Indigenous Sustainable Wisdom: First Nation Know-How for Global Flourishing’s contributors describe ways of being that reflect a worldview that has guided humanity for 99% of human history; they describe the practical traditional wisdom stemming from Nature-based relational cultures that were or are guided by this worldview. Such cultures did not cause the kinds of anti-Nature and de-humanizing or inequitable policies and practices that now pervade our world. Far from romanticizing Indigenous histories, Indigenous Sustainable Wisdom offers facts about (...) how human beings, with our potential for good and evil behaviors, can live in relative harmony again. Contributions cover views from anthropology, psychology, sociology, leadership, native science, native history, native art. (shrink)

The absence of a national soilclassification system for Nigeria hinderssuccessful agrotechnology transfer inparticular, and agricultural development ingeneral. A discussion of the role of indigenousknowledge in agricultural development showsthat indigenous knowledge of the soil can beintegrated with modern soil science to developa soil classification system for the country.Much as local knowledge is invaluable foradvancing scientific knowledge and vice versa,caution is given against overestimating therole of indigenous knowledge in developmentalactivities. It is important to encourage theproper integration of all knowledge systems (...) increating new paradigms for sustainabledevelopment in Nigeria. (shrink)

This article contends that the environmental release of genetically engineered (GE) animals with heritable traits that are patented will present a challenge to the efforts of nations and indigenous peoples to engage in self‐determination. The environmental release of such animals has been proposed on the grounds that they could function as public health tools or as solutions to the problem of agricultural insect pests. This article brings into focus two political‐economic‐legal problems that would arise with the environmental release (...) of such organisms. To address those challenges, it is proposed that nations considering the environmental release of GE animals must take into account the underlying circumstances and policy failures that motivate arguments for the use of the modified animals. Moreover, countries must recognize that the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights place on them an obligation to ensure that GE animals with patented heritable traits are not released without the substantive consent of the nations or indigenous peoples that could be affected. (shrink)

How should historians write Native history? To what extent should one privilege Native terms, sources, chronologies, and epistemologies? And to what extent should historians align Native history with concepts developed for other peoples and places? These crucial questions about emic and etic approaches to the past are cast into sharp relief in Pekka Hämäläinen’s award-winning The Comanche Empire. This essay charts the perils and possibilities of each position. It then explores possible ways to move beyond the emic/etic division that has (...) dominated many of the recent debates about Native history through a rereading of an episode in which Comanche history collides with US and Mexican history. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In their recent efforts to protect the Southern Resident killer whale population in the Salish Sea and bring ‘Lolita’ home, the Lummi Nation exposed significant limitations to species and habitats as values in Western conservation models. Where Indigenous conservation falls outside this scope, it is often invisible to or actively suppressed by the settler state. The conservation practices of NOAA, in accordance with the federal policy of the ESA, have amounted to extractive colonial enterprises, treating the whales as (...) educational, economic, and environmental possessions while degrading the relationship of the Lummi to the whales as relatives and attacking Lummi sovereignty. (shrink)

Mexico, with the commissioning of the "National Crusade Against Hunger Program" in 2013, aimed at serving the population that presents both extreme poverty and food deprivation. The article aims to analyze whether the criterion of the selection of the municipalities of the State of Veracruz incorporated in the National Crusade Against Hunger Program (PNCH) show complementarity with the efforts in the fight against poverty in the social expenditure strategy applied in the Priority Attention Zones Program (ZAP) and the Priority Areas (...) Development Program (PDZP) and, particularly, the indigenous municipalities that have a greater degree of social exclusion. The adjustment of a binary logistic regression model is presented, in order to assess the incidence of contextual factors to interpret the scope of the strategy adopted by the federal government in the fight against poverty and hunger. As a result, it is evident that there is no continuity in the fight against poverty, since the municipalities included in the strategy Priority Areas of Attention and Program of Development of Priority Zones are not considered in the selection of municipalities incorporated in the National Program of Crusade Against Hunger, a situation that identifies the relationship between programs is not complementary. (shrink)

Inequities in access to oncology care among Indigenous peoples in Canada are well documented. Access to oncology care is mediated by a range of factors; however, emerging evidence suggests that healthcare providers, including nurses, play a significant role in shaping healthcare access. The purpose of this study was to critically examine access to oncology care among Indigenous peoples in Canada from the perspective of oncology nurses. Guided by postcolonial theoretical perspectives, interpretive descriptive and critical discourse analysis methodologies informed (...) study design and data analysis. Oncology nurses were recruited from across Canada to complete an online survey (n = 78). Nurses identified a range of barriers experienced by Indigenous peoples when accessing oncology care, yet located these barriers primarily at the individual and systems levels. Nurses perceived themselves as mediators of access to oncology care; however, their efforts to facilitate access to care were constrained by the dominance of biomedicine within healthcare. Nurses' constructions of access to oncology care highlight the embedded narrative of individualism within nursing practice and the relative invisibility of racism as a determinant of equitable access to care among Indigenous peoples. This suggests a need for oncology nurses to better understand and incorporate structural determinants of health perspectives. (shrink)

