A conversation of national and planetary significance
Reconciling Ways of Knowing; Indigenous Knowledge and Science brings together Indigenous knowledge and science for the benefit of our shared natural world.
Reconciling Ways of Knowing is about a nation-to-nation relationship between peoples: Indigenous Peoples (and their governments) and Canadians (and their governments).
It recognizes that a nation-to-nation relationship is far more than a government-to-government relationship between official representatives and structures. It is a relationship between the peoples and their ways of being and knowing. It recognizes that each way of knowing is unique and equally valid.
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The Reconciling Ways of Knowing Society, along with partners from the David Suzuki Foundation, the Turtle Lodge Centre for Indigenous Education and Wellness, and the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, had planned a national conference in Winnipeg, MB in May 2019.
Because of COVID-19, the in-person forum has been postponed until it is safe and appropriate to once again bring people together for this vital conversation. In the meantime, a series of interactive online events have kept the conversation going.
For generations, Western knowledge has invalidated the ways of being and knowing of Indigenous Peoples and sought to dispossess indigenous peoples of their lands, resources and even their languages, cultures and knowledge, including through Residential Schools and other colonial policies, such as banning the potlatch, sundance and other ceremonies.
During this time, science became the dominant form of knowledge in Canadian society and decision making and across the globe. In this position, it has enabled the exploitation of significant immediate benefits and has created the illusion that increasing scientific knowledge and technology enable human beings to escape the limits of nature. These immediate benefits, however, often come with devastating unanticipated consequences, or “externalities,” within the natural world. Such consequences include dramatic declines in bird populations and other animal populations as a result of widespread spraying of DDT; depletion of the ozone layer resulting from the use of chlorofluorocarbons; increased incidence of cancer, asthma and other human health problems from the ever complexifying chemical cocktail we are creating in the environment in which we live; increased frequency and intensity of dangerous weather events as a result of escalating climate change; and biodiversity loss unprecedented in human history.
