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what i am learning about data autonomy, parachute science, indigenous environmental stewardship

15 min read

overall

feeling hopeful but also behind. i am calling ellie tonight and i have been meaning to write a doc summarizing all the data autonomy and indigenous data related things but never got around to it due to some kind of resistance. the main points are:

  • magali doing the UN indigenous data thing
    • ok i just read and annotated and added questions to the Magali de Bruyn on TEK, data science and AI, and Indigenous data sovereignty at COP16 article and got some vocabulary.
        • Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK): Indigenous knowledge systems built through generations of living in specific environments
          • Stewardship: An approach where communities have genuine control over their data and knowledge
          • Place-based approaches: Research that centers local context and community needs
          • Translation challenges: How TEK interfaces with government, corporate, and public systems
    • that is a helpful basis to join conversations that are similar. i also found surprisingly connections of this work with the yutaro remote sensing and fire ecology work, as well as the zhihao endangered language protection from villagers not just from govts. i wonder how data science helps with the needs to be solved, and which bits of the ideological side are not yet real or will not be real in examples. i haven’t talked to many TEK holders, in short, so don’t know what they think is needed and how to get there.
  • me hearing about parachute science and amazon tribe immune sampling for precision medicine at UChicago DRSB interview Q&A
  • the anti parachute science candidate solution of frugal science tools at Georgia Tech in the Saad Bhamla lab, including conservation and education application.
    • (that was a bit drama because the bhamla lab is in dispute with his postdoc advisor Manu Prakash for the patent on some of the devices such as paper centrifuge. i don’t like hearing about that, are they chasing the inventor fame?)
  • the UW work on decentralized knowledge system (Discourse Graph) as well as the plant immunity, wildlife conservation (eg modeling to suggest how ships route to avoid hitting whales)
  • my brief rabbit hole of reading about the parachute science and responding manifestos / policies at journals (parachute science has some links at least)
  • the debate with yutaro about do the mexico locals need reef research at all for whatever they have a problem of with the reef there, like why would having local mexicans be researchers help with their goal, and why aren’t they doing that what’s stopping them
    • (i think these debates with yutaro help because i tend to go ideology-first and don’t try as hard in my mind to test them on examples or explanations. and i get defensive when someone disagree because i feel disagreeable and i realize i can’t really explain bc i didn’t think hard enough thoroughly.)
  • also just wanting to learn more about how research can or cannot be useful for local communities.
    • i don’t know how to call the target group, like locals, islands, indigenous, community, citizen? it’s very vague.
    • the concrete part is i started in science because of the citizen stream network in hawaii.
      • it had it’s not so ideal parts, like i was a bit socially awkward at the cleanups and i also used the “leadership” planning the cleanup event for cloud on college app
      • (i still think that moral credit is part of my current abstract motivation but it’s some ideal and the medicine / profit stuff are also ideals not necessarily better or worse.
      • though true intrinsic motivation and pragmatism to action would be great, value misalignment like status searching could hurt.)

what is parachute science

降落伞科学是历史上有很多科学是在其他国家做的。科学家会去另一个国家，比如去喜马拉雅山雇一个夏尔巴人做向导。他们会收集一些植物样本。然后他们会回到自己的国家发表并成名，但夏尔巴人的生活并没有真正从科学中受益。

how social justice and other political values act on academia

Tina是个有魅力的演讲者，很快就有我们四五个学生围着他。有个中国学生问他，“你说到改变人心和人想法。大选后，精英学者也会妖魔化支持特朗普的普通人。我们似乎互相不理解。怎么改变双方互相理解？“ tina说一个好使的概念是利益趋同：你为自己想要的也是我为自己想要的。还有就是不断学习：她在读历史上如何面对法西斯政体的书，比如why nations fail。她说她觉得这个学校”让你做任何你想做的事并支持你“，我在想这种自由给每个人的话会怎么样。

colonialism and parachute science workshop

我路过Tina的海报时他在讲明年要办的“colonialism and parachute science”工作坊。我想了解更多关于如何做田野调查，所以就很感兴趣。 工作坊的想法是做一个关于这是什么以及更普遍这种做科学的方式在历史和现在如何延续的研讨会。它如何与殖民主义相关，以及如何替代它。更多基于地方和本地有益的东西。我知道这是改善做科学方式的一种非常具体的方式，对更多人更好。但我觉得他们在这个特定术语中框架得很好。

anti parachute science in human genetics

“人类基因”研究方向的一些人在直接面对这个问题。比如右边这个项目要收集南美土著免疫数据。“这些给你们血的人会收到什么利益？”我问Cecily。他说有两个。第一个是直接汇报，比如他们的中间人会问那些族群或者社区的领导人，他们需要什么。有一个社区要了一口井。第二个是医药研发，大概几十年后有概率性汇报。因为精准医药基于免疫统计数据研发。通常clinical trials会局限在白人健康男性组，包括COVID一些疫苗就是这么研发的。如果别的人不被包括的话，研发出来的药很有可能不适合他们。

