Academic scientific knowledge and Indigenous worldviews: Discourse integration for sustainable development

Abstract

ABSTRACT How far has sustainable development that has dominated the agendas of politicians, academics, and world organizations for the past four decades gone? Do politicians, academics, and organizations have to look elsewhere for solutions? This article attempts to answer the second question: There may be solutions other than politics and the academy to promulgate sustainable development. The article argues that Indigenous knowledge is a fundamental domain in selecting the criteria for sustainable development and the design of corresponding goals for sustainability in the global economy. In this theoretical article, the intellectual traditions of the academy that emphasize academic detachment and objectivity are on the attack as representing thought that has invented Indigenous worldviews as the “other” because they provide a context with meaning and values considered unscholarly pursuits. The article examines how the academy can graft Indigenous worldviews and cultural ideas onto academic knowledge and technology in a way that considers Indigenous knowledge critical in creating knowledge for sustainable development. The discussion debunks Eurocentric objective traditions that solely set agendas for sustainability. This article calls for the academy to create a model that places Indigenous knowledge in a conspicuous place in the scholarly agendas of sustainable development. The article develops a collaborative model for the academy and indigenous worldviews. It concludes that Indigenous knowledge and academic traditions can collaboratively support policy actors such as world governments and politicians to find solutions for sustainable development.