Indigenous Ideas Research Articles

Internationalising higher education curricula for sustainable development: considerations for indigeneity and (inter)culturality

Higher Education (HE) can play a fundamental role in the achievement of sustainable development, and particularly the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as captured in the Incheon declaration. However, what approach HE should take in this mission is a contested space. In this paper, we interrogate the idea of indigeneity. The pursuit to ascertain how an indigenised approach to internationalisation can support or enhance the contribution of HE curricula towards sustainable development is driven by the understanding that for sustainable development to be achieved at all, the process of knowledge creation must strive to make integral those epistemologies that exist beyond the “West”; an understanding that aligns, in particular, with Target 7 of the United Nations (UN) SDG 4 and seeks to empower victims of epistemic violence. In doing so, we employed a bibliographic research which captured a dual approach consisting of a bibliometric analysis of literature and a review of case studies. The findings from both methods suggest that internationalisation appears in different disciplinary contexts, but these are not always aligned with indigenisation. We maintain that the construct of (inter)culturality can address aspects within the framework of indigeneity to boost the internationalisation of HE curricula and outcomes for sustainable development. Central to this are four factors, namely: the need for effective human engagement with (inter)cultural competence, medium/place of curricula interaction, the initiative form and the reach of the development.

How indigenous spiritual beliefs shape health-related consumption rituals: shipibo health rituals to tackle covid-19

PurposeIn marketing and consumer research, the study of Indigenous ideas and rituals remains limited. The authors present an Indigenous-informed study of consumption rituals co-produced with members of the Shipibo–Konibo Indigenous group of the Peruvian Amazon. Specifically, the authors worked with the Comando Matico, a group of Shipibos from Pucallpa, Peru. This study aims to investigate how Indigenous spiritual beliefs shape health-related consumption rituals by focusing on the experience of the Shipibos and their response to COVID-19.Design/methodology/approachDrawing upon the principles of Indigenous research, the authors co-produced this study with the Comando Matico. The authors collaboratively discussed the research project’s design, analysed and interpreted data and co-authored this study with members of the Comando Matico. This study uses discourse analyses. The corpus of discourse is speech and text produced by the Comando Matico in webinars and online interviews during the COVID-19 pandemic. The full and active participation of the Comando Matico informed the discourse analysis by ensuring Indigenous knowledge, and worldviews were infused throughout the process.FindingsThe authors foreground how Indigenous spiritual beliefs act as a force that imbues the knowledge and practice of health, wellbeing and illness, and this process shapes the performance of rituals. In Indigenous contexts, multiple spirits coexist with consumers, who adhere to specific rituals to respond to and relate to these spirits. Indigenous consumption rituals involve the participation of non-human beings (called rao, ibo, yoshin and chaikoni by the Shipibos) and this aspect challenges the traditional notion of rituals and ritual elements in marketing.Originality/valueThe authors demonstrate how Indigenous spiritual beliefs shape consumption rituals in the context of health and draw attention to how the acknowledgement of alternative ontologies and epistemologies can help address dominant hierarchies of knowledge in marketing theory.

Indigenous Knowledge and Ontological Difference? Ontological Pluralism, Secular Public Reason, and Knowledge between Indigenous Amazonia and the West

AbstractReal knowledge emerges from “impossible” worldviews. Or, put differently, it is possible to accept knowledge that is produced by people whose ontological presuppositions–their baseline assumptions about the nature of reality–one entirely rejects. How can this fact be accommodated, not by advancing a wishful post-dualism, dangerous post-secularism, or implausible ontological relativism, but by working within the tradition of secular political philosophy so that indigenous knowledge, too, can be a basis for public policy and collective action in secular societies? Via a reframing Amazonian multinaturalist perspectivism–which has so inspired post-dualist civilizational critiques–as a social theory of health and illness that informs contemporary Western epidemiology’s struggles to theorize the distribution of health and illness in mass society, this article advances a general approach to recognizing knowledge that has been developed on the other side of boundaries of ontological difference. It argues that the accuracy or efficacy of any particular indigenous knowledge-practice implies the generative potential as theory of the ontological presuppositions that facilitated the knowledge-practice’s evolution. Combining the ontological turn’s interest in the innovativeness of indigenous concepts with a proposal for superseding its incommensurable worlds and abandonment of the aspiration to more-than-local knowledge, the article shows that indigenous ideas and their underlying ontologies are more than generic alternatives to inspire Western civilizational renewal, and opens a path to their legitimization as actionable knowledge in the terms of secular public reason.

