Indigenuity

THE KNOWLEDGE IS OUT THERE; THE SOLUTION IS IN YOU

We sent out a call across the globe for people of all ages to submit their inspirational idea in healing our planet and its people. You did not disappoint!

Thank you to everyone who submitted their proposals, projects, and art! Our judges, Dan Wildcat, Lee Francis IV, Weyodi Oldbear, and Johnnie Jae fiercely deliberated and came upon these six winners!

So how will the series work?

Each program will have an overview and discussion, followed by a Q&A session. There will be a reading list to learn more and an short exercise for the imagination. 

Everyone is welcome. The series will be especially mindful for students studying environmental science, architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, engineering, agriculture, and urban planning.

Daniel R. Wildcat is a Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma. His service as teacher and administrator at Haskell spans 34 years. In 2013 he was the Gordon Russell visiting professor of Native American Studies at Dartmouth College. He has served as adjunct faculty for the Bloch School - UMKC for the past decade. Dr. Wildcat received B.A. and M.A. degrees in sociology from the University of Kansas and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. In 1994 he helped form a partnership with the Hazardous Substance Research Center at Kansas State University to create the Haskell Environmental Research Studies (HERS) Center as a non-profit Native American research center to facilitate: 1) technology transfer to tribal governments and Native communities, 2) transfer of accurate environmental information to tribes, and 3) research opportunities to tribal college faculty and students throughout the United States.

He is the author and editor of several books: Power and Place: Indian Education In America, with Vine Deloria, Jr.; Destroying Dogma: Vine Deloria’s Legacy on Intellectual America, with Steve Pavlik. His most recent book, Red Alert: Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge, suggests current environmental issues will require the exercise of indigenous ingenuity - indigenuity - and wisdom if humankind is to reduce the environmental damage underway. He is a co-author on the Southern Great Plains chapter of the Fourth National Climate Assessment.

Indigenuity (Indigenous ingenuity): a description by Daniel Wildcat 

Indigenuity is the application of deep-spatial wisdom held by Indigenous Peoples, e.g., American Indians and Alaska Natives, to solve practical problems we face today. Indigenuity is the result of a People’s long intergenerational transmissions of experiential knowledge over millennia resulting from their attentiveness to the inextricable symbiotic nexus of human cultures and the ecosystems/environments that gave tribal Peoples their culture and identity. As such Indigenuity is a co-creation of humans and plants, animals, and other natural features of the world. 

Indigenuity frames solutions in terms beyond a singular fixation on rights and counterbalances those concerns with a recognition of inalienable responsibilities humankind has to our plant, animal, and other natural relatives with whom we share this planet. Indigenuity, an Earth-based deep spatial knowledge, that suggests the challenges of the Anthropocene might best be met by paying attention to what the Earth and all our relations can still teach humankind about living well in a kin-centric world – a world where human progress does not result in ecosystem degradation and destruction, but in creating systems of biosphere life-enhancement.

Join this January through March 2021 for a three-part series on Indigenuity, happening every third Thursday from 3:00-4:00 pm CST.

Introduction

This series addresses principles and insights to create and live in a more mindful way on the Earth we call home. Indigenuity borne of a long-standing symbiotic relationship between a People and a Place:  Indigenous ingenuity or Indigenuity. indigenous people were the first scientists and engineers through thousands of years of observation and experimentation. Increasingly exercises of Indigenuity illustrate the convergence of Indigenous wisdom and modern science.

Join Dr. Wildcat in exploring how Indigenuity can help us move beyond the one-size-fits-all mentality of material culture and technology that the planet, our Mother Earth, cannot support. In housing, food, transportation, and especially, across our major societal institutions, hope resides in the fact that we are not hard-wired for destruction. Although too many of us have adopted cultures that lead us to act in a destructive manner, traditions of Indigenuity suggest that if we once again listen and learn from the Earth and life that surrounds us we can discover and promote systems of life-enhancement. 

Indigenuity – Land (program one)

Program one of Dr. Wildcat’s Indigenuity Series will explore the deep complex character of this relationship Indigenous Peoples have to their land – to their place. As an introduction to Indigenuity thinking and activities, there is no better place to begin. The opportunities to reconnect our human cultures to nature and in so doing disabuse ourselves of the miseducative nature vs. culture dichotomy hold great promise to solving some of the most vexing environmental problems we face today.  As we explore ways to live more fully engaged with the life-systems which surround us and in which we participate, we will discover that so-called “best practices” are always relative to the place where an activity or action is occurring. 

Following the first pilot presentation of Indigenuity: Land, Dr. Wildcat and MONAH would like to invite everyone to explore our suggested reading list below.  

Dr. Wildcat has also provided a follow-up exercise for instructors and students with the mapping exercise to further understand your own sense of place around your home.

Indigenuity  -  Air (program two)

Indigenuity in the air we breath may seem far-fetched, but for indigenous Peoples around the world the air, the wind, our languages, and the breath of life itself are often literally and figuratively the carriers of information, knowledge, and wisdom on which our lives depend.

As we think about where, how, why we live in a particular manner today, the air we breathe is often the most taken for granted feature of our existence. However, we know that if we find the air we breathe is harmful, we tend to take such existential threats very seriously. In the face of the airborne Covid-19 virus, humankind has been awakened once again to the importance of the air we breathe. Similarly, global climate change has forced many of us to recognize the deadly cost of continuing to dump CO2 into the atmosphere.

Air - we cannot live without it. This second program on Indigenuity will examine how Indigenous design and systems thinking can help us address the anthropogenic problems of air quality and global climate change.  As we think of moving to zero-carbon energy systems new appreciation of thinking about micro-climates and how housing and building design features mindful of air circulation and quality issues can contribute to improved energy efficiencies. Wind power generation from micro to macro systems hold great promise. 

There is indeed “something in the air”. In this second program in the Indigenuity series join Dr. Wildcat in exploring how mindfulness to the air can inform our decision about zoning and land-use planning, wind energy, and a host of design solutions and innovations that confirm the efficacy of activities of Indigenuity. Just as our hunting and gathering ancestors knew the importance of the wind in their activities, we have an opportunity with mindfulness to air we breathe to confirm as the famous balladeer wrote, “The answer is blowing in the wind.”

Dr. Wildcat has also provided a follow-up reading list and two exercises for instructors and students with the mapping exercise to further understand the concept of Indigenuity: Air.

Indigenuity – Water (program three) 

Humanity was reminded in 2015 that “Water is Life” by the thousands who gathered at Standing Rock to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline. In a demonstration of human solidarity across peoples of various nations, religions, cultures, and ethnicities from around the world the wisdom that “Water is Life” was affirmed. How is think about water and relate to water may be one of the most transformational opportunities humankind faces today. 

In this final part of the Indigenuity series, Dr. Wildcat will explore how rather than thinking about how we must control water, we need to instead approach the host of issues we face regarding water use, conservation, and quality from the perspective of how we might learn to think like a river, ocean current or spring: in short, learn to go with the flow. Like the land and air, mindfulness to water can teach us valuable insights that can be incorporated into our design and system-building activities.   

Ultimately, all life of the planet must respect the Land, Air, and Water – the natural L.A.W.  The life-systems of the planet are built on the foundation of the land, air, and water. Indigenuity resides in the knowledge and wisdom resulting from the awareness that first, we live in a world populated by relatives not resources; second, inalienable rights are hollow unless linked to inalienable responsibilities; and, finally, in the age of the Anthropocene, it may be time to restore the ancient Indigenous wisdom that definitions of progress must include not only our human comfort, convenience, and capital gains but the promotion of systems of life-enhancement.