Indigenous Science, Climate Change, and Indigenous Community Building: A Framework of Foundational Perspectives for Indigenous Community Resilience and Revitalization

This essay presents an overview of foundational considerations and perceptions which collectively form a framework for thinking about Indigenous community building in relationship to the tasks of addressing the real challenges, social issues, and consequences of climate change. The primary audience for this essay is Indigenous Peoples and allies of Indigenous Peoples who are actively involved in climate
change studies, sustainable community building, and education. As such, it presents the author’s
personal view of key orientations for shifting current paradigms by introducing an Indigenized
conceptual framework of community building which can move Indigenous communities toward
revitalization and renewal through strategically implementing culturally responsive Indigenous
science education, engaging sustainable economics and sustainability studies. As an Indigenous
scholar who has maintained an insider perspective and has worked extensively with community
members around issues of culturally responsive science education, the author challenges all concerned
to take Indigenous science seriously as an ancient body of applied knowledge for sustaining
communities and ensuring survival over time and through generations. The author also challenges
readers to initiate new thinking about how to use Indigenous science, community building, and
education as a tool and a body of knowledge which may be integrated with appropriate forms of
Western science in new and creative ways that serve to sustain and ensure survival rather than
perpetuate unexamined Western business paradigms of community development.