Reconceptualizing carbon datafication through indigeneity



Abstract

The growing datafication of the world continues to be a pressing concern for critical geographers. Indigenous scholars are also challenging western research paradigms for under-representing the social effects that datafication imposes on Indigenous communities. This paper adds to these conversations by closely examining the problematic of carbon datafication in Indigenous places using the author's positionality as an Indigenous-Naga geographer. The author simulated carbon maps of Nagaland (northeastern India) to demonstrate the datafication of Indigenous places into carbon commodities, and then used the maps and his emic perspectives to interview Naga tribesmen and tribeswomen about carbon datafication. Selected interviews are highlighted in this paper to contextualize the social effects of carbon datafication on Naga epistemologies of forests, material reorganization of space, and carbon enclosures for global marketization. The paper also examines the limitations of alternative non-digital mapping, as well as the opportunities for locally repurposing GIS applications to involve and benefit Indigenous communities. Elements of local agency and the speculative effects of carbon markets are also discussed in the inter-tribal sociopolitical context of Nagaland.

Keywords

Datafication

Indigenous peoples

Carbon commodification

Nagaland

GIS map-making