我觉得这对我来说可能可以探索更多。因为我在听一些生物物理学家的采访，Bill Bialek，他们在研究动物和细胞集体行为。从理论角度。理解相互作用如何自组织成结构和行为。他们说的一个未来展望是，理论和现实之间的差距是他们在波士顿或普林斯顿的实验室里能做的多样性不足。与世界相比，世界不仅仅是波士顿或普林斯顿的实验室。所以他们希望建立基础设施，在生物多样性更多的地方做实验和收集数据。我觉得如果你在尝试做这件事。我不知道他们现在在哪里。因为自从他们做那个采访已经5年了。但我觉得如果他们要做这件事，他们会面临这样的挑战。他们有点像提取。所以我觉得这似乎是一个非常有趣的事情去探索。可能有用。（我跟一个做open science的朋友提到，他说extraction是个更广大的问题不只是生物里，还有比如说欧洲FAIR规定所有人可以选择他们的数据是可以分享还是不能分享到公域。但是他们没法选择数据被嵌入什么故事里。如何在研究设计中，让数据和数据的表达都跟他们来源的人有互惠？）

readings and notes

methods from fields that already work with locals

about eco fieldwork and global collab with bee researcher

  • i also noticed that anthropology also does fieldwork . they have more ethics developed about it. because their field subject is humans instead of bees. i wonder to do a compare and contrast.
  • what is in anthropology field work but not in biology
    • informed consent of the subject
    • privacy, data autonomy, anonymity
    • beneficience (max benefit, min harm to local)
    • participatory: involving communities in research design and implementation
  • i also recall that Yiqing Wang said her research in conservation ecology involves studying or understanding how the local people interact with the animals, both as current state and as goal state intervention.
  • i remember Albert Kao said they had to do a proposal on how to engage or benefit the local community when they did the alaska salmon nesting field work. so there is already protocols in govt.
  • i also need to update albert kao i didn’t followup about not applying and about not getting his help on our clusterintelligence project publication … :0000
  • also probably email leah UBC because maik said i should even if she doesn’t remember this. i want to make the most to ingratiate his help. also to read the greg egan book and return it to him before i leave.
  • i hate feeling “things i have to do!“!!

nonfiction also works with ethics of interview and community collab

i am listening to the interviews of 在场非虚构漫画 on-site nonfiction comic, their first podcast episode ref https://frontlinefellowship.typlog.io/episodes/LaunchingYourFreelanceWritingCareer

  • i chose to listen to this while doing flywork because they seem nutritious for writing, interviewing, societal work. instead of word shuffling in substack or podcasts. i recall the matters blog i wrote about the place that i would like to escape to, the imaginary career. i want to revisit that imagination a year later to see if i implemented any part in that direction. for example, i think of cranial sacral therapy and fascia therapy. i heard about these alternative health programs in china from my dad and from the somatics community, but from my personal experience of the cranial sacral twice, i did not find personal sensation of difference or a clear sense of what it does, how it works. i hope to have a rabbit hole session evaluating the evidencebased aspects of the fascia and cranial sacral therapy. i recognize that the lack of studies will provide a lack of evidence. but i am personally interested to know what works, especially since dad and others around me seem to practice these methods believing their efficacy in their own way. i also had a clearer voice in my head. i tend to have these more recently, maybe because of the post Trump political need to understand and take stances even with uncertainty, maybe because yutaro’s presence and the aftermath of the grad school application made me feel less stressed and i naturally became more confident even in times i don’t work on things or improve myself. the clearer voice says, if i were to go back to the interview with the zhengsheng kids, where i felt like i didn’t say a clear objective that can then serve as a point of contact to serve the audience, (a dilemma about personal vs audience benefit), I would say my interest is in (1) recognizing the intelligence of cells and flocks to upset our assumption about how control and individuality works in this world and grow new embodiments to adapt to world changes, (2) involve more people into the benefit or process of empirical tools and accumulations, including open data, educational storytelling, multimodal modeling.

idea

  • talked to anthropologist zhihao working on chinese migrant labor workers and part of indigenous (ethnic minority) chinese. told him about the phd topic. he said: i have a proposal about city human-animal relationship, maybe your biology model can help. let’s talk in detail when you are back in china. i am so happy. i think i organically spin up projects. for example wang xin with the smell / plants history. and nana with the alternative histories of embryology. shuyi lin with the sustainable material cycle. Ellie with the working group on indigenous data autonomy. might need to learn remote sensing, data analysis (specifics like study inference), communication (memo)
  • Which of your many interests feels most energizing right now? Where do you feel most drawn to invest your time? right now i am most drawn to the possibility of a comic to summarize my adventures in developmental biology (maybe even a hackathon type invention is also fun). i also feel very drawn to the data autonomy, indigenous sustainability and local science topics as i have been discussing them with akamatsu at UW for the knowledge graph infrastructure, bhamla at gatech for the cheaper devices, and my friends ellie who organizes conferences and organizations for governance and open science, as well as chinese friends who are bounded to chinese local workers or local farming histories. im not sure how they might need me but i have a lot i want to synthesize rn from all the chats. and ideally act on some of this.
  • i would like to learn more about how to connect academia to local communities eg in stream monitoring, alternative therapy placebo checking, data autonomy, distribution / access. i am looking for information and organizations to do learning and projects in this area.
  • also want to be funding robust in the future. probably do some grant finding and data/teaching incomes. given the uncertain phd funding in US with NIH NSF federal cuts.
  • (in nadia’s reimagine the phd or her advice for independent researchers she said) Keep a list of the ideas that you keep coming back to (in conversation and reading)
    • for me, data autonomy

next steps (with AI synthesis help)

  • Synthesizing a framework document that connects indigenous data sovereignty principles with practical research methodologies
  • Exploring existing models of community-based research (by talking to people already working on this), such as:
    • Citizen science projects with strong local leadership
    • Indigenous-led research initiatives
    • Participatory action research methods
  • Building (or joining) a practical project that applies these principles in a specific context - perhaps connecting my expertise/learning/background with community needs through:
    • Developing accessible tools for environmental monitoring
    • Creating collaborative data visualization approaches
    • Facilitating knowledge exchange between indigenous communities and academic institutions

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