Rikch’arisun, sayarisun, k’ancharisun: Indigenous knowledge systems and research for planetary beauty

Abstract

What are beautiful Indigenous communities? How are we as original communities good for each other and our planet? This article asserts that these kinds of questions undergird Indigenous research methodologies as more than research paradigms and as life-sustaining worldviews that produce research designs that engage processes of healing and helpfulness and that reflect Indigenous pluriversal realities. Anchored by Indigenous knowledge systems, Indigenous pluriversalities counter the ubiquity and pervasiveness of coloniality by presenting, on one hand, distinct experiences under coloniality and, on the other hand, creative anti-colonial and decolonial strategies to care for the many Indigenous worlds that constitute planetary life. Within the current global schematic designed to produce consumers, this article considers how Indigenous research as a field continues to make space for ideas of individual and collective responsibilities to emerge.