Indigenous Knowledge Online: How Wikipedia and Wikidata Are Including Marginalized Voices
When we talk about indigenous knowledge online, the accumulated wisdom, practices, and worldviews of native communities passed down through generations. Also known as traditional ecological knowledge, it includes everything from land management techniques to medicinal plant use—knowledge that’s often oral, place-based, and deeply tied to culture. For decades, this knowledge was ignored or dismissed by mainstream encyclopedias. Wikipedia, built on published sources, often left out indigenous voices because they didn’t fit the narrow definition of "reliable." But that’s changing.
Now, Wikidata, a free, open knowledge base that connects facts across all Wikipedia languages. Also known as the structured backbone of Wikipedia, it enables editors to link indigenous terms, locations, and concepts directly to their cultural context—without needing a Western academic paper to prove they exist. This matters because systemic bias, the deep-rooted patterns that favor dominant cultures and exclude others in knowledge systems. Also known as content inequality, it’s why Wikipedia had more entries on European composers than on Native American healing traditions. Task forces are now actively correcting this. Volunteers from indigenous communities are adding entries on traditional medicines, land rights movements, and oral histories. They’re using local newspapers, tribal archives, and community-published books as sources—something Wikipedia’s policies now allow if properly cited.
It’s not just about adding articles. It’s about who gets to decide what counts as knowledge. When a Maori elder shares a story about ancestral fishing grounds, and an editor from New Zealand links it to a Wikidata item tagged with the correct cultural context, that’s not just editing—it’s restitution. And it’s happening in real time, across languages, from the Amazon to the Arctic. The indigenous knowledge online movement isn’t about replacing Western science—it’s about expanding the table so all knowledge systems can sit together.
You’ll find posts here that show how this work is done: from fixing biased language in articles to training volunteers in culturally safe editing practices. You’ll see how Wikidata helps connect indigenous place names across 300+ language versions of Wikipedia. And you’ll learn why some of the most important edits on Wikipedia aren’t about celebrities or tech—they’re about making sure a child in a remote village can search for their grandmother’s language and find it documented, correctly, in their own tongue.
Case Study: How Wikipedia Covers Indigenous Peoples - Bias, Gaps, and Progress
Wikipedia's coverage of Indigenous peoples is often incomplete or biased due to systemic gaps in representation. This case study explores the challenges, progress, and real efforts to reclaim Indigenous narratives on the world's largest encyclopedia.
