Ethnic, former Refugee and Migrant (EfRM) researcher Tautoko session

Data Sovereignty in New Zealand’s Asian, Ethnic, and Migrant Communities: An Overview of the Findings from an HRC study

Presenter: Rachel Simon-Kumar, University of Auckland

Data sovereignty has been the subject of much discussion, and extensive development, within Māori and Pasifika communities. There has been little parallel development, research or scholarship toward understanding in Asian, Ethnic and migrant communities – defined broadly as groups who are non-Māori, non-Pasifika, and non-Pākehā.

New Zealand’s Asian and Ethnic communities are a diverse group in terms of ethnicity, nationalities, migration pathways and generations and visa statuses. The tenets of data sovereignty from Māori and Pasifika scholarship form a useful foundation, but in several respects, the principles of sovereignty developed within these communities cannot be directly applied to the context of Ethnic data. Issues of data ethics, rights, and governance – and indeed, the meaning of data – take on distinct facets when considering groups whose identities, histories, and lived realities traverse multiple physical, digital, and symbolic borders.

In this session, Rachel will offer some preliminary findings from a Health Research Council-funded study on ‘Ethnic Data and Sovereignty’ which aims to map data considerations relating to New Zealand’s Ethnic communities. Drawing on interviews and focus groups conducted with academics and researchers, public servants, NGOs, and community, she ill outline some of the issues and concerns around minority and migrant populations as well as some principles of data sovereignty relevant to these communities. This will be followed by time for Q&A and discussion.