The Indigenous Idea of Gender Equality: Husband-Wife Relationship in the Manuscript of Adābul Mu’āsyarah

Literacy in pesantren still places women as the second class, especially in the study of women's fiqh or husband-wife relations. This phenomenon has attracted researchers to conduct research on one of the books by Nusantara scholars used by Islamic boarding schools, whether it contains gender equality or not. This research focused on one of the books, Adābul Mu’āsyarah, which describes the ethics of husband and wife relations in fostering a harmonious family. By using a literature study with analytical techniques in the form of content analysis and a gender studies approach, this research found that the contents of this book by KH Yasin Asmuni have provided equal space in household relations between husband and wife. Although it cannot be denied that there are still many patriarchal terms, such as defining women as humans who lack reason and emotion, which makes men superior to women in several ways. This phenomenon of patriarchal understanding has been impacted by several factors, such as the author's background, patriarchal culture and the wave of studies that narrowed a unique case into a general provision. This research is expected to provide references and a new paradigm in describing equal husband-wife relations.

Indigenous Peoples and the Politics of Founding

The article examines the “foundings-beyond-origins” framework as proposed by An-gélica Bernal in her 2017 book, Beyond Origins: Rethinking Founding in a Time of Constitutional Democracy. While accepting Bernal’s arguments about the prevailing vision of founding a political order, she posits that the realities of power deauthorise political origins. This form of politics proposes a model of engagement between In-digenous Peoples (IPs), nations, tribes and communities and hegemonic political orders based on self-determination, autonomy, self-government and consent. These concepts are the cornerstones of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). At the heart of this politcs is the “axiom of indigenei-ty”, a proposition that bases political origins on populations, customs, territoriality and time. The fact that societies that existed prior to the founding of contemporary political orders have survived the realities of power gives meaning to the idea of indigeneity.

Women Exclusion in Nigerian Politics: A Historical Re-Evaluation

The systemic exclusion of women and minority groups in Nigeria’s politics have contributed to the underdevelopment crisis in the country. Starting from the 1954 elections, the women remained underrepresented in both elective and appointive positions. At independence in 1960, the trend continued as the nationalists struggled to undo the damages of colonialism. It is regrettable to note, that, while the women played significant roles in the decolonization and nation-building process, however, their rights for equal representation were systemically undermined in a supposedly secular country where equality should be a fundamental principle shaping the society. Numerous studies in this field agree that women are potential asset in nation-building and as such must be given the opportunity to contribute to that process. This accounts for why women rank highest among the unemployed persons in the country, they are the least considered when distributing power or during allocation of political positions, and for more than fifty years in Nigeria, women have remained the most vulnerable in the country, often ranking highest in the poverty index annually. Based on the foregoing, the paper sought to critically re-evaluate the historical trajectories of women exclusion in Nigeria’s politics to reposition the women and minority groups as principal actors in the political development of the country. It argued that, the system of exclusive governance was not an indigenous idea, but a colonial legacy which took practical expression in the Indirect Rule policy of the British. Data used for this study were collected through the qualitative method, which allowed for the use of secondary and primary sources. Secondary data used include books and journal articles. While primary materials were gathered using newspapers, official memos, recorded interviews and videos. The combination of primary and secondary data provided a balanced analysis of the phenomenon being studied. A theory of exclusion informed the theoretical argument of the paper, which holds that when individuals or groups in a society are denied their rights, it results to resistance, protests or conflicts that could potentially destabilize the nation. Consequently, the paper found that Nigeria’s political development has continued to suffer unprecedented setback due largely for the failures of successive regimes to adopt inclusive governance, which supports equal participation in politics. It concluded that, the racial discrimination of the British colonial officials rubbed-off on Nigerian political class who could not revert to the morals that govern the traditional African society in the pre-colonial time; built on communal living and inclusiveness.

