Collection: Indigenous Worldviews

Explore resources from across the globe, including Aotearoa, with a focus on worldviews that support regeneration, equity and interconnected wellbeing.

This collection of professional learning resources was created to support our 2022 national conference. The conference theme of reconnection with each other, nature and place encourages us to reflect on the importance of strengthening respectful relationships, while analysing the unequal benefits and harm caused by current systems and structures.

As educators we need to be given time and support for our own personal learning, reflecting on how we live in this world and how this translates into our work with young people, the wider community and te taiao.

Choose a starting point that works for you, whether that's listening to a podcast on your journey home or squeezing a ten minute video into your next staff meeting. We hope you'll check back in regularly to find new content and share your learning and questions with others.

Click on the title or bold text in each section to visit links for each resource.

Watch

First Law in Planetary Health (4 mins) from the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council in Australia.

In Our Voices: Indigenous Worldview (3 mins) from Sheridan's Indigenous community, North Dakota, USA.

Building Indigenous Food Sovereignty with the Hua Parakore Organic Framework (8 mins) interview with Dr Jessica Hutchings, by Happen Films (Aotearoa).

Ten Myths for Humanity (9 mins) talk by Alina Siegfried, Story and Narrative Specialist, as part of the Aotearoa Sustainable Development Goals Summit in 2021.

Read

Respect Your Kin - Robin Wall Kimmerer on the animacy of nature and how to care for it. This summary is a 4 minute read, with a link to the full talk (1 hour) from the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning
"8 Ways is something that grew out of a particular ethic, a way of working that goes beyond cultural awareness, cultural sensitivity and even cultural responsiveness. It is all about relational responsiveness, a protocol of attending to relational obligations to the field you're working in, relating and responding holistically to people, land, culture, language, spirit and the relationships between these with integrity and intellectual rigour."

Earth Charter website: read the short summary or download the poster.
"Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of the human family and the larger living world. The spirit of human solidarity and kinship with all life is strengthened when we live with reverence for the mystery of being, gratitude for the gift of life, and humility regarding the human place in nature."

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Pat McCabe is a Voice for Peace Article in Dumbo Feather magazine, June 2021.
"Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win, meaning “Woman Stands Shining”) is an ambassador between two worlds. A Navajo mother, grandmother, artist and ceremonial leader, she has been deeply immersed in land-based, indigenous ways of living and being."

Climate Justice: Why Does it Matter? Research summary by Rachel Bolstad and Sinead Overbye, NZCER. This helpful summary also includes a list of discussion questions.
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"Climate and environmental justice is a shorthand to explain that environmental and climate challenges are not just about science or economics—they are inherently social justice issues and human rights issues. Climate change and environmental harm affect everyone, but some people will be more severely affected than others."

Watch

Etuaptmumk: Two-Eyed Seeing - Rebecca Thomas (14 mins)
Two-Eyed Seeing is explained by saying it refers to learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing, and from the other eye with the strengths of Western knowledges and ways of knowing ... and learning to use both these eyes together, for the benefit of all.

Seeds of our Ancestors, Seeds of Life - Winona LaDuke (16 mins)
Winona is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development, renewable energy and food systems. As Program Director of Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on the issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice with Indigenous communities.

Nature is Everywhere - Emma Marris (16 mins)
"How do you define "nature?" If we define it as that which is untouched by humans, then we won't have any left, says environmental writer Emma Marris. She urges us to consider a new definition of nature: one that includes not only pristine wilderness but also the untended patches of plants growing in urban spaces, and encourages us to bring our children out to touch and tinker with it, so that one day they might love and protect it."

Disrupting Education with Traditional Knowledges - Andrew Fa'avale (15 mins)
Andrew Fa’avale explores the perils our communities face if educators disregard diverse and traditional knowledges, as well as the potential solutions that valuing diversity can offer our communities in these times of unprecedented disruption and change.

