The University of Arizona is hosting the first-ever U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Governance Summit in Tucson.

Smaller events have previously taken place at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2017 and Arizona State University two years later, but this historic gathering, titled “Building Action and Power,” has attracted hundreds of experts, scholars, researchers and activists to southern Arizona.

Stephanie Russo Carroll, who hails from the Native Village of Kluti-Kaah in Alaska, is part of the U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network’s working group. She’s an associate research professor at UA’s Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and director of the university’s Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance.

They’re trying to establish a national standard for Indigenous data governance to help communities protect their traditional knowledge that comes in all forms — even oral — through practices and protocols.

“Our summit is one of the efforts to try to get people to think more holistically about that, and have like a national kind of movement,” said Carroll, “which we’ve had pockets of, but not really taking on that’s inclusive of not only federally recognized tribes but state-recognized tribes, and those Indigenous peoples have been severely marginalized.”

She’s referring to those who reside on the five U.S. territories, like Guam, American Samoa and Puerto Rico, as well as Native Hawaiians.

U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network

This historic gathering in southern Arizona is titled “Building Action and Power.”

More stories from KJZZ

• Hear the voices of families, victims at a town hall on Arizona’s sober living home scandal
• PRCA ‘Home of the Navajo’ Rodeo returns to Window Rock in May