Both technological innovations and cultural change are key to a sustainability transition.

Transitioning to sustainability will require technological innovations in the short term, but also cultural change to embrace traditional and Indigenous ideas of respect, responsibility, sufficiency, and reciprocity to reduce consumption in the long term.

Envisioning the Future, Revisioning the Past: Wayang and Topeng as (Re)Sources

Indonesia has a rich array of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) forms on which artists can draw to create new forms and variations. Among these, two of them are the sibling arts of wayang puppetry and topeng mask dance which show significant overlap in character typology, repertoire and other features. Outsiders often focus on narrative content and surmise these forms – first documented in the Hindu-Buddhist period (around the ninth century), are merely Indian materials in the Indonesian dress. However, anyone who has studied the wayang/topeng complex, knows that Indian practices, especially as we see them today, only partly inform these arts. Understanding the macrocosm via the microcosm of art is a core point of wayang/topeng. The numerology of Muslim esoteric ideas is also deeply embedded. Indigenous ideas of personhood and intergenerational links are inherent. The wayang/topeng tradition compresses cosmic conceptions into performance’s limited space-time continuum. Masking/puppetry has many layers from indigenous to internationally linked concepts, and the art has been elaborated on by thinkers of the Indonesian cultural heritage for at least a 1000 years. How and why should new generations of artist-makers keep these concepts alive as they experiment with new media and respond to changing times? What elements of design, what histories, and what ideas inform these arts and artifacts? What can be gained by using cultural heritage through the arts to envision and respond to the future?
 Keywords: wayang, performance, design

“I’m Sorry, but That’s Bribery”: A Decolonial Perspective From Which to Study Moral Economies in the ‘Chinese Pacific’

“I’m sorry, but that’s bribery,” said reporter Tom Steinfort to Vanuatu Minister of Foreign Affairs Ralph John Regenvanu regarding the supposed support of the island state to China in United Nations resolutions, hypothetically framed as reciprocation for an unprecedented influx of foreign capital. This conceptualization of bribery rests upon recent value negotiations concerning the moral economy of corruption within the context of the ‘China threat’ debate in Oceania. A decolonial methodology is necessary to prevent this superimposition of colonial interests upon indigenous views in journalistic reports, social media outlets, and academic publications. It is, therefore, necessary to interrogate the position from which reporters, journalists, and scholars speak or write about corruption in diplomatic relations in an increasingly Sinicized Pacific. This approach appreciates localized forms of theorizing indigenous ideas about appropriate economic behaviors in the context of new geopolitical relations. In the absence of a decolonial methodology, such ideas might become invisible, along with the intrinsic features of new Sino-Pacific relations.

‘Lotus and the Dagger’: A Reading of Vedantic Nationalism of Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo’s ideas of nationalism are eclectic, deriving their tradition from Hindu spiritualism, the vision of perfection in man as an entity, and intense esoteric realisation in the mystical philosophy of supramental consciousness of the being, as expounded in the Vedas and the Upanishads. Sri Aurobindo’s writings on political philosophy are a continuum, ranging from the utopian socialist ideas in Bande Mataram, a newspaper he edited to present the ideas of social, political, and judicial boycott to counter the British, to the writings of post-1910, when his life took a spiritual turn after years of spiritual realisations and yogic sadhana, where he mixes the power of the proletariat with the power of Vedantic mysticism. Sri Aurobindo’s ‘political vedantism’ is an attempt to restructure the political and social life of a colonised nation so that an indigenous idea of a nation can be constructed in concurrence with the Vedantic concept of society as a manifestation of a collective supremacy in man. Sri Aurobindo accepts spiritual determinism as the central principle of a nation, but at the same time, it is not a static concept to him but a constant movement of progressive self-evolution towards a perfection of the collective consciousness, manifested through the entity called the ‘nation’. This paper proposes to look at the ideas of spiritual nationalism of Sri Aurobindo and establish a dialogue with a nationalism that is neither socialist nor rightist.

