Clan and Tribal Perspectives on Social, Economic and Environmental Sustainability

Indigenous Stories From Around the Globe

James C. Spee, Adela J. McMurray, Mark D. McMillan, James C. Spee, Adela J. McMurray, Mark D. McMillan, James C. Spee, Adela McMurray, Mark McMillan

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781789733679
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

From the Indigenous perspective, sustainability must be understood as a means of survival. In a climate of in-migration, clan and tribal communities have been forced to build sustainable solutions together to protect their sovereignty, recognition and mutual respect.
In the midst of a global pandemic that threatens the economic and social well-being of millions of people, this edited collection addresses the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of tribes, clans, and Indigenous cultures across national and global origins. Acknowledging that these peoples around the globe have addressed threats to their survival for millennia, the authors showcase examples of indigenous groups spanning South Africa, Nigeria, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bolivia and North America. Regional examples also come from Rwanda, Cameroon, Congo, Ethiopia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Easter Island, and Nunavit, Canada. Breaking fresh ground by shining a light on sustainability journeys from outside the global mainstream, this book demonstrates how sustainable recovery and development occurs in respectful collaboration between equals.

Chapter 1

Sustainable Relationships Are the Foundation of Tribal and Clan Perspectives

James C. Spee, Adela McMurray and Mark McMillan

The importance of sustainability has grown in the twenty-first century (Neshovski, 2020). Short-term pursuits for economic gain continue to threaten ageless cultures that have proven their resilience. Tribal and clan perspectives of cultural and economic sustainability resonate strongly across the globe. In this edited book, we present research from a dozen vitally unique scenarios. The authors of this volume address the barriers to economic, social, and environmental sustainability with courage and insight. They contribute to our understanding of innovative ways to maintain cultural diversity and strength. The relationships between Indigenous knowledge systems and cultural sustainability sit alongside the complex field of sustainable development. We explore these linkages through five themes.

(1)Civilizations and Sustainability.

(2)Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

(3)Leadership in Tribes and Clans.

(4)Politics and Policy in Tribal and Clan Organization.

(5)Tribal and Clan Views on Health and Well-Being.

To understand the Indigenous perspectives on sustainability entails recognizing the threats to their survival. These dangers resulted from the in-migration of people who are not from the clan or tribe. The resulting loss of sovereignty as well as the need for mutual respect and recognition drove some communities to search for together. The need for mutual respect and recognition also led them to greater cooperation. In that spirit, we hope this book encourages other researchers to share the stories and wisdom of Indigenous peoples in respectful ways.

We designed this book with a desire to fill a gap in the existing literature of sustainability. When we began the project in 2017, the literature was sadly lacking research that shared the perspectives of tribal and clan cultures about sustainability.

These cultures have many labels such as First peoples, First Nations, Indigenous, Indian, Aborigine, or Aboriginal. Some of the labels have roots in colonialism and evoke very negative emotions. Europeans who colonized regions where people lived for centuries often made their own labels, such as the word Chippewa for the Anishinaabe people of North America. For this reason, each contributing author uses the language suitable to the cultures they study.

According to Wood (2020), researchers first used the term sustainability to define an economic steady state in the 1970s. The Brundtland Commission (United Nations, 1987 as cited in Wood) popularized the term in the larger environmental sense. The Commission defined sustainability as “the ability to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”

Elkington (1999) was one of the first to coin the term “Triple Bottom Line.” It is now a common phrase to describe the three elements that must be balanced in evaluating sustainability often paraphrased as “people, profit, and planet.” As wonderful as this search for balance may sound, the environmental movement in the United States has not always been appreciative of Indigenous peoples, cultures, and rights in its conversations about sustainability. In July 2020, the US environmental group, the Sierra Club, apologized for the racist views of its founder, John Muir, and many of its early members. A press release from the Club made it clear that the whiteness and privilege of the Sierra Club's early membership fed into a very dangerous idea – that exploring, enjoying, and protecting the outdoors could be separated from human affairs. The Club's leadership recognized that the wild places they love are also the ancestral homelands of native peoples, forced off their lands in the decades or centuries before they became national parks (Brune, 2020). For Indigenous peoples, it will not be enough for groups such as the Sierra Club to change a few policies, and they will have to change their behaviors to regain credibility.

