Indigeneity, Decolonization, and Just Sustainabilities
The inextricable links between the diversity of cultures, particularly Indigenous cultures and biodiversity as well as terrestrial carbon sinks, has led to the increasing recognition in scholarly, activist and some scientific and policy spaces that biodiversity protection and climate change mitigation indispensably depends on the defense and revitalization of Indigenous land governance and knowledges (IKs). Across the world, Indigenous peoples and allies are therefore organizing to challenge and change policies at different levels (from local to global), confront powerful interests, defend and reinstate community lands, restore Indigenous self-determination and revitalize IKs.
Different components are integrated into community-based Indigenous governance, management and planning; among them we find the following:
Indigenous cosmologies/cosmovisions and worldviews
Indigenous spiritualties and value systems
Indigenous stewardship through commons-based land tenure and management systems, including community land and forest management,
Indigenous food systems (including integrated landscape management that incorporates agroecology and agroforestry)
Indigenous communal and reciprocal labor practices
and much more…
The content on this page was developed in concert with Professor Leonardo E. Figueroa Helland, who teaches in The New School’s Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management Program. Below you can find resources and posts that offer additional insight into the topic of Indigeneity and Sustainability.
In addition to the resources and posts, you will find here a description of the research program goals, projects and activities, and sponsors and you can scroll down to access some of the webinars associated with this research program.
The Research Program
The standing research program on Indigeneity, Decolonization & Just Sustainabilities studies the key role of Indigenous knowledge, practices, and governance in protecting, restoring and expanding sustainably managed territories, particularly in facing the so-called “Anthropocene” epoch’s Earth System crises. Further, it studies how Indigenous and decolonizing approaches embody sustainable alternatives to dominant governance which entrenches inequities and perpetuates the roots of systemic crises. Indigeneity is studied in its intersectional articulation with counterhegemonic social, environmental, and climate justice approaches that center equity, diversity and systemic change in sustainability transformations. These overarching goals guide complementary projects acting at different scales:
Local (rural NJ): the design, planting and cultivation of a land-based research site that actualizes Indigenous forest gardening and polycultural agroecology as a blueprint to restore biodiverse, climate positive, edible and medicinal biocultural habitats.
Regional (northeast): a participatory curriculum process where a network of Indigenous, Black and people of color can share Indigenous and agroecological knowledge, build capacity, practice land-based education and collective planning accelerate emancipatory land access, rematriation and reparations by weaving a bioregional food shed that restores biocultural habitats (collaboration with Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust).
National: a comparative study of the effectiveness of environmental organizations in addressing the roots of “Anthropocene” crises as a function of their capacity to center Indigeneity (assisted by Sabrina Chapa, Anthropocene Alliance)
Continental (Americas): a study of multiple Indigenous organizations as models of community-based biocultural revitalization of climate positive ecosystems, who also lead resistances against extractivist projects (assisted by Angela Martinez, Amazon Watch).
Global: a collaboration with a network of climate justice civil society organizations centering Indigeneity in global environmental movements and governance. We critically assess problematic climate solutions that entrench inequities and fail to address root causes, and we articulate policy and collective action analysis, as well as publicly accessible knowledge that centers Indigeneity (collaboration with ClimateFalseSolutions.org).
RESOURCES
ORGANIZATIONS
POSTS
Indigeneity and Systemic Change
Indigenous and Local Communities Land Rights: Pathways for a Climate Resilient Future for Food
Resurrecting Indigenous Ontologies: Biocultural Responses to World-System Crises
Cultivating Biocultural Diversity through Indigenous and Peasant Sovereignty
Protecting Indigenous Languages and Knowledges: Biocultural Keys to Climate Justice
community partners
videos
Header image courtesy of: Xochitl Enriquez, Jeff Slim, Kim Smith, Angel Diaz, Averian Chee, and members of the Cyphers Center for Urban Art. Co-hosted by the following organizations: Estria Foundation; Black Mesa Water Coalition, Tonatierra, PUENTE, The Phoenix Revitalization Corporation, The Valley Youth Theater, and the Downtown Phoenix PartnershipSource and further information at: https://www.estria.org/project/phoenix-arizona/
Institutional support
We thank for their support the Tishman Environment and Design Center, the Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management Program, the Milano School of Policy Management and the Environment, and the Rudin Family Foundation.