Free time as a central issue of tourism studies: a genealogy of leisure/idleness based on the indigenous cosmovisions of Latin America

ABSTRACT The dominance of the neoliberal ideology over tourism praxis in the last decades have undermined the possibilities for tourism to be seen as a social transformative force. This article considers that the richest part of the tourist experience belongs to the realm of ‘free time’. There is evidence of the importance of free time and leisure in indigenous societies, and to justify that the common-sense view of leisure activities should be confronted. Most literature on indigenous voices in tourism studies identifies the potential of indigenous ideas to contribute to Western/European values of resilience, sustainability and environmental justice. However, such values are employed in the name of modernization and neoliberalism which are taken for granted as values of civilization, but are not so in reality. Thus, this article explores anthropological and indigenous bibliographic productions from Latin America and interviews with indigenous people located in Northeast Brazil to produce a genealogy of leisure, based on 'cultural anthropophagy'. Violence, racism and fear emerged as structural elements of the Western development choice. Tourism studies could further examine leisure as a means to inform contemporary development policies and contribute toward a better life in society, relatively free from such structural ills.

Into Relevance: Treaty Words Matter

Rebuilding Indigenous economies is a long, complex, and arduous set of tasks. It involves the creation of new institutions that can harness Indigenous innovation and creativity and channel Indigenous ideas and values into actions that improve the quality of Indigenous lives, enabling us to participate effectively in the world we find ourselves in. Treaties were one such institution.

Rethinking the Idea of Indigeneity: An Indigenous Liberationist Response to Hindutva Cooptation and Assimilationist Agenda in Northeast India

Rethinking the Idea of Indigeneity: An Indigenous Liberationist Response to Hindutva Cooptation and Assimilationist Agenda in Northeast India

‘Conversational Decoloniality’: Re-Imagining Viable Guidelines for African Decolonial Agenda

This article identifies the agenda of decoloniality as a call to seek solutions to Africa’s problems from within herself (Africa). This call has its hold in colonial and post-independent attempts by African Nationalists, writers, freedom fighters and philosophers to defend Africa’s cultural heritages, even against its underestimation by scholars of other climes of the world. It further argues that, though justice done to this quest would afford Africa to regain her existential humanism in a global setting, the defence of African cultural heritages has not yielded much-desired efforts due largely to methodological error. This article observed that African scholars often, in the attempt to free their intellectual outputs from European ethnocentric postulations, overbears the indigenous idea in the decolonial projects. This error is noted to be a consequence of the tendency to deify African worldviews and thought processes. Employing the conversational method of philosophising Chimakonam (2015, 2017a, 2017b, and 2018), this article attempts to interrogate the agenda for decolonisation and re-Africanisation. It argues for the idea of conversational decolonisation. This article concludes that a conversational decolonised process would, among other things, be appropriate for a scholarly response to colonial denigrations and underestimations of African cultures and traditions. It would also be a framework for achieving African self-definition in the modern world without compromising African identity.

Indian Concept of Sound: the “Universal Myth” in India and the West

The Indian concept of sound became well-known in the West in the 1960s and was understood in a particular way. While many issues may be discussed regarding the Western interpretation of Indian sound, this study focuses on two specific elements: an assertion of the superiority of sound to vision and excessive emphasis on the “non-linguistic” nature of sound in Indian culture. In the West, emphasizing the aural dimension of Indian culture was linked with the opposition of sound to vision and, in some form, to language in its communicative and informative aspects. However, although sound is indeed an essential and exceptional part of Indian culture, it is opposed neither to sight nor to language within it. The difference between these two approaches led to the conclusion that the Western view of the Indian concept was a misinterpretation of indigenous ideas. Within this position, it was understood as an imperfect imitation of the original, with an unequivocally negative connotation. The authors attempt to go beyond such critique, overcoming the tendency to contrast things rather than to see their complicated interrelation. With this purpose, the question about the reasons for the difference between the two approaches is raised. The Indian concept of sound and its Western interpretation are treated as the two “universal myths,” each having a specific function in the corresponding culture. It becomes obvious that, in the social and cultural context of the counterculture era in the West, the Indian concept of sound was destined to fulfill the cultural demands of a host culture.

