Indigenous-kinship relationalities

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Please find the discussion page for Indigenous-kinship relationalities HERE.

Potawatomi scholar-activist Kyle Powys Whyte (2017:159) writes that, for many Indigenous peoples, sustainability challenges are an intensification of interlinked processes of colonialism, capitalism, and industrialization (ongoing since the 1500s) that have severely disrupted “human-nonhuman-ecological relationships” (see also Davis & Todd 2017). Māori, Pākehā and Lebanese scholar Meg Parsons, writing with Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato-Tainui, and Pākehā scholar Karen Fisher (2020:124), highlight that “transformations to sustainability in settler and postcolonial societies must confront, therefore, the effects of colonisation on Indigenous peoples, which includes addressing the exclusion of Indigenous knowledge systems and values and developing modes of governing that meet Indigenous aspirations for the future.” Indigenous approaches to transformations are often situated in Indigenous resurgence, land rights, and sovereignty agendas around particular lands, territories, and peoples, rather than targeted at sustainability in a general sense (Betasamosake Simpson 2014; Wooltorton et al. 2020). For example, Gram-Hanssen (2021:525), describing collaborative research with Yup’ik peoples in Igiugig, Alaska, states that “transformations [in Igiugig] have come about through deliberate efforts to decolonize and ‘take back’ community systems by shifting them toward enhanced autonomy and self-sufficiency with the values of self-determination and cultural integrity.” Māori scholar Lewis Williams (2018:346), drawing on Spretnak (2011), discusses transformation in terms of a “relational shift [...] through practices which recultivate the mutual sentience and agencies of all life forms,” echoing Whyte’s (2017:158) description of Indigenous efforts towards “renewing relatives” - restoring ethical relationships and reciprocity between humans and nonhumans.

Human-nature connectedness

Kombu-merri scholar Mary Graham (1999) notes that while different Indigenous clans and nations have different creation stories, knowledge and governance systems defining relationships with land, some shared themes include the importance of spirit or life force, interconnectedness and kinship, and ethical obligations and responsibilities (see also Parsons & Fisher 2020). Apgar et al. (2015), reporting collaborative research on transformation with the Guna peoples of Panama, describes the Bab Igar, the cultural spiritual framework that guides engagement of Guna in the world within which “all things and beings are part of one system, and all material things have burba, i.e., life or spirit. Plants, animals, rocks, minerals, and people all have burba. This whole-system view emphasizes a fundamental connectedness and relationship, and promotes continued reflection on identity and purpose in the world.” Native Hawaiian scholar Kealiikanakaoleohaililani & Giardina (2016:63) write of the importance of the term ‘ohana (family) for Hawaiian Indigenous sustainability: “‘ohana will include, for example, biological and/or adoptive parents, all relatives dead or alive, the ‘i’iwi bird, the taro plant, lightning, a particular shark guardian, or a particular rock formation.” Wooltorton et al. (2020:925) describe Indigenous-led processes of transformative sustainability education oriented around notions of “becoming family” with place (including humans and non-humans/more-than-humans) which carries “deep obligation and responsibility.”

Agency and leadership

Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe scholar Vanessa Watts (2013:23) notes that in Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee cosmologies, “all elements of nature possess agency, and this agency is not limited to innate action or causal relationships.” Wooltorton et al. (2020:925) describe an Indigenous-led movement involving Nyikina Warrwa scholar Anna Poelina to recognise Martuwarra in north-western Australia (known in English as the Fitzroy River) as “a vital living ancestral being with its own right to life,” recognising further that place - or Country - “and all that it embodies, is active as a participant in the everyday ongoing world” (p.926). In terms of human agency and leadership for transformative change, Gram-Hanssen (2021:534) writes that in Igiugig, Alaska, while some Yup’ik play prominent roles within the community these people “cannot be separated out from the community. Rather, individuals seem to operate within a collective field, defined by community values and culture and influenced by both human and nonhuman phenomena (including past and future generations). What emerges then is a process of ‘individual-collective simultaneity,’ where the act of relating becomes a defining feature of both the individual and the collective.”

