This fall, the Abundant Intelligences’s Partnership will travel to and around Haudenosaunee Territory in southern Ontario for the Third Annual General Meeting. Around 75 travellers from across Canada, the United States, and Aotearoa/New Zealand will participate in research sharing, cultural engagement, and collective imagining across 10 packed days of community-grounded events, panels, workshops, ceremonies, fireside chats, guided tours, coworking sessions, student research presentations, and more. The programming is grounded in Abundant Intelligences’s core values of regeneration, generosity and reciprocity as the network considers the challenges and opportunities of today while looking collectively towards the future of Indigenous-AI. 

A Relational-Grounded Approach 

“We argue that one major difference between Indigenous perspectives and those from Western worldview within much AI development is embedded is our emphasis on relationality—with each other and with non-humans.” – Jason Edward Lewis

Abundant Intelligences is formed in and through relationships between researchers, Elders, Knowledge-Keepers, language-holders, students, artists, teachers, scientists, etc. Relationships form the scaffolding of Abundant Intelligences and taking good care of these relationships is at the project’s core. This requires a collaborative, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial approach to our Partnerships. We need to co-create with one another and not extract knowledge, ensure that the research reflects the interests of our communities, and work with one another rather than in complete isolation. Our relational approach allows us to welcome ways of knowing and being that non-relational frameworks often exclude. Relationality enriches us and our work. 

As a key element to our relational approach, Abundant Intelligences hosts an Annual General Meeting every year. This event brings our members together to share research progress, create networking opportunities for students and early-career researchers, build cross-Pod and cross-network collaborations, plan research agendas for the next year, and engage with the hosting Pod’s communities. 

Emerging and Future Research 

As a core component of the AGM, the network gathers to shape the research program’s overall vision and objectives, review and assess research progress, and determine research priorities for the upcoming year. The AGM also provides an opportunity for research to be conducted through a research project symposium and Future Imaginaries of Indigenous AI Workshop. This year’s research symposium will feature students, Pods, and researchers presenting works in progress and finished projects from years 1 & 2. The Futures Imaginaries of Indigenous AI Workshop will be focussed on speculative designs of Indigenous-AI that will eventually become the prototypes for future technologies developed in the subsequent years. 

Community Engagement 

A significant portion of the AGM includes following and engaging with the local communities’ cultural practices and protocols to ensure that the Partnership reflects the interests and needs of the local Indigenous communities. This year, AGM participants will attend the 2RO Media Festival at Chiefswood park in Six Nation, a significant event that serves as a platform for the transmission and expression of cultural knowledge through creative practices, highlighting the work of Six Nations artists, performers, and cultural creators. This year’s Festival includes media art installations, film and video screenings, audio works, live performances, spoken word, and artist/panel discussions, including creative works by AbInt Co-investigator Dr. Jackson 2bears’s Research Lab, the Onkwehonwe Research Environment. Researchers will also have the opportunity to engage directly with the Haudenosaunee Pod’s community members and community partners, 2Ro Media and Thru The Red Door. 

Participants will also have a Welcome to Territory followed by a guided tour by one of the Pod Elders to Niagara Falls, a culturally significant site for the Haudenosaunee. Next, participants will visit the Ska-Nah-Doht Village and Museum to learn more about the rich history of the Haudenosaunee people.

Cross-network Collaborations

The Annual General Meeting also provides Abundant Intelligences participants with the opportunity to engage in collaborative sessions and interdisciplinary and cultural activities that foster cross-network collaborations. Meeting face to face creates opportunities for researchers to share best-practices, discuss shared challenges, and identify common research interests. Since Abundant Intelligences is dispersed across time and space, chances to meet in-person are few and especially valuable as they allow researchers to connect with individuals and information that would otherwise be largely inaccessible.