[Air-L] Abundant Intelligences Postdoctoral Fellow in Indigenous Data Sovereignty

[Fenwick Mckelvey]

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Postdoctoral Fellow in Indigenous Data Sovereignty

Application deadline: September 15

Salary: CAD$75,000

Hours per week: Full-time

Position title: Postdoctoral Researcher

Immediate supervisors: Prof. Jason Edward Lewis, or other Abundant
Intelligences
co-investigator. To be determined in discussion with candidate

Work schedule: Monday - Friday, or as agreed upon between candidate and
supervisor(s)

Duration of the contract: 2 years.

Location: Strong preference for Montreal (hybrid), though other locations
will be considered

*About Abundant Intelligences*
Abundant Intelligences is an ambitious, large-scale six-year research
program exploring how to integrate Indigenous Knowledges and Artificial
Intelligence (AI) systems. It is conducted by an international research
team, co- directed by Prof. Lewis at the Indigenous Futures Research Centre
at Concordia University, Montreal, and Prof. Hemi Whaanga at Massey
University in New Zealand. The research team currently consists of 48
co-investigators and collaborators at 13 universities/research institutes
and 8 community-based organizations in Canada, the United States, and New
Zealand.

The research program takes on the challenge of imagining, designing, and
developing AI based on
Indigenous Knowledge (IK) systems. Our overall objective is to explore how
IK systems might provide pathways towards rebuilding AI’s epistemological
foundations to transform these tools away from colonial practices of
exclusion, extraction, manipulation, and eradication and into engines of
abundance for increasing our care of one another and our world.

Abundant Intelligences mobilizes an international and interdisciplinary
team of experts, coalesced in locally-rooted ‘Pods’, to collaborate with
Indigenous communities and learn from, and with, their
knowledge holders to bring novel perspectives to transforming AI. It allows
us to think about AI from across disciplinary and cultural boundaries and
thus to expand the operational definition(s) of
intelligence to include a wider spectrum of behaviours that humans and
non-humans use to make sense of the world. Exploring epistemologies and
methods beyond the Western approaches favoured by current AI research, we
draw upon Indigenous epistemologies to develop imaginations, frameworks,
and languages to enrich our understanding of what it means to be
intelligent. In doing so, we are establishing new community-oriented
methods for creating culturally-grounded AI systems better suited to
Indigenous contexts, ways of knowing, and community flourishing. At the
same time, our work will inform AI research beyond Indigenous contexts,
contributing to the field generally so it can better support humane and
abundant futures for all.

Websites: www.abundant-intelligences.net

*Overview of the position*
Abundant Intelligences is establishing a detailed data sharing and
intellectual property framework. This position will support this work
through research on Indigenous data sovereignty, community protocols, and
cultural & legal regimes for protecting cultural property within the
context of AI research; developing protocols, methods, and tools for
protecting and sharing Indigenous data to help in developing advanced
technologies such as AI; and disseminating the knowledge acquired within
the Partnership and in external publication and presentation venues. The
Postdoctoral Fellow will work closely with program directors and working
groups to ensure their research helps advance the partnership research
priorities.

Abundant Intelligences Postdoctoral Fellows are intended to support the
career development of
outstanding PhD recipients with great potential for contributing to the
research program. We seek
applicants whose professional preparedness, experience, and accomplishments
are informed by
experiences working with and within Indigenous groups. Where pools of
qualified applicants are strong, priority will be given to applicants who
demonstrate, through prior actions and achievements,intentional and
actioned commitment to Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies, and
research or creative activity focused on empowering Indigenous populations.

The Postdoctoral Fellow selected will join a cohort of emerging scholars as
part of the research program, will engage in scholarly research and
creation, and may be asked to perform duties common to academic personnel,
including grant proposal writing and teaching, as well as participate in
partnership
governance.


-- 
Be good,
Fen