Legal and Ethical Issues around Incorporating Traditional Knowledge in Polar Data Infrastructures

Authors

  • Teresa Scassa Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, Ottawa
  • Fraser Taylor Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre, Carleton University, Ottawa

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2017-003

Keywords:

Traditional Knowledge, Intellectual Property Law, Copyright, Ethics, Data Management

Abstract

Human knowledge of the polar region is a unique blend of Western scientific knowledge and local and indigenous knowledge. It is increasingly recognized that to exclude Traditional Knowledge from repositories of polar data would both limit the value of such repositories and perpetuate colonial legacies of exclusion and exploitation. However, the inclusion of Traditional Knowledge within repositories that are conceived and designed for Western scientific knowledge raises its own unique challenges. There is increasing acceptance of the need to make these two knowledge systems interoperable but in addition to the technical challenge there are legal and ethical issues involved. These relate to ‘ownership’ or custodianship of the knowledge; obtaining appropriate consent to gather, use and incorporate this knowledge; being sensitive to potentially different norms regarding access to and sharing of some types of knowledge; and appropriate acknowledgement for data contributors. In some cases, respectful incorporation of Traditional Knowledge may challenge standard conceptions regarding the sharing of data, including through open data licensing. These issues have not been fully addressed in the existing literature on legal interoperability which does not adequately deal with Traditional Knowledge. In this paper we identify legal and ethical norms regarding the use of Traditional Knowledge and explore their application in the particular context of polar data. Drawing upon our earlier work on cybercartography and Traditional Knowledge we identify the elements required in the development of a framework for the inclusion of Traditional Knowledge within data infrastructures.

Author Biographies

Teresa Scassa, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, Ottawa

Teresa Scassa is the Canada Research Chair in Information Law at the University of Ottawa, where she is also a professor at the Faculty of Law. She is the author or co-author of several books, including Canadian Trademark Law (2d edition, LexisNexis 2015), Canadian Intellectual Property Law (Emond 2013), and Electronic Commerce and Internet Law in Canada, (CCH Canadian Ltd. 2012). She is a member of the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre at Carleton University, and has written widely in the areas of intellectual property law, law and technology, and privacy. In particular, she has written about the intersection of law and digital cartography, volunteered geographic information, and citizen science.

Fraser Taylor, Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre, Carleton University, Ottawa

D.R. Fraser Taylor is Chancellors Distinguished Research Professor of International Affairs, Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University. He has been involved in geospatial information management for many years. He organized and chaired the initial session at IPY GeoNorth North in Yellowknife in 2007 which led to the establishment of the Arctic Spatial Data Infrastructure and chaired the External Advisory Committee to this initiative. From 2002 to 2013 he chaired the International Steering Committee for Global Mapping. He is a member of the UN Expert group on Global Geospatial Information Management and is a member of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Global Advisory Council, the Global Earth Observation System or Sytsems (GEOSS) Data Sharing Working Group and the CODATA Working Group on Data at Risk. He has a special interest in Traditional Knowledge especially in the Arctic and has created a number of cybercartographic atlases in cooperation with northern communities and organizations. His latest book is Developments in the Theory and Practice of Cybercartography: Applications and Indigenous Mapping (Elsevier 2014). This won the Prose Award by the Association of American Publishers, 2015.

Downloads

Published

2017-02-03

Issue

Vol. 16 (2017)

Section

Research Papers

License

Copyright (c) 2017 The Author(s)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms.  If a submission is rejected or withdrawn prior to publication, all rights return to the author(s):

  • Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

  • Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

  • Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.

Submitting to the journal implicitly confirms that all named authors and rights holders have agreed to the above terms of publication. It is the submitting author's responsibility to ensure all authors and relevant institutional bodies have given their agreement at the point of submission.

Note: some institutions require authors to seek written approval in relation to the terms of publication. Should this be required, authors can request a separate licence agreement document from the editorial team (e.g. authors who are Crown employees).