Indigenous Peoples, Consent and Benefit Sharing is the first in-depth account of the Hoodia bioprospecting case and use of San traditional knowledge, placing it in the global context of indigenous peoples’ rights, consent and benefit-sharing. It is unique as the first interdisciplinary analysis of consent and benefit sharing in which philosophers apply their minds to questions of justice in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), lawyers interrogate the use of intellectual property rights to protect traditional knowledge, environmental scientists (...) analyse implications for national policies, anthropologists grapple with the commodification of knowledge and, uniquely, case experts from Asia, Australia and North America bring their collective expertise and experiences to bear on the San-Hoodia case. -/- While much of the focus is on bioprospecting and natural product development, Indigenous Peoples, Consent and Benefit-Sharing also draws important lessons about informed consent and benefit-sharing from the health sciences and sectors such as mining. Policymakers around the world are under significant pressure to resolve the challenges of implementing the CBD. This book’s analysis and recommendations will help them. -/- ‘It is good to see philosophers engaging with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, and doing so by looking in depth at a real situation in which it has been invoked.’ Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University . (shrink)

‘You mean to say we’re not the only people in the world with the problem of a national park?’ This question was raised during a focus group discussion held with an indigenous community whose ancestral domain overlaps entirely with a national park in the Philippine Cordillera. The question encapsulates an experience shared across the Philippines, particularly in spaces where both the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act and the National Integrated Protected Areas System are implemented. This paper examines recent developments (...) in indigenous leaders’ participation in, and critique of, the implementation of these two laws and the development of environmental policies. It follows an emerging, multi-sectoral movement calling for the recognition of Indigenous Communities Conserved Areas and Territories, which has led to the crafting of a draft law. The ICCA bill is envisioned as a law that will resolve indigenous peoples’ problems with national parks, while meeting biodiversity conservation targets. The authors direct attention to how indigenous leaders campaigning for the ICCA bill are asserting their right to delineate space and make decisions in the contexts of policy-making and implementation. It is argued here that their articulations are registers of indigenous critique. Taking these critiques seriously has the potential to drive conservation policy-making past the stewardship stalemate, where conservation goals are pursued at the cost of indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and indigenous peoples are expected to perform harmony with nature. (shrink)

In 2016, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen officially apologised to the island’s indigenous peoples. This national apology not only plays a persuasive role in informing the general public about the historical wrongdoings inflicted on the Taiwanese aborigines, but also constitutes a therapeutic and restorative role in the process of reconciliation with the indigenous victims. This article provides a critical discourse analysis of President Tsai’s apology. In particular, it examines the power and ideology embedded in both the speech and the (...) related ceremony, and is supplemented with extracts from interviews with a cross-section of key stakeholders, such as a former Constitutional/supreme Court Justice, indigenous/tribal leaders and members/staff/advisers from the Presidential Office Indigenous Historical Justice and Transitional Justice Committee. The analysis reveals that, despite President Tsai’s apology and reconciliation policies, instead of facilitating reconciliation, the apology appears to exacerbate the long-standing latent tension between indigenous and non-indigenous groups. While the apology opens a window for reconciliation, a higher level of commitment is required to promote structural and systemic changes, such as land restitution, before the apology can be deemed adequate. (shrink)

The United Nations' (UN) adoption of a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is intended to mark a fundamental ethical turn in the relationships between indigenous peoples and the community of sovereign states. This moment is the result of decades of discussion and negotiation, largely revolving around states' discomfort with notion of indigenous self-determination. Member states of the UN have feared that an ethic of indigenous self-determination would undermine the principles of state sovereignty on (...) which the UN is itself grounded. However, such fears are the result of very poor understandings of the ethical principles under which the relations between indigenous peoples and nation-states already have been formed under centuries of European colonialism. The principle of self-determination embraced in this Declaration does not diverge from colonial norms; it entrenches these norms as international policy. Without doubt, indigenous peoples are more likely to benefit than suffer from states' observance of the Articles within this Declaration. Reducing the challenge of indigenous peoples' rights to the notion of self-determination set out in this document, though, misses an extraordinarily important opportunity to critically investigate the ethic of rights that has produced an opposition between nation-states and indigenous peoples to begin with. A true turn in the ethics of this relationship would see not simply the institution of a right to self-determination but, rather, indigenous peoples' right to first determine the nature of self for themselves. (shrink)

ResumoO Estado brasileiro buscou apagar a diversidade de povos e culturas que caracterizam o país por meio da imposição da ideia de uma "brasilidade homogênea". Para a historiografia “nacional” que surgia após a Independência, o início da história do Brasil significava o fim dos povos indígenas, que “foram excluídos enquanto atores históricos” e “invisibilizados pelos discursos políticos e intelectuais” até a década de 1980, momento em que emergem “como sujeitos de sua história”. Partindo do diálogo entre a historiografia indígena e (...) a antropologia, nosso objetivo é refletir sobre o tema das culturas indígenas e a ideia de nacionalidade brasileira construída pelas elites brancas depois da Independência.Palavras-chave: Culturas indígenas. História indígena. Nação brasileira. AbstractThe Brazilian State intended to "dissolve" the diversity of people and cultures that characterize the country through the imposition of the idea of "homogeneous Brazilianness". For the “national” historiography that emerged after Independence “the beginning of the history of Brazil meant the end of the Indians, who “were excluded as historical actors” and “made invisible by political and intellectual discourses” until the decade 1980, when they emerge “as subjects of their history”. Based on the dialogue between indigenous historiography and anthropology, our aim is to reflect on the theme of indigenous cultures and the idea of Brazilian nationality built by white elites after Independence.Key words: Indigenous cultures. indigenous history. Brazilian nation. (shrink)

