Capability development for the re- indigenization of

Capability development for the reindigenization of humanity to mother earth. The Role of Indigenous Languages

Dr Lewis Willams, Whakauae Research Services and the Alliance for Intergenerational Resilience.

August 2018

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Capability development for the re-indigenization of humanity to mother earth. The Role of Indigenous Languages. Dr Lewis Williams, Whakauae Research for Māori Health and Development and the Alliance for Intergenerational Resilience. Abstract Countering new forms of colonialisms and anthropogenic changes to the earth’s ecosystems, are sustainable development strategies advocating the incorporation of Indigenous ontologies and knowledge systems throughout our institutions; fundamentally challenging and transforming our current global social-economic order. Named here as the reindigenization of humanity to Mother Earth, the magnitude, scale and orientation of this relational shift poses some qualitative and critical differences beteen Indigenous peoples and those who are no longer Indigenous to place. Using the unifying concept of ‘intergenerational resilience’, this paper suggests intergenerational capabilities for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in support of re-indigenization; whilst priotising the restoration of Indigenous languages, cultures and eco-sytems as advocated in the UNESCO Action Plan for the 2019 Year of Indigenous Languages. Contextualized within my Māori1 cultural, linguistic and epistemological lineage, it explores the relational space of contemporay neocolonial societies and potential of their Indigenous, intercultural and intergenerational dimensions for healing. Introduction Koia tēnei: ko te toroa noho au, e tangi ana ki tōna kāinga; e mihi ana This is a fact: I live like an albatross, crying out to its nesting place and greeting you in sorrow2. In recent decades, new colonialisms consisting of an increasingly agressive ‘economics of extraction’ driven by growing global power and Western scientific materialism have resulted in unprecended human and environmental degradation, including exponential rupture from traditional lands and cultures of Indigenous peoples and accompanying human and interspecies dislocation and trauma (Indian law Series, 2016). Globally 20% of described species are likely to face extinction over the next two to three decades (Cardinale et al, 2012 in Wilder, O’Meara, Monti, and Nabhan, 2016) with current extinction rates exceeding natural or background extinction rates amongst vertebra taxa (all species with a vertebral column, for example, fish, reptiles, amphibians, mamals) by 114 times under the most conservative of estimates (Ceballos, 2015 in Wilder et al, 2016)3. According to the Centre for Biological Diversity (2018), our planet is now in-the-midst-of its sixth mass extinction of plants and animals. What distinguishes this extinction from others however, is that for the first time in planetary history, these changes are driven by human-behaviour. Post-humanist Deborah Bird Rose names this process as the: 1

Māori are the Indigenous People of Aotearoa / New Zealand. Māori Proverb used to refer to the confiscation of lands the displacement of Māori from their homes. 3 The natural background extinction rate is 1-5 species per year. 2

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“Unmaking of country, un-ravelling the work of generation upon generation of living beings; cascades of death that curtail the future and unmake the living presence of the past. The death of temporal, fleshy, metabolic relationships across generations and species”. In soley human terms, the magnitide of this rupture is apparent in recent UNHCR estimates of 63.5 million forcibly displaced persons throughout the world (UNCHR, 2016). Unaccounted for within these estimates which include internationally displaced Indigenous and traditional peoples are large numbers of internally displaced Indigenous peoples in modern nations states (Pilger, 2015). At a broader level, modernity has ultimately resulted in the colonization of perception and consciousness, and a corresponding over emphasis on materialism , previously unimagined. This cauterisation of reality is now widespread in our systems of education and scientific inquiry. Increasingly evident in both urban and traditional, land-based communities are the ways in which these processes are resulting in the rupture of inter-generational connectivity and knowledge transmission throughout human and other than human forms of life (Williams and Claxton, 2017). Of interest here is the way in which these processes have contributed to bio-cultural attrition – the related attrition of eco-systems and land-based human cultures and languages, in particular those which which weave the relational space between peoples who remain Indigenous to place and the lands and waters of which they are part. Accompanying the disruption of Indigenous peoples from their traditional lands and concomittent disruption of their economic and cultural habitats are alarming rates of language loss. Conservative estimates suggest that more than half of the world’s 6,700 lanuages will become extinct by the year 2100 and the majority of the languages under threat are Indigenous languages (United Nations, 2017). From Europe to the America’s, Australia and Oceania, Asia and Africa, the message has been the same: the Indigenous and minority languages of the world continue to disappear at an alarming and accelerating rate, replaced by a small number, of ever expanding, majority or “Killer Languages” (McPeek, 2011; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000 in Maffi, 2002). Whilst, it has for some time been recognized that the disappearance of species of plants, animals or insects and the destruction of an ecosystem means the erasure of related Indigenous languages and knowledge, the regenerative capacity of Indigenous languages for human-ecological well-being is only more recently recognized (Tauli-Corpuz, 2009). Not only do Indigenous languages represent complex articulations of knowledge developed over 1000s of years, they also represent and imbue in those who speak them, onto-epistemologies4 of deep interconnectedness (Charlo, 2018). Closely connected to and necessitated by these themes is the broader transformation of our global social and economic order through the infusion of Indigenous worldviews throughout our public institutions (Stewart-Harawira, 2005; UNESCO, 2018). Simply put, the revitalization of Indigenous languages and infusion of related knowledge systems throughout our public institutions and policies are critical to the deep relational shifts in understanding and ways of being that human continuance demands (Williams, 2018). 4

My usage of the word onto-epistemology entails a tight coupling between what we know (ontology), and how we live and therefore come to know (epistemology). Onto-epistemology is the reflexive and bidirectional relationship beween what we know about reality and subsequent action. For differently historically and socially positioned peoples, this inevitably brings into play various perspectives and priorities.

