Indigenous cultural sovereignty is the right of Indigenous peoples and nations to define, protect, practice, and govern their cultural values, knowledge, traditions, and collective futures. In AI and data contexts, it emphasizes that cultural meaning and authority should be determined by Indigenous communities themselves.
This has been defined as the right of Indigenous Nations and peoples to "exercise their own norms and values instructing their collective futures... [it] is inherent in every sense of that word, and it is up to [them] to define, assert, protect, and insist upon that right" (Coffey & Tsosie, p. 196), and it is "generated from within tribal societies and [which] carries a cultural meaning consistent with those traditions [and] practices" (p. 197).