Contemporary notions of what constitutes tribal self government for Indigenous Peoples in the legal systems of the nation-states Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America have their origins in philosophies and theories developed by European nation-states generally, in relation to their colonial expansion into what is now called the Americas. This thesis examines the nature of these theories, and how they have formed the basis for legal precedent and public policy in the three nation-states. A representative analysis (...) of three contemporary issues will serve to illustrate the outcome of this legal/political history. I look at three sites. These are the British Columbia Treaty Process in Canada, the Waka Umanga legislation in New Zealand, and legal developments arising from the Indian Reorganization Act in the United States. Full sovereignty from an Indigenous Peoples worldview existed for Indigenous nations, and with it, self government. The notion of self government as a viable and contemporary public policy initiative is well grounded in law and history. It would seem that current initiatives to acknowledge this inherent right are more about preserving colonial hegemony rather then engaging in honest negotiation. Current initiatives are converging into a single public policy goal; namely the corporatisation of Indigenous Peoples legal personality and self governing capacity. What used to be distinct nation-state development now seems to be a four nation-state (CANZUS) unified plan being implemented on four different fronts. Clearly, from the legal history, self government is something fundamentally different from self-management. The advent of Legal Positivism has played a significant role in assumptions that inherent sovereignty and self government never existed under European legal systems. The framework of tribal self governance must be viewed in the context of the values of the specific People to be a true expression of an Indigenous Nation exercising self government. This fundamental distinction can be traced back to the legal history. The foundational laws regarding interactions with Indigenous Peoples were developed under theories of natural law. The contemporary state practice is conducted under positivist law, with a nod toward developing human rights standards. Only through continued advocacy for the legal recognition of inherent rights will the nation-states be challenged on their self management agenda. (shrink)

Researchers seeking to engage in projects related to Tribal communities and their citizens, lands, and non-human relatives are responsible for understanding and abiding by each Tribal nation’s research laws and review processes. Few studies, however, have described the many diverse forms of Tribal research review systems across the United States (US). This study provides one of the most comprehensive examinations of research review processes administered by Tribal Research Review Boards (TRRBs) in the US. Through a systematic analysis, we consider TRRBs’ (...) online presence, online documentation, and themes across documents, for five entity types: Tribal nations and Tribal consortiums, Tribal colleges and universities, Tribal health organizations, Indian Health Services, and other Tribal organizations. Results include an assessment of online presence for 98 potential TRRBs, identification of 118 publicly available online documents, and analysis of 41 themes across four document types: Tribal research codes and TRRBs’ guidelines, applications, and post-approval documents. Altogether, this research provides a macro-level analysis of the most common types of TRRBs in the US in an effort to increase researchers’ understanding of these important processes as they prepare to ethically engage Tribal communities in research. These results aim to empower Tribal decision makers as they align their TRRBs’ online visibility and documentation with community priorities and strengthen their protections for the rights and wellbeing of their citizens and community. Ultimately, by expanding our knowledge of TRRBs across the US, this contribution seeks to uphold Tribal sovereignty in research and promote ethical approaches to research with Indigenous communities. (shrink)

Despite theorisation and consistent Pracademic (academics who are also practitioners) contributions to the concepts of truth-telling and decolonising epistemologies in the fields of activist research, there remains ongoing need for articulating the everyday praxis and positionality of empirical work. This paper considers the practice of two intercultural Australian-based practitioners’ examination of the ethical practices towards decolonising praxis as a contributor to third-space youth development which considers the space between participants. First Nations terminology is drawn on to explore the empirical (...) nature of third space theory (Bhabha) acknowledging the social construct of hybrid identities within individuals and communities’ personhood. Through exploring Indigenous inquiry as a contributor to third-space youth development, this paper argues that co-creation of knowledge amongst young people and practitioners considers a third space which can allow for deeper understandings of intercultural work and power dynamics. This article provides the opportunity to further explore a critical analysis of the challenges and possibilities of practitioners/pracademics working towards a decolonising journey which has implications for the ethics of youth work practice globally. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2017 Heft: 216 Seiten: 281-296.

This book examines the intersections of bioethics, human rights and health equity. It does so through the contextual lenses of nation states while presenting global themes on rights, colonialism and bioethics. The book is framed by the following propositions on indigenous health: it is a human rights issue; it is located within the politics of colonization; and subjugated indigenous knowledges require restoring.

