“Data is Soil” Playbook
A practical course on Indigenous Data Sovereignty and AI.
Eight short lessons. The first five build the framework for Indigenous data sovereignty and community-governed AI; the last three walk through the GainForest stack that puts the framework into practice. Each lesson has a reading, an exercise, and a knowledge check.
- Tell when a dataset is being treated as oil — and when it's being treated as soil.
- Draft a boundary statement and a code-of-conduct rule a community could actually hold a vendor to.
- Practise refusal — to a use, a question, or to digitisation itself — as a complete answer.
- Walk through three real GainForest tools — Bumicerts, Taina, AudioMoth — and apply the framework to each.
Eight lessons, in order.
The first five lessons build the framework. The last three walk through the GainForest stack that puts the framework into practice. Walk them in order on your first time through.
The framework
5 lessons
0112 minutesSoil over oil
Naming the frame you already use
0210 minutesSovereignty is process
Why 'national' doesn't mean 'sovereign'
0315 minutesBoundaries before the scrape
Five fields that turn consent into a practice
0418 minutesA code of conduct for AI agents
Six pillars a community can write together
0512 minutesThe right to remain unmodeled
Refusal as a complete answer
Everything beyond the lessons.
The handouts you’ll bring into the room, the reminders before you teach, and the reading list the lessons draw on. Each lives on its own page so you can bookmark and share them.
- Worksheets
Printable handouts
Boundary worksheet, six-pillar canvas, and the three-ask refusal card — each rendered as a clean printable page.
- For facilitators
Six notes before you hold the room
Practical reminders we tell every new GainForest facilitator before they run the course in a workshop room.
- Read alongside
Reading & resources
Statements, papers, and primary sources the lessons draw on — plus space for further reading as the list grows.