Indigenous Perspectives

From indigenous cultures — who’ve tended to operate on a paradigm of cooperative collectivism that’s deeply entwined with their relationship to nature — to the African Ubuntu philosophy that emphasizes communal values, empathy, shared humanity, and the foundational belief that individuals exist in a web of relationships, there are countless cultura... See more

When metaphor invades decolonization, it kills the v ery possibility of decolonization; it recenters whiteness, it resettles theory, it extends innocence to the settler, it entertains a settler future. Decolonize (a verb) and decolonization (a noun) cannot easily be grafted onto pre -existing discourses/frame works, even if they are critical, even ... See more

We have tried to relate to the world around us through only the left side of our brain, and we are clearly failing. If we are to re-establish a viable relationship, we will need to rediscover the wisdom of these other cultures who knew that their relationship to the land and to the natural world required the whole of their being.

Most native societies around the world had three common characteristics: they had an intimate, conscious relationship with their place; they were stable "sustainable" cultures, often lasting for thousands of years; and they had a rich ceremonial and ritual life. They saw these three as intimately connected.