As political theorists address the parochial foundations of their field, engagement with the Indigenous traditions of Turtle Island is overdue. This article argues that theorists should approach such engagement with caution. Indigenous nations’ politics of knowledge production may differ from those of de-parochializing political theorists. Some Indigenous communities, in response to violent histories of knowledge extraction, have developed practices of refusal. The contemporary movement of resurgence engages Indigenous traditions of political thought toward the end of (...) promoting Indigenous intellectual and political sovereignty and self-determination. These practices demonstrate a commitment to epistemic justice that is imperfectly aligned with, and potentially opposed to, inclusion-oriented projects like comparative political theory. If political theorists are to de-parochialize political theory by incorporating Indigenous traditions, they must do so in ways that are respectful of Indigenous peoples’ own struggles for epistemic justice. This can be achieved by drawing on and deepening practices of reflexivity exhibited in leading comparative political theory scholarship, and by allowing Indigenous treaty relationships to set the terms of the encounter. (shrink)

Ethnobotanical research provides ample justification for comparing diverse biological nomenclatures and exploring ways that retain alternative naming practices. However, how (and whether) comparison of nomenclatures is possible remains a subject of discussion. The comparison of diverse nomenclatural practices introduces a suite of epistemic and ontological difficulties and considerations. Different nomenclatures may depend on whether the communities using them rely on formalized naming conventions; cultural or spiritual valuations; or worldviews. Because of this, some argue that the different naming practices may not (...) be comparable if the ontological commitments employed differ. Comparisons between different nomenclatures cannot assume that either the naming practices or the object to which these names are intended to apply identifies some universally agreed upon object of interest. Investigating this suite of philosophical problems, I explore the role grey nomenclatures play in classification. ‘Grey nomenclatures’ are defined as those that employ names that are either intentionally or accidentally non-Linnaean. The classification of the lichen thallus (a symbiont) has been classified outside the Linnaean system by botanists relying on the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN). But, I argue, the use of grey names is not isolated and does not occur exclusively within institutionalized naming practices. I suggest, ‘grey names’ also aptly describe nomenclatures employed by indigenous communities such as the Samí of Northern Finmark, the Sherpa of Nepal, and the Okanagan First Nations. I pay particular attention to how naming practices are employed in these communities; what ontological commitments they hold; for what purposes are these names used; and what anchors the community’s nomenclatural practices. Exploring the history of lichen naming and early ethnolichenological research, I then investigate the stakes that must be considered for any attempt to preserve, retain, integrate, or compare the knowledge contained in both academically formalized grey names and indigenous nomenclatures in a way that preserves their source-specific informational content. (shrink)

In his Indigenous critique of the field of animal studies, Billy-Ray Belcourt (Driftpile Cree Nation) describes it as having an analytic blind spot when it comes to settler-colonialism, a blind spot that manifests through universalising claims and clumsy arguments about ‘shared’ oppressions, through assumptions that settler colonial political institutions can be a neutral part of the solution, and through a failure to engage with ‘Indigenous studies of other than human life’ (20). In the same article, he calls on (...) decolonial projects to do more to include animality within their purview, to include critiques of animal agriculture and to incorporate critiques of anthropocentrism as ‘a key logic of white supremacy’. Belcourt’s critique of both Animal studies and decolonial projects on the basis of an unequal but mutual marginalisation is an important starting point for research projects like ours that hope to bring Animal studies and Indigenous studies approaches into dialogue about the cultural impacts of introduced animals. Our approach sets out to be ‘triadic’, always involving at least three sides; Settler- Coloniser, Indigene and Animal. (shrink)

Herbert, Michael Indigenous health is everybody's responsibility. This is true from the national policy level, to state governments and clinics on the ground. Whichever way a particular health issue is approached, and new perspectives are certainly needed, the bottom line is that the determinants of health always reflect back to the living conditions, education, past injustices, and socioeconomic circumstances of the Aboriginal population.

In our global neocolonial and neoliberal present, so-called solutions to settler-Indigenous conflict are often framed as a reconciliation achieved through a multicultural democratic society. However, this conception of resolution frequently adopts a superficial understanding of culture that ultimately understands cultural difference as reconcilable in the sense that other cultures can be folded into or made compatible with dominant cultural norms. On Turtle Island (North America), especially within the settler colonial context, such reconciliation as resolution becomes a differently fashioned form (...) of domination as assimilation especially from the vantage points of Indigenous nations and Afro-descended peoples. This essay explores the ontological incommensurabilities of cultural difference that resist assimilation or translation into dominant Euro-Western cultural frameworks. It does this through examining the way culture and ontological orientation, or world-senses, are made and live on through various modes of cultural preservation and practice. I examine these ideas through Indigenous practices of orality, origin stories, ceremony, and cultural revitalization. (shrink)

History can be understood as involving a problematic interplay between the long-term legacy of human evolution, still tempered into the human body today, and the shorter-term heritage of civilization from its beginnings to the present. Each of us lives in a tension between our indigenous bodies and our civilized selves, between the philosophy of the earth and that which I characterize as “the philosophy of escape from the earth.” The standard story of civilization is one of linear upward progress, (...) a story that I contest with an alternative philosophy of history, picturing history instead as a set of concentric circles. I have devised a new philosophy of history with a three-part approach to understanding human development, taking civilization not as a linear advance of progress, but rather as a progress in precision, paradoxically counteracted by a regression in mind: history as a contraction of mind. I describe three stages in the contraction of mind: 1) animate mind as the evolved outlook of foraging life; 2) anthropocentric mind as representing the contracting transformation of consciousness produced by agriculturally-based civilization; 3) mechanico-centric mind as representing a further contraction from human-centered to a machine-centered consciousness, produced by the rise of modern civilization and the mechanical scientific worldview. Hence, this progressive contraction is marked by a turn from original practical and reverential attunement to the living earth in hunting and gathering societies, or animate mind, to a narrower focus of anthropocentric mind beginning with the development of early civilizations, where the human element became central and the wild devalued. And it moves to an even more narrow focus of mechanico-centric mind, expanding out of late medieval Europe and the development of modern science, where the machine became model of the ultimate, the objectivist filter through which the world is to be understood and made to fit. Far from controlling nature, humans have been consuming it in an unsustainable Malthusian-like trajectory whose limits are being reached in our time. (shrink)

Transitional justice is positioned as an emergent discourse to grapple with the aim, and subsequent practices, of moving societies mired in violent political relations to more stable, democratic political relations. Increasingly, precepts of transitional justice are being applied to political reconciliatory processes in so- called liberal democratic states. This article examines limitations to transitional justice paradigms especially when applied to Indigenous-state reconciliatory processes by centering Indigenous scholarly discourse critical of both transitional justice and reconciliation processes that position (...) class='Hi'>Indigenous peoples, Indigenous lands, and the landed violence of colonialism as fixed in the past. The article offers an analysis of the limitations of neoliberal transitional justice and reconciliation processes that do not realize justice for Indigenous peoples and Indigenous lands by highlighting Indigenous-centered accounts of justice that promote collective capacities of Indigenous nations rooted in the ability of Indigenous peoples to experience themselves in the world in ways that center relations to land, world, and relatives (human and non-human). (shrink)

Indigenous understandings of consciousness represent an important inspiration for scientific discussions about the nature of consciousness. Despite the fact that Indigenous concepts are not outputs of a research driven by rigorous, scientific methods, they are of high significance, because they have been formed by hundreds of years of specific routes of cultural evolution. The evolution of Indigenous cultures proceeded in their native habitat. The meanings that emerged in this process represent adaptive solutions that were optimal in the (...) given environmental and social milieu. We argue that it would not be appropriate to handle these meanings as something that science considers to be wrong, or outdated relics of the human past. In contrast, Indigenous concepts and their meanings may be considered to be an important heritage of native human populations, but moreover, they are also an interesting material for analyses and inspiration for recent scientific debates. Furthermore, it is also necessary to mention another reason why the exploration of Indigenous concepts has been so topical recently. Thus far, much psychological theoretical development has been published in English as a result of research conducted in Western countries. The dominance of English and the superiority of research conducted by researchers from Western countries may be considered as a kind of barrier toward other ways of knowing. We argue that the traditional cultural knowledge coming from Indigenous societies may offer an interesting source of new thought for science. The weakening of the strong dependence of science on well-established academic circles dominated by Western theoretical perspectives may be beneficial for stimulating its further development (Sidik, 2022). Therefore, this special symposium of the Journal of Consciousness Studies aims to open the doors for other ways of knowing, For the knowing that emerged in native Indigenous cultures. We argue that the rich cultural heritage of these societies may stimulate the emergence of new analytical perspectives for scientific theorising about the nature of consciousness. For all these reasons, the Indigenous concepts of consciousness captured our interest, and we decided to start investigating them. In 2020 and 2021, we retrieved and analysed pieces of information from past ethnographical field evidence gathered in various Indigenous cultures. After removal of data about the cultures showing a high acceptance of influences from external religious traditions (e.g. Christianity, Islam or Buddhism), a comparative analysis of data from 55 Indigenous groups was conducted and published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies (Trnka and Lorencova, 2022). This primary project revealed many interesting results, but more importantly, it also showed many unexplored avenues that called for further exploration. This special symposium of the Journal of Consciousness Studies is a continuation and new development of research on the Indigenous understanding of consciousness. Past ethnographical evidence involved some valuable pieces of knowledge about Indigenous concepts of consciousness, but the relevant information was often fragmentary or even totally missing in some cases. Moreover, many authors of past ethnographic records applied a strong etic approach that clouded the understanding of native Indigenous thoughts. Therefore, the main goal of the recent symposium was to broaden the overall information basis for the analysis of Indigenous concepts of consciousness or closely related phenomena. In other words, the symposium aimed to bring more detailed knowledge of Indigenous concepts of consciousness, mind and body and their relations in various groups of Indigenous people. In 2022, we contacted potential contributors and were pleased by their positive reactions, which reflected the topicality of this research focus. The authors were asked to draft their papers with a special focus on (a) a cultural Indigenous understanding of the concept of consciousness, (b) a cultural Indigenous understanding of the mind-body differentiation (or consciousness-body differentiation) and (c) cultural metaphors and cultural beliefs related to consciousness, mind and body. Many of contributors were native members of Indigenous cultures that made the descriptions of Indigenous concepts more accurate and reliable. This enabled many truly emic, in-depth insights into the Indigenous concepts of consciousness and related phenomena to be gained. As a result, this issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies introduces eight papers, each focused on a different geographical region/Indigenous groups: Nahua and Maya (Mexico), Guna (Panama), Mapuche (Chile), Maori (New Zealand), Telingit (Altai), Mongolian groups, Igbo (Nigeria) and Asabano (New Guinea). These papers are followed by one more general paper discussing magical consciousness on the case of an Aboriginal wise man (Australia). The symposium closes with our concluding editorial essay, which generalises the findings and introduces three theoretical models of understandings of consciousness inspired by the analysis of Indigenous concepts of consciousness. Aside from the importance for basic research, the exploration of Indigenous concepts of consciousness is also very important for informing practitioners from many applied spheres. Many current methods for treating addictions, traumatic life events, professional burnout and other mental health problems use features of Indigenous healing practices. A proper understanding of meanings related to mind, body and consciousness are quite important for Western psychotherapists to adapt the Indigenous practices to particular Western cultural milieus. Furthermore, a proper understanding of meanings related to mind, body, and consciousness is also important for treating ethnic, linguistic and culturally diverse populations (APA, 1990). For therapists, psychologists and physicians, understanding the meanings of these concepts may promote their own better care of their clients from various Indigenous ethnic groups. Last but not least, Indigenous concepts, meanings and languages are closely related to the continuation of the heritage of Indigenous people (United Nations, 2016). The world’s Indigenous languages have recently been under threat of disappearing; many Indigenous languages are endangered globally, and the rate of loss is high (United Nations, 2016). Importantly, recent research has also shown that the retention of Indigenous languages may be protective for the psychological and physical health of their speakers. All these areas represent fields for potential use of the findings presented in this symposium of the Journal of Consciousness Studies. As a concluding note, the editors of this symposium hope that this collection of papers will inspire academic scholars while also providing important information for practitioners from various spheres. (shrink)

