Sarah Mulcahy
Anglican Care Waiapu (ACW) is part of the Anglican Care Network, one of the six members of NZCCSS. The Anglican Church in New Zealand had its beginnings in 1814 at Oihi in the Bay of Islands. The Anglican presence in the eastern side of Te Ika-a-Māui and the Diocese of Waiapu dates back to the Missionary work of Māori evangelists. Established in 1991 within the Anglican Diocese of Waiapu , ACW service communities in the Bay of Plenty, Tairāwhiti, Hawke’s Bay and Tararua regions.
This piece is written by Sarah Mulcahy, the ACW’s General Manager of Programme Design and Evaluation. Sarah has been with ACW since 2019 and has served as convener on the NZCCSS Equity and Inclusion member committee since then. Her role and her background in service delivery management gives her a unique perspective on not just the acquisition of data, but how it can be used in practice. Sarah’s strong values and commitment to the work being done to improve the lives of people in her region coupled with the beautiful devotionals she blesses the Member Committee meetings with made her the first person I thought of when asked to put together this collection of thoughts, and I’m so glad she said yes.
NZCCSS is proud to have ACW as a key member that contributes both to their community and our work, and thrilled to be able to share this thoughtful and well-referenced work from Sarah.
– Rachel
For a long time, I’ve worked in spaces where data is treated as the most objective voice in the room. Numbers are trusted, statistics are persuasive and graphs feel authoritative. And yet, the more I engage with communities, and with my own ethical and faith commitments, the more uneasy I’ve become with the assumption that data is neutral.
Most of our institutions rely heavily on dominant data largely expressed through national or institutional statistics. It helps us identify patterns, allocate resources, and surface disparities. But it also has limits. It tells us what is happening, far more often than it tells us why.
More troublingly, dominant data has achieved a kind of supremacy. It is treated as the most legitimate, sometimes the only legitimate form of evidence. In practice, this means that the lived experiences of communities are often dismissed as “anecdotal” unless they are statistically validated. Statistics can function as a technology of mistrust: they are demanded precisely when decisionmakers do not trust people to speak truthfully about their own lives.
This dynamic does real harm. When data is framed solely through inequities when communities are repeatedly shown to “perform worse” across indicators reinforces deficit narratives. People become problems to be solved rather than communities navigating unjust systems. Those who don’t fit neat categories, whose numbers are too small to count, or whose experiences don’t translate cleanly into surveys are erased altogether.
This is where community data, evidence generated by communities about their own lives, on their own terms is important. It can include numbers, but it also includes stories, art, maps, music, oral history, and collective memory. It reflects community-centred ways of knowing, being, and imagining futures. Crucially, it provides what dominant data cannot: context, nuance, and insight into why inequities exist and how systems are failing specific populations.
For me, this conversation opens naturally into questions of ethics and faith. Christian theology offers a valuable, and underutilised, framework for thinking about data. At the heart of Christian ethics is the doctrine of Imago Dei: the belief that every person is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). If we take that seriously, it becomes impossible to reduce people to datapoints, variables, or economic units.
A Christian approach to data ethics insists on human dignity. Data about people must be handled with care, humility, and reverence. This includes a preferential concern for those who are most vulnerable echoing Jesus’ ministry among the marginalised (Luke 4:18). In practical terms, it means resisting dehumanising abstractions and remembering that behind every dataset are real lives.
Christian ethics also emphasises truthfulness. Truth, in this sense, is not just technical accuracy but integrity: being honest about uncertainty, limitations, and assumptions (John 8:32). Selective reporting or overstated claims may pass technical scrutiny, but using data in this way fails ethical scrutiny. Choices are made about what data is included which can reinforce agenda or preconceived views and transparency of this is not apparent to those without technical statistical skills.
Stewardship is another core concept. Scripture frames our role not as owners, but as caretakers of what has been entrusted to us (1 Peter 4:10). Applied to data, this challenges the idea that data is a commodity to extract and exploit. Instead, data should serve the common good, with longterm impacts considered alongside shortterm efficiency.
This resonates strongly with Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS), particularly as articulated by Māori scholars and Te Mana Raraunga. Indigenous perspectives understand data as a taonga, a treasure, deeply connected to people, land, ancestors, and identity (Kukutai & Taylor, 2016). IDS asserts collective rights over how data is collected, governed, and used (Rainie, RodriguezLonebear & Martinez, 2017). Concepts like kaitiakitanga (guardianship) align closely with Christian stewardship, justice, and relational accountability.
Kaupapa Māori research reinforces this ethical stance by challenging extractive research practices and insisting that data remains accountable to the communities from which it comes, not merely to institutions or disciplines. In this framing, honouring data is inseparable from honouring people, and ethical responsibility continues through how findings are returned, communicated, and used to support community aspirations rather than ending at analysis (Smith 2017).
Both Christian ethics and Indigenous worldviews challenge Western individualism. They remind us that humans are relational beings, that knowledge is shaped by relationships, and that ethical responsibility flows from those relationships, not just from abstract rules or compliance checklists.
Reimagining data ethics through these lenses is not about rejecting statistics or institutional data. It’s about interrogating their limits, uplifting community knowledge, and transforming what we count as trusted evidence. Community data can help explain the statistics or can triangulate what the numbers might tell us and give deeper insight into the matter at hand. It’s about asking hard questions: Whose voices are missing? Who benefits from this analysis? What does love require of us in this situation?
If we can hold dominant data and community data, Christian ethics and Indigenous data sovereignty, in creative tension, then data practice becomes more than a technical exercise. It becomes a moral vocation, one that honours dignity, truth, justice, and ultimately, our responsibility to one another.
References
Hauerwas, S. (1981). A Community of Character. University of Notre Dame Press.
Kukutai, T., & Taylor, J. (2016). Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Toward an Agenda. ANU Press.
Rainie, S. C., Rodriguez, Lonebear, D., & Martinez, A. (2017). Policy Brief: Indigenous Data Sovereignty in the United States. Native Nations Institute.
Smith, G. H. (2017). Kaupapa Māori theory: Indigenous transforming of education. In T.K Hoskins & A. Jones (Eds.), Critical conversations in Kaupapa Māori (pp. 79-94). New Zealand: Hui Publishers.
Te Mana Raraunga – Māori Data Sovereignty Network. (2018). Principles of Māori Data Sovereignty.
The Holy Bible 2008 (ESV) – Genesis 1:27; Luke 4:18; Micah 6:8; John 8:32; 1 Peter 4:10
Walter, M., & Suina, M. (2019). “Indigenous Data, Indigenous Methodologies and Indigenous Data Sovereignty.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology
