The Piikani Well-being Project: Indigenous-led metrics and mapping to improve human and agricultural system health within the Amskapi Piikani Blackfeet Nation

Abstract

As the first stewards and scientists, Indigenous Peoples have collected data on land relationships across homelands since time immemorial. Settler-colonial experiences have associated data and maps as tools of dispossession, disparity, and disempowerment. Today, however, Indigenous-led statistics and mapping efforts yield powerful tools for Nations in addressing the interconnected wellness of Indigenous biosystems, lands, and people while honoring collectively held knowledge and community protocols. This article details both quantitative and qualitative Indigenous research, with geospatial methodologies of the Amskapi Piikani (Blackfeet Nation), in the creation of the Amskapi Piikani Nation’s first well-being index. The Piikani Well-being Index (PWI), generated by this project, is grounded in cultural values and informed by traditional and current knowledge(s) defining 80 variables. The PWI encompasses areas of human health, agriculture and food sovereignty, cultural systems, social and educational lifeways, environmental stewardship, institutions and governance, economics, and land tenure to include traditional land use and Native land revitalization after centuries of systematic oppression, assimilation policies, structural inequities, and trauma. This project navigates data sovereignty challenges while mobilizing data generated by the Nation’s first Indigenous land use census. Offering new insights for our Tribal leaders and organizations at nation, local, and watershed scales, the PWI represents an Indigenous system view to better build community research agendas and action. This article discusses the challenges incurred in data collection and use while identifying areas of future work determining metrics and tools to cover the environmental, social, economic, and health research needs of Indigenous communities through data sovereignty.