This article examines the idioms of ‘modernity’ with specific focus on indigenous peoples and their engagement with larger society in respect of culture, development and jurisprudence. This engagement in the past 50 years has largely been within the terms of the nation-state system, and related international fora. It is argued that these indigeneous communities, in all their great diversity across the world, have nevertheless been largely successful in carving out adequate political spaces to stake their claims as distinct ‘peoples’ (...) rather than simply being recognized as one among the several ethnic groups or minorities of a nation-state polity. This distinction is crucial and this paper shows why and how. This is not to say that the indigenous communities the world over have similar terms of engagement as their own heterogeneity defies any neat typological schema. At the same time, the multiple idioms of the current indigenous discourse, however, should not be treated as cacophonic but as embodying consciously crafted tools for boundary negotiations and voicing indigenous identities. This article reflects on this achievement by providing a survey of these developments even as it critically explores the terms of the discourses themselves. (shrink)

The introduction of the National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines for the ethical conduct of Indigenous health research: Values and Ethics: guidelines for ethical conduct in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research (NHMRC, 2003), has prompted renewed debate about the ethical assessment of Indigenous health research in Australia. Concern has been expressed that these guidelines provide inadequate protection of Indigenous interests and that their introduction will result in a rolling back of important Indigenous research (...) reform gains of the past three decades. Another view is that the participatory focus of the Guidelines will help ensure that key Indigenous values are positioned as central to the development of research involving Indigenous interests. In this article we provide an overview of recent commentary on the Guidelines, and canvass practical proposals for their implementation into practice. In particular, we present a case for applying the Values and Ethics Guidelines as a foundation for establishing negotiated research agreements between Indigenous peoples and professional researchers at the local community level. The intention of this proposal is to give voice to the concerns and perspectives of Indigenous peoples through research, and to provide a framework for monitoring research after ethics approval has been granted. (shrink)

This article considers how diplomacy can be refined and amplified within the field of multicultural education. Focusing on Native American peoples in particular, I argue that the multiculturalist emphasis on cultural diplomacy overlooks the political difference of First Nations peoples. In contrast to a multiculturalist cultural diplomacy, the article develops diplomacy according to a decolonial framework that seeks to dismantle colonial perspectives of Native American political difference. Drawing upon theorists and historians of diplomacy, as well as Indigenous and (...) decolonial writers, the article seeks to provide the terms through which teacher identifications as decolonial diplomats can be fostered toward Native Americans. (shrink)

The present paper examines conventional wisdom on the subject of the justification of indigenous peoples' intellectual property rights, and offers an alternative approach. The examination is achieved by a critique of two such conventional approaches in terms of the strength of each argument employed, and in terms of the efficacy of each in the roles allotted to them. The first such argument is Stenson and Gray's application of Kymlicka's individualist theory advocating national minority autonomy. The second argument is the (...) labour entitlement theory of property acquisition, as advanced by Locke and Nozick. These theories only explain how a liberal social contract theorist would construct justifications from the outside. That this is inadequate is shown by reference to a case study involving indigenous claims against Australian law based on indigenous customary law. There, appeals are not made to abstract theory, but to tribal imperative. This observation finds sympathetic support in a reading of Hegel's philosophy of history. Hegel finds spirit in all peoples at all times. To Hegel, non-state peoples are developmentally prior to states; this means that states have developed dialectically from such peoples and cannot therefore deny them without self-contradiction. This places an onus upon a state that has subsumed an indigenous people to accommodate its laws and ways. (shrink)

