No life without relation.
No relation without knowledge.
No knowledge without story.
No story without Ceremony.
About the ISKC
First Peoples’ customary knowledge of dynamic systems can provide the models, logic and methods needed to solve the world’s sustainability crisis. There are no separate disciplines, only a unified way of being and knowing in a pluriverse of relations. Governance. Trade. Science. Design. Culture. Law. Ecology. Technology. Spirituality. Psychology. All one thing – but we can only process that knowledge in a profound state of deep relation, grown from collective ritual practice. Faith may not move mountains, but Ceremony shows us how to understand and protect them.
Indigenous methods of inquiry have a foundation of Lore and Ceremony, invoking ancient processes of knowledge production that can stabilise chaotic systems in times of change. Law lives in the land, guiding our decision-making and predictive modelling in response to innumerable behavioural signals in self-organising systems. Bio-cultural alignment is a core design principle in our processes, systems and governance.
We have a deep time focus that demands we care for both ancestors and descendants through changemaking that retrieves forward our ancient logics, ethics and methods in ways that will ensure a liveable future for humans and non-humans of all lands, seas and skies.
Collective objectives:
To develop and inspire the emergence of Indigenous labs and think tanks that grapple with complexity science and systems thinking using Indigenous methodologies, grounded in the local but focusing the genius of Indigenous inquiry on global issues.
To generate through academic labs a groundswell of post-graduate students capable of becoming a new generation of Indigenous thinkers who can produce, apply and translate solutions to global issues of catastrophic risk and complexity.
To innovate, collaborate on and trial projects focusing on solutions that reintegrate humans with natural systems and mitigate the extractive excesses of development.
To make kin with Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups through relational networks of multiple organisations and institutions partnering together for common goals and projects.
To design and popularise Indigenist methods and protocols (Kolabs, Ko-design, Ko-management) that set a new standard for respectful relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous changemakers.