Scale and scaling

Kealiikanakaoleohaililani & Giardina (2016) highlight the centrality of place in Indigenous approaches to sustainability transformations, writing that “only when people are in relationship with place and with resources can there be deepened connections between beings (plant, animal, physical, spiritual).” This is echoed by Haudenosaunee Elder and Knowledge Keeper Roronhiakewen (He Clears the Sky) Dan Longboat, quoted by Anishinaabe (Ojibway) scholar Melanie Goodchild (2021:98), who states that systems-change comes from “connecting human beings to themselves, to each other, to a sense of place, to a physical and spiritual world…” Māori scholar Lewis Williams (2018:349) describes efforts in Indigenous-led sustainability education to transform worldviews and cultural practices in terms of the concepts of “scaling deep, up, and out” (initially developed within social innovation and systems approaches, see Section 4.2. below), writing: “Scaling DEEP reverberates throughout the other categories as it is primarily to do with transformational approaches to ontology, epistemology, and culture within individuals and collectives in ways that ‘unsettle’ settler colonial relations of place. Foundational to Scaling UP and OUT, it is literally rooted in the genealogy of place and recognizes the intimate connection between unlocking Indigenous perspectives of ecosystems and the well-being and resurgence of Indigenous societies more generally (capitals in original).” Williams (2018:344) describes scaling up and out in terms of programming and policy change to support Indigenous-led initiatives in-place, an approach echoed in Vijayan et al.’s (2022:2) emphasis on the importance of widespread institutional change to support Indigenous approaches to food system transformations.

Time and change

Indigenous engagements with transformation have often been animated by circular or cyclical rather than linear temporalities (e.g. McGrath et al. 2023). Wooltorton et al. (2020:922) describe an education project in the Leschenault Estuary in Western Australia involving Noongar science and concepts, writing that one of the most significant aspects of the project was understanding the estuary through a Noongar “cyclical/spiral” view of time: “kura, yeyi, burdawan: long ago, now and future - all in the present era. In Noongar Country, this Noongar worldview keeps the spirits of place, the ancestors, stories and past events - including colonialism - here in the ongoing present. This is one way in which stories ‘live’ in places. Stories ‘belong’ in places, cared for by bidiya, elders: the people who hold knowledge and leadership including knowledge of the bidi - pathways.” Gram-Hanssen (2021:523-524) highlight that such cyclical and spiralling temporalities are essential for the expression of agency in pursuit of transformation, noting that in the Igiugig Climate Adaptation Assessment Plan, a community Elder states: “The grandpa’s and grandma’s spoke to us, what we got coming behind us…we can remember and we could pass it on, what’s coming behind us.”

Knowledge and action

Goodchild (2021:79) highlights the differences between Indigenous approaches to knowledge and action and Western approaches: “Conventional systems-based approaches to tackling wicked problems have epistemological foundations in the Western scientific method that pursues ‘knowledge’ in an analytical way, whereas Indigenous ways of coming to know, as practiced by Elders, is the pursuit of ‘wisdom-in-action’ (Aikenhead & Michell, 2011, p. 69).” Apgar et al. (2015) describe the Guna war uet ritual, used infrequently and only in times of crisis or upheaval, as a means of enabling collective reflection for transformative change where a ritual specialist “uses chanting to enter the spirit world to engage with the underlying cause of the disruption,” providing opportunities to “develop new and innovative pathways forward.” Williams (2018:349) explores transformative educational practices as a means of supporting decolonization “through the activation by Māori for Māori of the very localized and intricately interwoven entities of whakapapa, mātauranga Māori, and te reo Māori (Māori genealogy, knowledge, and language; Harmsworth & Awatere, 2013).” Meanwhile, Goodchild (2021:75) explores the importance of cross-cultural dialogues between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples as a “doorway to healing, transformation and to spiritual understanding,” using the concept and spirit of the two-row wampum belt as a means of creating an ethical space for dialogue between Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and non-Indigenous systems thinkers around sustainability and global systems change.

References

Aikenhead, G. & Michell, H. 2011. Bridging Cultures: Indigenous and Scientific Ways of Knowing Nature. Pearson Canada Inc.

Apgar, M.J., Allen, W., Moore, K. & Ataria, J. 2015. Understanding adaptation and transformation through indigenous practice: the case of the Guna of Panama. Ecology & Society 20: art45. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-07314-200145

Betasamosake Simpson, L. 2014. Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 3(3):1-25. https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/22170

Davis, H. & Todd, Z. 2017. On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 16(4):761-780.