This forward-looking resource offers readers a modern contextual framework for conducting social science research with indigenous peoples. Foundational chapters summarize current UN-based standards for indigenous rights and autonomy, with their implications for research practice. Coverage goes on to detail minimally-invasive data-gathering methods, survey current training and competency issues, and consider the scientist’s role in research, particularly as a product of his/her own cultural background. From these guidelines and findings, students and professionals have a robust base for carrying out (...) indigenous research that is valid and reliable as well as respectful and ethical. Among the topics covered: -/- · Cultural theories and cultural dominance. -/- · The legal framework of research in indigenous contexts. -/- · The role of language within indigenous peoples’ cultural rights. -/- · Methodology: how to optimally collect data in the field. · Researchers’ influence and philosophy of science. -/- · Learning how to prepare research in indigenous contexts. -/- Research Methods in Indigenous Contexts is an important reference benefitting a wide audience, including students and researchers in the social sciences, humanities, and psychology; decision-makers of NGOs and GOs that act with regard to humanitarian aid, for tourism projects, or any other contingency with indigenous contexts; and policymakers interested in the aspects of human activity upon which indigenous cultural concerns are based. (shrink)

Increasingly, the role of health research in improving the discrepancies in health outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations in developed countries is being recognised. Along with this comes the recognition that health research must be conducted in a manner that is culturally appropriate and ethically sound. Two key documents have been produced in Australia, known as The Road Map and The Guidelines, to provide theoretical and philosophical direction to the ethics of Indigenous health research. These documents identify (...) research themes considered critical to improving the health of the nation’s Indigenous peoples. They also provide values that, from an Indigenous perspective, are foundational to an ethical research process. This paper examines these research themes and values within the context of a current longitudinal birth cohort study of Indigenous infants and children in south-west Sydney: the Gudaga Study. Considerable time and effort have been invested in being true to the values stated in these documents: reciprocity; respect; equality; responsibility; survival and protection; and spirit and integrity. We have learnt that it is vital to be true to these values when conducting Indigenous health research—to quite literally “walk the talk”. (shrink)

Background Many indigenous people have died or been harmed because of inadequately monitored research. Strong regulations in Human Research Ethics (HRE) are required to address these injustices and to ensure that peoples’ participation in health research is safe. Indigenous peoples advocate that research that respects indigenous principles can contribute to addressing their health inequities. This scoping literature review aims to analyze existing peer reviewed and grey literature to explore how indigenous values and principles from countries of (...) Oceania are incorporated into HRE and the governance of research involving human participants. Methods A scoping literature review framework was used for this study. A search for peer reviewed and grey literature from Google, bibliographies, and electronic databases such as SCOPUS, SPRINGER, Medline (Ovid) and JBI Database of Systematic Reviews was conducted, limited to the years 2002–2020. Sixty (60) documents that focused on indigenous knowledge from Oceania region and HRE were included, from which key findings and themes were synthesized. Results Charting the data showed that more than half the eligible documents were peer-reviewed journal articles (54%). Other sources included: International Declarations on Human Research (8%); book chapters (8%); government documents (8%); HRE Guidelines or protocols (13%); news articles (7%) and PhD thesis (2%). The literature was from Australia, Cook Islands, Guam, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu, some of which focused specifically on HREs in the Pacific Region. Issues emerging from the literature were grouped into five themes (i) indigenous and cultural principles of HRE; (ii) informed consent in indigenous settings in Oceania; (iii) vulnerability and minority status of indigenous populations exploited for research; (iv) research ethics governance for Oceania indigenous peoples; and (v) research ethics committees in Oceania. Respect, relationship building, and trust were priority indigenous HRE principles that encompass the principles of partnership, capacity building, reciprocity, and equality. Relationship building and trust imply the equal distribution of benefits for indigenous population and researchers. Conclusion Indigenous principles of HRE identified were interconnected and interdependent. Recommendations were to incorporate indigenous principles of research in HRE regulations and processes of all countries with indigenous populations. This is especially pertinent for emerging national research committees in LMIC countries, including Fiji and Tonga. Relationship building among researchers and indigenous populations is key to successful research with indigenous populations. HRE principles important for relationship building include respect that is reciprocal among researchers and indigenous people. Elements of the principle of respect highlighted are empathy, collaboration, sharing of benefits, reciprocity, appreciation, empowerment, protection, safety and awareness of culture and languages. Indigenous ontology from the Oceania region involves spirituality, connectedness to land, religious beliefs and a participatory approach to HRE and should be respected in research. An ethical governance mechanism of HRE is one that incorporates indigenous principles and applications for the purpose of maximizing the protection of the dignity and rights of indigenous peoples of Oceania. (shrink)

