Re-Building Sustainable Indigenous Communities

Re-Building Sustainable Indigenous Communities Gregory A. Cajete, Ph.D. Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico Presentation to Northwest Indian College April 29, 2010

Healthy CommunityComing Home , Cheryl Charles & Bob Samples • Healthy Communities are cultural and natural systems where life and learning are nourished by the actions of members. • This enables peaceful and sustainable futures. • We begin with one core community but become members of many other kinds of communities through our life time.

Foundations of Indigenous Knowledge • Traditional Knowledge: Handed down, based on stories and experiences of a people through time. • Empirical Knowledge: Gained through careful observation and practice over time. • Revealed Knowledge: Gained through vision, ritual and ceremony. • Contemporary Knowledge: Gain through experience and problem solving.

Metaphors for LifeBiological metaphors are aliveMechanical metaphors are dead.Metaphors influence how we think,and the ways in which we affect others.

Compelling Need • People today are searching for meaning. We lack a sense of the communal good. • We struggle without recognizing the need for communal virtue and ethical action. • A health society can only come from healthy communities comprised of self determining individuals acting and taking responsibility for their actions for all.

COMMUNITY: • The essence of community, it very heart and soul, is the non-monetary exchange of value ; things we do and share because we care for others, and for the good of the place …It arises from a deep, intuitive, often subconscious understanding that self interest is inseparably connected with community interest. Dee Hock , Birth of the Chaordic Age

Community Requires: • A perception of belonging and supports a sense of identity. • Place our identity in context. • Participation and commitment. • The support of individuals and in turn supports individuals. • Synergy through which it attains coherence.

First Salmon Ceremony

Re-Creating Indigenous Education • Teaching and learning which is transformative and anticipates change and innovation. • Indigenous Education can integrate and apply • principles of sustainability along with appropriate • traditional environmental nowledge. • Indigenous Education forms a foundation for community • renewal and revitalization.

We Are All Related We Are All Related We Are All Members of Turtle Island

Taking a Look at Our Complicity • As concerned people we have to take a long, hard and honest look at the current educational, economic, governmental and community development policies, planning and processes which many times make us complicit with the status quo.

Human Communities Reflect: • A Sense of Purpose. • Agreement on Core Values. • Participation, Communication, Commitment, Collaboration and Trust. • Conscious Choice, Shared Responsibility. • Acceptance, Accountability, Respect. • Reciprocity, Accountability, Efficacy.

Characteristics of Indigenous Sustainability Education • Educate for the re-creation of cultural economies around an • Indigenous paradigm. • Begin by learning the history and principles of (your) • Indigenous Way of Sustainability a • explore ways to “translate” into the • present. • Research the practica ways to apply these • Indigenous Principles/Knowledge Bases

A New Generation of Native Studies • A new kind of Native education predicated on guiding Native students toward this vision of health, renewed and revitalized, sustainable and economically viable Indigenous communities.

Culture, Community, Resources • Ecological Integrity • (Start from the premise that what you do has integrity and honors life giving relationship). • Sustainable Orientation • (Build in a process which sustains community, culture and place). • Vision and Purpose • (See what you can do in the light of revitalization of community).

Spiritual Purpose • Cultural Integration • (Actions originate through spiritual agency that stems from connections • to a cultural way of being). • Respect for All • (Actions stem from respect for and celebration of community) • Engaging Participation of Community • (The community is both the medium and the beneficiary of activities)

Relationship • Building upon and extending relationships are an essential • process of development. • Restoring and extending the health of the community is a • key goal. • The initiative should generate dynamic and creative process.

Commitment • Commitment to developing the necessary skills. • Commitment to community renewal and re vitalization • Commitment to mutual reciprocal action and transformative change.

Basic Shared Indigenous Principles • Place based (TEK), Complex Adaptive Systems • Resourceful / Industrious. • Collaboration and Cooperation. • Integrating difference in political organization. • Alliances and Confederation Building. • Trade and Exchange

Challenges to Indigenous Sustainability • Establishing Political Self-determination. • Decolonization and Culturally Responsive Education. • Economic Exploitation, Diverse/Competing Ideologies, Political Restructuring. • Individual Diversity, Identity Redefinition, Creating • Formal/Informal Institutions.

Challenges Continued…. • Cultural, Social, Political and Spiritual Fragmentation. • Creation of Formal and Informal Institutions which advance Sustainability. • Flowing with Heterogeneity, Complexity and Differentiation. • Political Restructuring (when necessary).

Configurations for Sustainability • The Extended Family, Clan and Tribe. • The Community, Place or Region. • Political, Social, Professional or Trade Organizations. • Coop’s, Federations, Societies, etc. • Even the Corporation ( can support sustainability if founded on principles of sustainability).

Indigenous Food Traditions Indigenous Family Indigenous Community Indigenous Relationship Indigenous Health Indigenous Education A Celebration of Life !

We Are All Kernals in the Same Basket !

Re-Building Sustainable Indigenous Communities