5 Questions For… Abigail Echo-Hawk
Abigail Echo-Hawk, MA, is an enrolled citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and is currently the director of the Urban Indian Health Institute and executive vice president of the Seattle Indian Health Board. What’s Next Health spoke with Ms. Echo-Hawk about her recent work to decolonize data — where Indigenous peoples and nations have ownership over the collection, management, and dissemination of their own data — which is supported in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
This interview is part of our 5 Questions For…Series, where we learn about the ways RWJF’s Pioneering Ideas for an Equitable Future grantees are helping us get to a healthier tomorrow by paving the way today.
Q: What did you learn through this work?
A: For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples have gathered data to understand and improve the strengths and resiliency within our communities. The grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation enabled us to partner with tribal communities across the country in both urban and rural areas to reclaim this cultural practice of gathering data and improve data collection for American Indians and Alaska Natives. By moving decolonizing data practices forward, we seek to counter the harmful Western-based data gathering practices that have created a deficit-based narrative of American Indian and Alaska Native peoples across the United States.
We have seen incredible success from our community partners. For example, some community partners worked with their local counties to ensure that American Indian and Alaska Natives are represented in their county data. One of the things that we have learned is that local health departments are in the very beginning phases of looking at the impact of structural racism in data. And they are recognizing that some of it is as basic as just having a box that American Indian and Alaska Native people can check when they’re receiving health services, or understanding why that checkbox is important. We thought local health departments would be a bit further along, but the fact that they were in this early stage really gave us an opportunity to make sure they are collecting data about American Indian and Alaska Native people in appropriate ways. Our partners have also highlighted the policies and procedures as well as the community partnerships needed to properly interpret that data once it has been collected.
When we began working with our community partners, it was just so surprising to see how deeply everybody was engaged with this reclamation of data and bringing back our cultural value systems. Some of them didn’t initially see their work as data work, such as traditional food gathering practices or beading. Beading, for example, is a mindfulness activity that incorporates math and the designs also hold stories and tradition of our communities. That gave us the opportunity to think about what data is and the many kinds of data there are.
We also had a gathering of all of our grantees where we talked about the future of decolonizing data. We are going to continue to bring together this cohort of individuals, and also extend opportunities presenting and working with tribal communities across the United States.
Q: What signals of the future or emerging trends were you noticing that led you to want to do this project?
A: For the past 10 years, we have been continuously pushing forward this decolonizing data through our work at the Urban Indian Health Institute. We saw very little to no response from many state and federal partners, despite us continuing to advocate, write peer-reviewed papers, and do all the things they said we’re supposed to do to show that this disparity existed and that there were answers that laid within the community that could solve this problem. And then the pandemic changed that.
As Congress and others began to look for data in order to allocate appropriate resources to combat COVID-19, they saw the data for American Indian and Alaska Natives just wasn’t there. That spurred people as well as agencies and organizations into action. This is what structural racism looks like, because it wasn’t until enough of us died that we actually saw change. My people shouldn’t have to die in order for change to happen. It was both something that was devastating to watch and an opportunity. I struggle with that.
While the data is not the answer to addressing all of the disparities, it is a key component of beginning to push to have our treaties upheld and resources appropriately allocated.
In the aftermath of COVID-19, we also began to see the opportunities for changes in methodologies — in the way that data was gathered — and more people paying attention to what happens when communities are the ones shaping these data collection efforts.
Q: What one thing should people read, watch or listen to that will help them understand more about your ideas?
A: I recommend all of the work on Indigenous data sovereignty that is being published right now by Dr. Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear and Dr. Stephanie Russo Carroll. There is also a paper that I co-authored that was published in the American Public Health Journal that talks about decolonizing data and the impact of COVID-19 specifically. We also just had a recent paper published on Indigenous evaluation, which is very similar and it has aspects of decolonizing data.
Finally, we have a toolkit that is going to be released with a tentative release date of January 2024, which outlines what it means to decolonize data for Indigenous people by Indigenous people, along with ways in which allies and partners can assist us in this reclamation of culture and community knowledge.
Q: Looking ahead five, ten, fifteen years from now, how do you see this work contributing to a healthier, more equitable future?
A: We know that when we have the data, we actually have, as Native people, a legal right to resources from the federal government. When those resources are allocated appropriately, we will see the change in the health and well-being of our relatives. While the data is not the answer to addressing all of the disparities, it is a key component of beginning to push to have our treaties upheld and resources appropriately allocated.
In addition to that, it gives the community power. It gives us the power to be able to say, “we don’t need decisions made about us or without us. It’s only with us and for us.” I know in the future this is going to be a key component of how the next generations take back our power and apply it to improving the health and well-being of our communities.
Q: What didn’t we ask you?
A: Our ancestors really held onto our traditional data gathering practices even when the federal government tried to outlaw them. For example, it was illegal to practice our songs and dances, many of which held stories of cultural practices of gathering data and how we shared it. These songs and dances were a method of dissemination, and at other times a method of analysis. Our ancestors survived going through these experiences so we could have this opportunity to thrive. I also see it as an ancestral responsibility for us to look to the future for everything they provided for us to create a better future for the next generations. As an Indigenous person, we are always looking to the past to inform the present so that we can create a greater future for those who are coming after us. Our responsibility to be a good ancestor is actually requiring us to always have that forward look into the future. And that is really where this project came from.
The views expressed are those of the interviewee(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
