Webinar – Relational Governance for Engineered Organisms

March 17, 2026 | Virtual | Community

In this lecture, Riley Taitingfong, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Arizona, will focus on practical tools and frameworks for supporting Indigenous governance of emerging biotechnologies, with particular relevance for engineered microbes for environmental release (EMERs). Drawing on concepts and strategies from the Indigenous Data Sovereignty movement, Taitingfong will show how governance approaches rooted in connectivity, reciprocity, and responsibility to place can translate into concrete guidance for actors exploring the use of engineered microbes in the environment. By situating EMERs within relational governance approaches, Taitingfong asks how decision-making processes can align scientific objectives with local priorities while accounting for power imbalances and honoring long-held relationships to lands, waters, and more-than-human kin. Taitingfong will introduce tools to demonstrate how Indigenous governance frameworks can be operationalized in practice. Together, we will consider how these tools offer pathways for integrating relational accountability into EMER development and supporting community-driven approaches to biotechnology.