Indigenous people make up only 6% of the world’s population but manage over a quarter of the world’s land surface. These groups, descended from original occupants of a geographical place and identifying as culturally distinct, possess knowledge about adapting to social and environmental change. Yet their perspectives are rarely included when it comes to planning for a future affected by climate change or biodiversity loss. Researcher Julia van Velden was part of a team of scholars who looked at how Indigenous knowledge could create a shared understanding of a better future for our planet. The Conversation Africa spoke to her and her co-authors about Indigenous futures thinking.
What is Indigenous futures thinking and who does it?
Futures thinking involves imagining and describing different possible futures. It asks us to consider what we want society, the environment and the world to look like in 50 or even 500 years from now. The future we think up can then be used as the basis for strategies to achieve those visions.
Futures thinking has helped people from diverse backgrounds to reach a common understanding of important issues and their underlying causes. It helps people find ways to work towards a future they prefer.
An important emerging area within this field is Indigenous futures thinking. This brings unique Indigenous perspectives into how people view the future. Indigenous perspectives emphasise the need to look after the land for the well-being of future generations.
Indigenous people consistently express their responsibilities for the past, present, and future of their societies and their traditional lands, built on centuries, sometimes millennia, of knowledge.
How does Indigenous futures thinking work?
Our new research reviewed academic articles and technical reports to identify four main approaches to Indigenous futures thinking.
Adaptation oriented: This approach uses scenarios in planning and modelling to help communities understand and manage future environmental and social changes. We find that these scenarios are best when designed in partnership with Indigenous people, and not imposed.
Participatory: This is where diverse stakeholders collaborate to develop visions of the future together. This approach helps to ensure decisions about the future are democratic. Creative and interactive methods such as role-playing and storytelling are often combined with environmental and socioeconomic modelling to achieve this.
Read more: Telling stories of our climate futures is essential to thinking through the net-zero choices of today
Culturally grounded: This approach grounds futures thinking in Indigenous traditions, knowledge systems, and cultural practices. It aims to prioritise the right of Indigenous people to self-determination and sovereignty.
Culturally grounded futures thinking encourages solutions that are rooted in traditional values and practices. Indigenous connections, arts, lore, rights, knowledge systems, worldviews, cultural renewal, spirituality, and different understandings of time are all included in this approach.
For example, researchers used methods such as eco-cultural mapping and calendars with communities in Benin, Kenya and Ethiopia. Doing so helped these communities revitalise customary ways of governing using agroecology, sacred natural sites, and community rituals.
Indigenising: This approach aims to decolonise thinking about the future. To do this, indigenising highlights the need to challenge and overturn colonial frameworks. The Sámi Márkomeannu festival in Norway is an example. At this festival, the Indigenous Sámi people present their hopes and fears for the next 100 years through seminars, drama, and art installations. These show a future where they’ve succeeded in adapting to a degraded environment and climate change.
How can Indigenous futures thinking help people explore alternative futures?
With a focus on long-term thinking, Indigenous futures thinking envisions sustainable and thriving futures for generations to come. Creative methodologies such as storytelling are key in creating these future visions. Storytelling confirms lived experiences and transmits knowledge across generations.
Indigenous understandings of time also help society to reimagine thinking in relation to past and future generations. For example, in the Australian Indigenous notion of “Everywhen”, past, present, and future exist at the same time. It obliges us to consider our actions across the whole circle of time.
Read more: African ubuntu can deepen how research is done
In the African philosophy of Ubuntu, humans are viewed as situated within a complex intergenerational web of relationships. Human existence is seen as occurring in three dimensions. These are the living, the departed or ancestors (those who have lived before), and those yet to be born, all of whom are present today.
Our research finds that Indigenous communities are not often included fully and equitably in research processes. As the field of Indigenous futures thinking grows, ethical and inclusive research practices are very important. Indigenous people must be included as equal partners in designing and carrying out research.
How will Indigenous futures thinking help address climate change?
Indigenous-managed ecosystems like forests, grasslands, and wetlands are vital for carbon sequestration (the process where carbon is removed from the atmosphere and captured in plants and soil). Preserving the world’s biodiversity also depends on the land managed by Indigenous people.
Indigenous understandings are also relational – where environmental, social, and cultural systems relate to and depend on one another. This is an important way of thinking to understand our world.
Finally, Indigenous peoples’ experiences of colonisation provide knowledge of how to survive catastrophes and navigate environmental changes. This knowledge must be included in the world’s strategies to adapt to climate change and protect biodiversity. It should also be brought into local climate adaptation plans to make sure they align with traditions and values.
For example, the Arctic Council encourages countries to co-operate in protecting the Arctic. It places Indigenous knowledge and governance at the centre of its work. This organisation uses Indigenous ecological knowledge in developing plans to adapt to climate change, and includes Indigenous people equitably when making policy and monitoring changes in the environment.
There is joy and creativity in Indigenous futures thinking, through storytelling, art, and participatory design. But imagining better worlds is just the first step. Ensuring that Indigenous communities have the power and agency to lead their own paths forward is what will bring the better worlds to life.
Julia van Velden, Senior researcher, Stellenbosch University
Garry Peterson, Professor in environmental sciences with emphasis on resilience and social-ecological systems, Stockholm University
Iain Gordon, Honorary Professor, Australian National University
Jessica Cheok, Postdoctoral fellow in Collaborative and Adaptive Futures, CSIRO
Rosemary Hill, Adjunct Professor, James Cook University