Despite centuries of challenges to their survival such as these, Indigenous peoples have found ways to rebuild their relationships with each other and with their ancestral lands that enhance their health and well-being. From the Indigenous perspective, human beings, nonhuman animals, and the natural world have a common origin, history, and future (Watene & Yap, 2015, p. 52). From the Indigenous perspective, the separation of the world into economic, social, and environmental spheres as if they were independent of each other makes no sense. A tribe's survival is not based on financial transactions. It comes from community relationships and connections to the natural environment. The social life of tribal cultures is built on a shared understanding of where the world came from. Sustainable development from the tribal and clan perspective is about relationships. Relationships are the starting points for well-being. In turn, sustainable development encompasses shared origins, shared existence, and interdependent futures (Watene & Yap, 2015, p. 52). From a tribal and clan perspective, then, the non-Indigenous view of three competing bottom lines merges into one. Indigenous perspectives generate reciprocal obligations between people and the natural world (Watene & Yap, 2015, p. 52).

Newhouse and Chapman (1996) note that the relationships between the individual, the family, the clan, and the nation are crucial in Canadian First Nations cultures such as the Mohawk. The non-Indigenous model of economic organizations as separate from other social relationships is not the dominant one for most tribal and clan communities.

Our goal in this book is to widen the understanding of sustainability, not as defined by Western culture, but as Indigenous people in tribal and clan cultures understand it. In keeping with the best practices recommended by Indigenous researcher Shawn Wilson (2008), we take no ownership of this knowledge. It belongs to the peoples who share it with us. “Relationships don't just shape Indigenous reality,” Wilson notes,

…they are our reality. Indigenous researchers develop relationships with ideas in order to achieve enlightenment in the ceremony that is Indigenous research. Indigenous research is the ceremony of maintaining accountability to these relationships.

We recognize that what the English language calls economic, social, and environmental challenges threaten tribal and clan cultures for their very survival. In 2020, Indigenous communities experienced poor access to healthcare, higher rates of communicable and noncommunicable diseases, lack of access to essential services, sanitation, and other preventive measures, such as clean water, soap, disinfectant, etc (United Nations for Indigenous Peoples, 2020). The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has made this gap abundantly clear as infection rates in vulnerable Indigenous populations have far exceeded those of the dominant cultures that share their tribal lands. Their vulnerability makes it even more urgent to tell their stories.

To encourage a diversity of perspectives, we developed the five themes for the book noted above. We asked our contributors: How are tribal and clan cultures around the world overcoming challenges to economic, social, and environmental sustainability?

Chapters 2 and 3 explore our first theme, Civilizations and Sustainability. Chapter 2 “Sustainable Indigenous Water Rights” by Deborah Wardle draws upon the ongoing gaps and injustices in Western water policy and law. She analyzes how water policy in Australia has often failed to recognize Indigenous water rights. She provides two examples that illustrate the recognition of aboriginal connections to water. The examples reveal weaknesses in the Australian government's water policies. The examples also show how First Peoples re-established their claims to ancestral water sources by establishing United Nations World Heritage Sites.

Chapter 3, “Indigenous Ontologies” in “Caring for Country”: Indigenous Australia's Sustainable Customs, Practices, and Laws, by Virginia Marshall analyzes how First People's tribal and clan wisdom has been long ignored by the Australian government. That wisdom, she argues, could inform land management in the face of drought, fires, and floods that were occurring with increasing frequency in the first decades of the twenty-first century.

Chapters 4 and 5 focus on our second theme, Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Chapter 4 “Indigenous Entrepreneurs in Australia: Past, Present, and Future” by Bella L. Galperin, Meena Chavan and Salahudin Muhidin finds that while First People entrepreneurs have less access to resources and capital, they still play a key role in the development of tribal and clan communities.

Chapter 5, “Māori Social Enterprise: A Case Study” by Ruth Orhoevwri, continues the theme of entrepreneurship and innovation. She examines social entrepreneurship and innovation among Māori tribes and clans in New Zealand. She finds a disconnect between government policies and Māori core values.

Chapters 6 and 7 investigate our third theme, Leadership in Tribes and Clans. Chapter 6 “Quechua/Aymara Perspective of Social, Economic, and Environmental Sustainability in the Bolivian Andes” by Tamara Stenn analyzes the fate of traditional Aymara and Quechua quinoa farmers following sustainable practices for centuries who lost out to global competition based on price rather than quality but are now rebounding.

Chapter 7 “Leadership Lessons in Sustainability from Elders and Events in Historical Clan Survival Stories” by Andrew Creed, Ambika Zutshi and Brian Connelly explores survival stories about the ways historical clan and tribal leaders look for lessons in sustainability. They find that these stories are powerful ways to pass on tribal wisdom and cope with current crises.

Chapters 8, 9, and 10 provide different approaches to the fourth theme, Politics and Policy in Tribal and Clan Organization. Chapter 8 “‘Jirga,’ Its Role in Conflict Resolution in Pakistan's Pashtun ‘Tribal’ Society” by Farooq Yousaf analyzes the Pushtun conflict resolution method called the jirga. The jirga, he finds, lost credibility because of colonial-era laws that undermined the role of tribal elders and because it has been weak at halting discrimination based on gender.