China’s (Unreal)Multilateralism and (De)Americanization of New World Order: Rhetoric Analysis of Russia’s War on Ukraine

Decentralized and multilateral world order is the emerging concept in the context of Russia’s war on Ukraine. The perception of de-Americanized world order is visible in the rhetoric of Russian and Chinese premiers. This study thoroughly analyses the narratives on Russian war against Ukraine primarily centered around democratization of international relations and de-Americanization of new world order. The Russia’s war on Ukraine has started re-shaping the world order largely in the direction of decoupling the America-centric bellicosity. The colonial mindset of the west in the foreign and security affairs has already been questioned by the idea of the de-westernization, but since within the west also there is a divide on accepting American belligerence there is a need to thinking the new world order as de-Americanization. The American direction and dominance in the matters of international peace and security has largely been parochial. But in the context of Russia-Ukraine war now the post-western and extra-western narratives have put forth the validity and dominance of the ideas of non-western countries of the world. The rejection of western ideas and technologies is no longer a new phenomenon. Many countries in the world have developed their own social space for communicating the indigenous ideas without getting influenced by western or American narratives.

What is home?: Wisdom from nêhiyawêwin

Policies mandated by the Canadian government in its ongoing assimilation project have interrupted the transmission of knowledge and traditional family systems by separating Indigenous peoples from our homes, lands, and languages. This work is concerned with decolonizing western concepts of home and family in Canada through an Indigenous lens, validating Indigenous ways of knowing when it comes to home and housing, and therefore challenging the way Indigenous issues are addressed. We will be utilizing the lexicons of nêhiyawêwin (Y-dialect Cree) as a primary source to explore the embedded knowledge within the language. Nêhiyawêwin positions women as integral to strong community and family relations, as positioned by traditional matriarchal systems. Indigenous ideas of family are more expansive and broadly defined compared to western worldviews, supporting the circular transmission of oral culture over several generations. To truly understand Indigenous ideas of home, the reader must consider the fluidity of kinship and adoption, as well as what and where home is. This includes a relationship to the land and a spiritual sense of being. With this in mind, we call for Indigenous authority over policy and programming to address Indigenous social issues in Canada. This would allow for Indigenous paradigms to effectively inform policy and housing initiatives that serve Indigenous populations.

Lead…For Father’s Sake: An Autoethnography on Leadership Growth in Western and Indigenous Contexts

This autoethnography examines the juxtaposition of Western and Indigenous ideas of leadership through my lens and experiences as a refugee, student-athlete, a patriarch in a sub-Saharan African culture, and Soldier. I utilized existing literature on leadership perspectives from multiple regions (McManus & Perruci, 2015) to contextualize the study, revealing insights into differences in leader-follower relationship, decision-making, and responsibilities. Although the Western context, specifically the United States, is predominantly individualistic, I highlight the versatility and plurality of its leadership—sports and the military provide the most potent examples. Leaders in the Western context are judged on their leadership role, whereas Indigenous leaders are judged on their actions and every aspect of their life beyond their role. Indigenous Dinka (South Sudan) leadership context reveals unique insights into the role of leaders, followers, context, and culture. Leadership educators and scholars can use the insights to inform leadership development programs, research agendas for immigrant youth in the United States, and youth models of leadership ideas in practice.

