Exploring the Nature of Authority Over, and Ownership of Data Generated by Archaeological Lidar Projects in Latin America

Abstract

Data ownership and accessibility are critical issues across academia, but especially in fields that touch upon digital heritage that relates to pre-colonial/colonial societies. Who can access spatial datasets about pre-colonial landscapes, who is writing about these topics, and who, by extension, is considered an authority on these topics? This paper explores data ownership, gender, and local affiliation by examining publications on archaeological lidar in Latin America between 2011 and 2021. For over 10 years, archaeological remote sensing derived from lidar has transformed research in Latin America and especially in Mesoamerica, yet there are numerous issues related to data ownership and authoritative voice that remain unresolved. This study shows that publication authorship, including first and co-authorship, is dominated by male researchers at US institutions while women and individuals associated with institutions in Latin America are poorly represented. The limited representation of authors with local or community affiliations suggests that local authoritative voices are largely muted in archaeological lidar research in the region. We discuss working toward more collaborative lidar research in Latin America.