Field stations often serve as bridges between the scientific community and local communities. Local Contexts support connections between Indigenous, place-based communities and scientific institutions, like field stations.
Research Institutions and Notices: Field stations can add themselves as research institutions to the Local Contexts Hub. As a research institution, you can create projects for work happening at the field station and attach notices to the projects. Notices indicate that there could be potential interest for an Indigenous community. For field stations, there are four primary notices used. The first is an engagement notice—Open to Collaborate—and the other three are disclosure notices—Biocultural, Traditional Knowledge, and Attribution Incomplete. With these notices, the research institution can choose to notify one or more cultural communities. This means that the project details are shared with the chosen Indigenous communities.
Local, Indigenous Communities and Labels: Indigenous communities can provide labels, which are used “to express local and specific conditions for sharing and engaging in future research and relationships” (Local Contexts website). Labels can be applied to anything, like digital objects, including project metadata, journal papers, datasets, physical objects, or signage. Indigenous scientists and institutions can skip notices and apply labels directly. NOTE: Field stations are not communities unless they are governed by an Indigenous community. Scientific Institutions without Indigenous governance cannot issue labels.
Field Station Action Steps:
- Do you know what Indigenous communities might be interested in your field station’s work?
- Yes! We have partnerships with Indigenous communities already.
- No. This is all new. For many field stations, one starting point is the Native Lands website. Many universities have resources, such as CU Boulder’s Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies and UC Berkeley’s Native American Student Development. In addition, UC Berkeley has an Office of Tribal Relations.
- Join Local Contexts as a research institution.
- Create an account on the LocalContextHub
- Create a researcher account
- Create an Institutional account. You must upload a letter on letterhead stating that you are authorized to do this.