Indigenuity
A portmanteau term combining ‘indigeneity’ with ‘ingenuity,’ ‘indigenuity’ names practical innovations that draw upon the intergenerational sharing of know-how by Indigenous Peoples that are deeply connected to geographies and the symbiotic bond between humans and ecosystems. Indigenuity stands in contrast to ‘solutionist’ forms of innovation, which understand problems in a technocratic, narrow, and immediate way, where technology is supplied as the answer to any myriad of challenges that are faced (even when those challenges are social, political, or ecological in character). [1] Daniel R. Wildcat describes indigenuity as “kin-centric,” as opposed to anthropocentric, where innovations are understood as a co-creation between humans, plants, minerals, animals and other ‘stuffs’ of the Earth. [2] The temporality inherent to the principles of indigenuity is radically different from the linear, purely forward-looking fetish of Western cultures, factoring in Ancestral/Descendent relays of knowledge and accountabilities when conceiving and developing innovations that enhance, rather than deteriorate, the biosphere.
In contesting Western ‘progress’ that has come at the expense of environmental degradation, indigenuity offers a critical, alternative perspective, seeing the world as “populated by relatives not resources,” where “inalienable rights are hollow unless linked to inalienable responsibilities”. [3] This perspective, as Wildcat has written, helps overcome our “insulated ignorance” of a world view privileging human comforts, regardless of longer-term impacts upon the inhabitability of a shared environment. Indigenuity demands a reframing of ideas of progress, beyond convenience and Capital growth, towards the “promotion of systems of life-enhancement,” understood in human and more-than-human terms. In the face of anthropogenic climate collapse, indigenuity is not only a revaluation of past ancestral wisdom of Indigenous Peoples, but positioned as a necessary perspective in grappling with the urgent Planetary challenges of 21st Century histories in the making.
[1] Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything, Click Here – The Folly of Technological Solutionism, (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013).
[2] Daniel R. Wildcat, On Indigenuity: Learning the Lessons of Mother Earth, (Lakewood: Fulcrum Books, 2023).
[3] Ibid.
Author: Patricia Reed