Despite the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, assimilationist policies continue, whether official or effective. Such policies affect more than the right to group choice. The concern is whether indeed genocide or “only” ethnocide (or culturecide)—the elimination of a traditional culture—is at work. Discussions of the distinction between the two terms have been inconsistent enough that at least one commentator has declared that they cannot be used in analytical contexts. While these terms, I contend, have (...) distinct senses, yet in cases of governmental and other institutional assimilationist policy for indigenous peoples, such ethnocide effectively entails genocide. Insofar as any people’s cultural practices and beliefs are essential for life and health, individuals in groups value, if tacitly, their culture as highly as their language or any artifact: Thus, attempts to eradicate a culture through assimilation in fact eradicate individuals’ lives and health and so are effectively murderous. Acknowledgement by worldwide organizations that assimilationist ethnocide is effectively genocide should affect policy concerning indigenous peoples and thus has significance for international law. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore how theorists might navigate a course between the twin dangers of piety and excess cynicism when thinking critically about state apologies, by focusing on two government apologies to indigenous peoples: namely, those made by the Australian and Canadian Prime Ministers in 2008. Both apologies are notable for several reasons: they were both issued by heads of government, and spoken on record within the space of government: the national parliaments of both countries. Furthermore, in each (...) case, the object of the apology – that which was apologized for – comes closer to disrupting the idea both countries have of themselves, and their image in the global political community, than any previous apologies made by either government. Perhaps as a result, both apologies were surrounded by celebration and controversy alike, and tracing their consequences – even in the short term – is a difficult business. We avoid excessive piety or cynicism, I argue, when we take several things into account. First, apologies have multiple functions: they narrate particular histories of wrongdoing, they express disavowal of that wrongdoing, and they commit to appropriate forms of repair or renewal. Second, the significance and the success of each function must be assessed contextually. Third, when turning to official political apologies, in particular, appropriate assessment of their capacity to disavow or to commit requires that consider apologies both as performance and as political action. While there remain significant questions regarding the practice of political apology – in particular, its relationship to practices of reparation, forgiveness and reconciliation – this approach can provide a framework with which to best consider them. (shrink)

Research involving and impacting Indigenous Peoples is often of little or no benefit to the communities involved and, in many cases, causes harm. Ensuring that Indigenous research is not only ethical but also of benefit to the communities involved is a long-standing problem that requires fundamental changes in higher education. To address this necessity for change, the authors of this paper, with the help of graduate and Indigenous community research assistants, undertook community consultation across their university to (...) identify the local and national ethical needs of Indigenous researchers, communities, and Elders. This paper provides an overview of the consultation process, the themes that emerged from the consultations, and a model of the Wholistic Indigenous Research Framework that emerged. (shrink)

This paper examines the outcomes of Preserving the Past Together, a workshop series designed to build the capacity of local heritage managers to engage in collaborative and community-based approaches to archaeology and historic preservation. Over the past two decades practitioners of these approaches have demonstrated the interpretive, methodological, and ethical value of integrating Indigenous perspectives and methods into the process and practice of heritage management and archaeology. Despite these benefits, few professional resources exist to support the development of collaborative (...) relationships between local heritage managers and Tribal nations. Filling this need, Preserving the Past Together’s interactive workshops and keynote lectures involved participants in a discussion of the central themes in collaborative and Indigenous approaches to archaeology today, highlighting the local challenges and opportunities that exist for archaeologists, heritage managers, and Tribal nations to work together to care for the past. This paper presents an overview of the event series’ goals, the strategies it used to foster collaboration among the diverse stakeholders of the Salish Sea, and the next steps the project’s co-directors are taking to further support communication and collaboration between stewards and stakeholders in the Pacific Northwest. (shrink)

The present paper examines conventional wisdom on the subject of the justification of indigenous peoples' intellectual property rights, and offers an alternative approach. The examination is achieved by a critique of two such conventional approaches in terms of the strength of each argument employed, and in terms of the efficacy of each in the roles allotted to them. The first such argument is Stenson and Gray's application of Kymlicka's individualist theory advocating national minority autonomy. The second argument is the (...) labour entitlement theory of property acquisition, as advanced by Locke and Nozick. These theories only explain how a liberal social contract theorist would construct justifications from the outside. That this is inadequate is shown by reference to a case study involving indigenous claims against Australian law based on indigenous customary law. There, appeals are not made to abstract theory, but to tribal imperative. This observation finds sympathetic support in a reading of Hegel's philosophy of history. Hegel finds spirit in all peoples at all times. To Hegel, non-state peoples are developmentally prior to states; this means that states have developed dialectically from such peoples and cannot therefore deny them without self-contradiction. This places an onus upon a state that has subsumed an indigenous people to accommodate its laws and ways. (shrink)

This paper offers a close reading of PAW Media animation My Name is Danny. Drawing across a growing body of recent Central and Western Desert experimental cinema, this paper asks what is at stake in the turn to animation. Rather than escapism or otherworldly fabrications which have little to do with lived experience of the “real,” animation in this context has potent everyday exigencies and politics. The capacity for bringing to life literally – animate – is here linked to the (...) primacy of a sentient landscape; an object world already alive and enlivened with motion, movement, sensation. The question for contemporary filmmaking is how to engage country and its viscera today. How to keep country/ancestor/story alive literally through sentient forms of affective exchange; a project which animation, as this paper will explore, uniquely provides. Drawing on the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze, as well as the animation theory of Cholodenko, Lemarre and others, this paper argues for a radical reconsideration of animation not as incompatible with tradition but in fact as facilitating traditional ontologies of affect and sensation in a national context of remote Aboriginal Australia “under occupation.”. (shrink)