{"id":609417,"date":"2018-08-02T06:58:58","date_gmt":"2018-08-02T12:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=609417"},"modified":"2018-08-02T07:08:25","modified_gmt":"2018-08-02T13:08:25","slug":"native-communities-are-harnessing-the-power-of-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/08\/native-communities-are-harnessing-the-power-of-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Native communities are harnessing the power of data"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Navajo

Don Usner \/ Searchlight New Mexico<\/p>

One of the few well-paved roads on the Navajo Nation.<\/p><\/div>\n

Marriages and births. Allies and enemies. Wild game, migration patterns, the number of days of rainfall.<\/p>\n

For hundreds, if not thousands of years, indigenous peoples maintained a strict count of the events, relationships and surroundings that determined their very survival.<\/p>\n

Native Americans were among the world\u2019s first counters, and like indigenous peoples around the world — from the Maori in New Zealand to the First Nations of Canada — they are today reclaiming their place as data researchers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a growing momentum around data and how pivotal it is to exercising tribal sovereignty,\u201d said Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear, a demographer who grew up on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Lame Deer, Montana.<\/p>\n