Confucian Concord: Reform, Utopia and Global Teleology in Kang Youwei's Datong Shu by Federico Brusadelli

Reviewed by: Confucian Concord: Reform, Utopia and Global Teleology in Kang Youwei's Datong Shu by Federico Brusadelli Carine Defoort (bio) Confucian Concord: Reform, Utopia and Global Teleology in Kang Youwei's Datong Shu. By Federico Brusadelli. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Pp. 197. Hardback $146, isbn 978-90-04-43444-8 Confucian Concord: Reform, Utopia and Global Teleology in Kang Youwei's Datong Shu analyses the thought of the late Qing reformer Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858– 1927). His well-known Datongshu 大同書 (Great Concord), conceived in 1884 and finally published in 1935, functions as a prism. The research interest of Federico Brusadelli, Lecturer in Chinese History at the University of Naples L'Orientale, reaches beyond Kang’s thought to the production of histories and their political relevance in the two last centuries. The author presents the Great Concord as an early “global history” in which Kang developed his vision of the whole world’s past, present and future. That future would ultimately lead to the Age of Great Concord (Datong 大同) or Supreme Equality (Taiping 太平), characterized by social stability and individual equality for everybody. Brusadelli’s two major claims are: first, that Kang’s Great Concord is profoundly rooted in Chinese intellectual trends and not primarily a response to the shock of Western intrusion; and second, that Datongshu is not some extreme, utopian fantasy but largely consistent with Kang’s other political writings. The combined claim is then that Great Concord is an important reflection on Chinese modernity. Brusadelli’s study convincingly challenges and replaces the once dominant default narrative of “traditional China” facing “modernity”—conceived as inherently Western—when forcefully confronted by a superior culture. The portrayal of the West as the sole protagonist is no longer convincing nor fruitful. Kang’s Datongshu is, on the one hand, profoundly inspired by a wide variety of predominantly indigenous ideas and, on the other hand, very influential in currently lively reflections on China’s global role. Like in Kang’s time, China stands again at a critical turning point defining its identity and role in the world. From the perspective of this long tradition, the twentieth century with its Western dominance and successive revolutions, appears no more than one episode. Brusadelli’s argument, covering two millennia of intellectual history, is divided into three main parts and subdivided into eight chapters: the Datongshu’s “Roots” or sources of inspiration (Classicism, Buddhism, and the West), followed by some of its main lines of interest or “Threads” (Nation, Democracy, and [End Page 1] Socialism), and leading to its “Legacies” in the last two centuries (Mao Zedong in the 20th century, and the booming political reflection in the third millennium). The first Part, “Roots,” begins with a chapter on Kang’s Confucian or rather Classicist (Ru 儒) inspiration. It traces these roots to the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu 春 秋 ) of Lu (722 to 481 BCE) attributed to the Master, via the Gongyang transmission to the Chunqiu Fanlu 春秋繁露, which Kang unreservedly attributed to Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 (195–105 BCE), the well-known advisor of Emperor Wu 武帝 (r. 140–87 BCE). A low tide for the Gongyang tradition followed after Dong’s Eastern Han commentator He Xiu 何休 (129–182). It revived in the eighteenth-century New Text scholarship of the Jiangnan region, eventually finding its way to Guangzhou where Kang Youwei lived. One fascinating characteristic of this intellectual genealogy is that it shows how Kang Youwei’s optimistic and linear vision of historical progress gradually came into being over the centuries and was not suddenly imposed from outside. Another interesting point is that throughout history Gongyang scholarship supported very different political positions: the central court during the Han, more local power in the late Qing Jiangnan region, and a strong bureaucratic state at the turn of the twentieth century. These Classicist roots are not only presented in this first chapter, but also recur in the rest of the monograph, demonstrating the “internal Chinese dynamics (both local and central) [that] were at play long before the so-called Western shock, and were subsequently merged into the later confrontation with—and importation of—foreign concepts and theories” (pp. 39–40). Other than Ru elements were also sources of inspiration for Kang. Chapter 2 explores...

4 - Situating African Indigenous Ideas within Conventional Learning as an Impetus for Knowledge Construction in Africa

Literature regarding knowledge production reveals that Africa can do better than its present state through the exploration and installation of homegrown ideas detached from the Western hold on its academy. This article contributes to this debate by exploring the place of indigenous knowledge within the academy and the challenges facing its popularity within the continent. The article further provides suggestions on how indigenous and conventional orthodox knowledge can cohere towards a more pragmatic knowledge production that can propel Africa’s development.