In Chapter 9, “Effectiveness of ‘Traditional’ Conflict Resolution and Transformation Strategies,” Farooq Yousaf analyzes two aspects of conflict resolution in Indigenous communities. He examines the usefulness of a wider range of traditional conflict resolution methods. The examples in the chapter come from tribal groups in Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, and Timor-Leste.

Chapter 10 “The Resolution by the White Earth Anishinaabe Nation to Protect the Inherent Rights of Wild Rice” by Lawrence Gross looks at a different aspect of the politics and policy theme. His work tells the story of how the White Earth Anishinaabeg protected the plant by acknowledging its inherent rights through tribal legislation. Tribal leaders were strongly motivated to pass the legislation for two reasons. The first reason is the core value of wild rice in White Earth Anishinaabeg culture. The second reason is the threats to the survival of wild rice due to water pollution and genetic modification.

Chapters 11, 12, and 13 examine our final theme, Tribal and Clan Views on Health and Well-Being. Chapter 11, “Therapeutic Landscapes and Indigenous Culture: Māori Health Models in Aotearoa/New Zealand” by Jacqueline McIntosh, Bruno Marques and Rosemary Mwipiko, explores the relationship between Indigenous culture, the landscape through the lens of health and well-being. The analysis of three Māori health models reveals that culture, health, and landscape are interconnected in Māori culture. She argues that the three must be balanced to reduce Māori health inequalities. Doing so could provide a more sustainable model for health and well-being for all New Zealanders.

Chapter 12 “Fire, Stories and Health” by Deborah Wardle, Faye McMillan and Mark McMillan explores Indigenous stories and practices related to fire. Their first goal is to understand fire and transformative relationships of Indigenous peoples to Country. Their second goal is to understand fire as an analogy for developments in Indigenous health. The stories of fire they share illustrate the resistance of Indigenous Australians to colonial dispossession. They show how stories engage Indigenous communities with their ancestral law and culture, leading to better health and well-being. Transformative forms of knowledge can be built upon rekindling Indigenous land and law practices through fire practices.

Chapter 13 “Ubuntu Identity, the Economy of Bomvana Indigenous Healers, and their Impact on Spiritual and Physical Well-being of an African Indigenous Community” by Chioma Ohajunwa views spirituality as a foundational concept within African Indigenous communities. Her findings show how spirituality informs the sociocultural, political, environmental, and economic systems within these communities. She recommends the practice of ethnomedical spirituality that is foundational to the identity and culture of the people who come from this area.

We are proud that the diverse contributors to this book hail from Australia and New Zealand, Asia, Africa, and North America. The tribes and clans they studied include Gunditjmara, Māori, Waikato-Tainui, Boandik, Klamath, Yoruba, Inuit, Torres Strait Islanders, Anishinaabe (Chippewa, Ojibwe), Aymara, Quechua, Pashtun, and AmaBomvane. We hope this book encourages other researchers to share the stories and wisdom of Indigenous peoples in respectful ways.

Readers from a wide range of disciplines will find insights from the Indigenous, tribal, and clan experiences of sustainability that are represented in this book. We wanted to include a range of voices and perspectives to honor and respect the work of Indigenous peoples. The book reveals ways that Indigenous peoples have sustained their cultural practices, their health, and their well-being. In doing so, they survived against the odds as colonial forces attempted to annihilate them. We hope this book contributes to the ongoing struggle for the recognition of, reconciliation with, and respect for Indigenous peoples, their tribes, and their clans.

References

Brune, 2020 Brune, M. (2020, July 22). Pulling down our monuments. Sierra Club. Retrieved from https://www.sierraclub.org/michael-brune/2020/07/john-muir-early-history-sierra-club

Elkington, 1999 Elkington, J. (1999). Cannibals with forks: Triple bottom line of 21st century business. Oxford: Capstone Publishing Ltd.

Neshovski, 2020 Neshovski, R. (2020). 17 goals to transform our world. United Nations Sustainable Development. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/

Newhouse and Chapman, 1996 Newhouse, D. R. , & Chapman, I. D. (1996). Organizational transformation: A Case study of two aboriginal organizations. Human Relations, 49(7), 995–1011. doi:10.1177/001872679604900706

United Nations for Indigenous Peoples, 2020 United Nations for Indigenous Peoples . (2020). C...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Tribes and Clans by Chapter
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Sustainable Relationships Are the Foundation of Tribal and Clan Perspectives
• Theme 1 Civilisations and Sustainability
• Theme 2 Entrepreneurship and Innovation
• Theme 3 Leadership in Tribes and Clans
• Theme 4 Politics and Policy in Tribal and Clan Organisations
• Theme 5 Tribal and Clan Views on Health and Well-being
• Index