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Waka Huia: Waiora
Te Rerekohu Tuterangiwhiu (Ngāti Rangi, Ngāti Hine, Ngāruahinerangi) and Kelly Ratana (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangiwewehi, Te Arawa) feature in this episode of Waka Huia (you can also watch on TVNZ on demand). Ki te kore te wai, ka hē katoa tēnei ao.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith: The intellectual project of Decolonising and Kaupapa Māori methodologies
This talk was given at the University of British Columbia (Okanagan) in 2017, as part of the Summer Indigenous Art Intensive course.

Zainab Salbi: Daughters for Earth
This talk was part of the Bioneers Conference in June 2022. Zainab explores the interconnection between our personal search for healing and how we face the challenges of climate change. As climate change and the destruction of Earth’s lands, waters and wildlife accelerate, women around the world are the most impacted, but they are also very often the frontline warriors fighting to protect our future. Unfortunately, their work and leadership are often not seen, appreciated, or funded.

Listen

Worldviews, Ecological Perception and the Earth Charter
Earth Charter podcast episode with Dr Mark Hathaway (University of Toronto).

"Dr. Hathaway believes that the major challenges currently faced by humanity come down to the crisis of relationships, which refers to how individuals are related to other human beings, other species, and the planet. Far too often, we perceive the world as an object for our personal use, whereas our happiness lies in interconnectivity."

Beings Seen and Unseen
‍Emergence Magazine interview with writer Amitav Ghosh (listen or read) November 2021.

"Amitav Ghosh calls on storytellers to lead us in the necessary work of collective reimagining: decentering human narratives and re-centering stories of the land."

Ancient Green: Moss, Climate and Deep Time
Robin Wall Kimmerer essay and audio from Emergence Magazine, April 2022 (listen or read).

"I can almost hear the billionaires sneering in response to these lessons of moss. “Don’t tell me to live like a moss. I have become a giant among men.” We’d do well to remember that the dinosaurs were big too. Living small is not a sign of weakness or complacency. Rather, it is the surpassing strength of self-restraint, to live simply so that others might simply live."

Read

Regeneration time: ancient wisdom for planetary wellbeing
Poelina, A., Wooltorton, S., Blaise, M., Aniere, C., Horwitz, P., White, P., & Muecke, S. (2022). Australian Journal of Environmental Education.

"These reciprocal relationships are deeply responsive, as people have response-ability. Children grow into these kincentric ecosystems, learning responsiveness, reciprocity and reflexive awareness through human and more than human teachers."

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Indigenous 100 | Dr Rangi Matamua
Interview series from Mahi Tahi Media, with host Julian Wilcox. In this episode: When you look up at the stars what do you see? Professor Rangi Matamua of Ngāi Tūhoe, is renowned for his captivating work in the field of Māori astronomy.

Ake Ake Ake documentary series
The story of SOUL and the land occupation at Ihumātao through the voices of the Cousins intimately involved in the actions that took place. This is three part series and each episode is about 50 mins.

Listen

Imagining Decolonisation and Why It's Good for Everyone
Tina Ngata, interviewed for the Happen Films podcast series (read, listen or watch).

“Anti-colonialism is not just for indigenous people. Anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism and anti-racism is for everyone – we’ll all get wellbeing out of deconstructing the ways in which we believe that we have entitlement to each other’s spaces and places and bodies.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer on Indigenous Knowledge for Earth
For The Wild Podcast (skip ahead to the 5 minute mark to start the interview).

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Awake: A Dream From Standing Rock
“Standing Rock was—and is—so much more than a protest. What began in North Dakota has become a worldwide rallying cry of resistance to corporate power and its relentless drive for profit at the expense of human needs, rights and dignity. If we are to survive this century, it is the indigenous people who will lead the way forward.” - James Spione, Director

Whetū Mārama
This beautiful documentary tells the story of Sir Hekenukumai Ngaiwi Puhipi, aka Hek Busby, and his significance for Māori in rekindling their wayfinding DNA and for all New Zealanders in reclaiming our place as traditional star voyagers on the world map.

Happen Films documentaries
A great selection of viewing, including A Simpler Way which is available to watch for free.