor in American Indian and Indigenous studies. Her research interests focus on critical data/information studies across Haudenosaunee Territory- specifically focused on developing technologies for Land Defense and industrial counter-surveillance and designing computational systems reflective of Onkwehón:we world-views. Presently, she’s on a leave of absence from Cornell to focus as a full-time language immersion student at Ratiwennahní:rats in Kahnawà:ke.
Sierra Hicks (they/them) is a Euro-American settler and a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at Cornell University, as well as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Their dissertation research, conducted in partnership with the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources (KDNR), investigates the Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDSov) Policy development process, with the intent to inform developing local, state, and federal standards. Sierra is also a KDNR contract worker, coordinating collective learning opportunities around IDSov and supporting the drafting of the KDNR IDSov Policy. Read more…
This webinar is a collaborative effort involving the Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance, the Indigenous Data Exchange (IDX), the IndigeLab Network, the Indigenous Data Law Lab (NYU), and the Indigenous Data Alliance (IDA).