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In response to these developments, this paper focuses on the establishment of intergenerational capabilities necessary for what is named by the co-founder of the Bioneers Network Kenny AusebelI as the work to “re-indigenize ourselves to our common home, mother earth” (Ausebel, 2008, p. Xxii). Or put another way “learning to live within the requirements of place” (Armstrong, 2015) through becoming ‘of place’ wherein knowledge of how to live (our ethical relationality) derives from an extended sense of ecological family rooted in place (Salmon, 2000). The overarching capability on which this paper focuses is “intergenerational resilience” – broadly defined here as ensuring to the best extent possible that future generations have what they need to flourish, and more specifically, to practices which foster connectivity and knowledge transmission between humans (specifically between Elders and youth), and between humans and other species (Williams, Bunda, Claxton and MacKinnon, 2017). Within this overarching capability three others are discussed: 1) the capability of being human; 2) the capability of onto-epistemological differentiation; and, 3) the capability to understand, speak and construct one’s worldview through Indigenous languages of place. In doing so it builds on It builds on Sen’s view of human agency as the ‘ability to live a life that one has reason to value’ (Sen, 2001). However, whereas Sen has largely asserted human agency in the form of individual capability, as articulated in this paper, self-determination is construed as a largely collective capability (Murphy, 2014). The central thesis of this paper has three key tenets. Firstly, is that probably our greatest capability in supporting our re-indigenization (becoming of place and learning to live within the requirement of place) is our ‘human beingness’ - our inate human capacity for deep empathic connection to the earth as a living being (Ausbel, 2008; O’Hara, 2006; Williams, 2012). Secondly, disrupted by historical and contemporary forms of colonialism, this innate capability is threatened by the dissonance between our often (fleeting) experiences of interconnectedness (ontology) and everyday priorities and actions as anchored in and influenced by our everyday contexts and political ecologies (epistemology). Thirdly, a key means of addressing the dissonance between ontology and epistemology is through the resurgence of Indigenous languages; Language acts as a medium for mediating and connecting the reciprocal and reflexive relationship between our embodied experiences of place and the ways in which we construct and articulate our relationship to place. Whakauae Research for Māori Health and Development and the Alliance for Intergenerational Resilience This paper draws its inspiration from the scholarship and practice of two organizations: Whakauae Research for Māori Health and Development at which I am Senior Research Fellow and the Alliance for Intergenerational Resilience of which I am the Founding Director. Based in Whangaunui, Aotearoa (New Zealand) Whakauae Research for Māori Health and Development (WRMHD) is the only iwi(tribal)-owned Māori public health research entity in the country. It’s key objective is to transform Māori lives through research that is innovative, collaborative and at the cutting edge of issues. Among key values for Whakauae are:

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Rangatirtanga – the right to determine our own aspirations as Māori and the pathway for achieving them; Hauora Tangata – embracing a holistic understanding of health for all; and, Mātauranga Māori – employing mainstream Māori and western academic knowledge to support Māori aspirations.

At the heart of Whakauae’s work is Kaupapa Māori research whose main principle is tino rangatiratanga or self-determinaton. Kaupapa Māori research is both a form of resistance and a methodological strategy “wherein research is conceived, developed and carried out by Māori for the benefit of Māori” (Walker, Eketone, & Gibbs, 2006, p.331). Epistemological sovereignty and disruption of Western hegemonic framings of reality are essential aspects. Instrinsic to Kaupapa Māori theory is critical theory and its application to the analaysis of existing power structures and social inequalities to challenge and seek redress for ongoing forms of colonialism in Aotearoa (Mahukia, 2008). An example of an intergenerational resilience capability-building project undertaken by Whakauae is “He Tomokanga Hōu”; the renewal of Ngati Hauiti’s tomokanga whakairo (gateway carving) at Rāta marae (the meeting place for the Ngati Hauiti tribe). The primary question guiding this research project is “To What extent are traditional institutions of culture linked to a sense of wellbeing for iwi (tribal) members?” (WRMHD, 2017). During the course of the research a new tomokanga was conceptualized, designed and carved, and a waiata composed and recited by the female members of the iwi for the first time at the tomokanga unveiling. The intent (and hypothesis) of the project is that through participation in the renewal of the tomokanga, iwi (tribal) members (particularly youth) have the rare change to whakawhanaungatanga (to make kinship relations) through - learning whakapapa or geneolgy and physically participating in mahi whakairo (the work of ancestral carving) (WRMHD, 2017). The objective of the Alliance for Intergenerational Reslience (AIR) is to increase socialecological resilience (the harmonious development of human social and ecological systems) by connecting and supporting locally based innovations through generating intercultural and intergenerational relationships between Indigenous communities and those no longer Indigenous to place. Indigenous Resurgence – the resurgence of Indigenous societies, lands and langugages through the leadership of Indigenous peoples lie at the heart of its approach. AIR’s 5–7 year vision is an established community of practice which collectively impacts social–ecological resilience (AIR, 2016). In particular, AIR aims to support the work of Indigenous communities that are maintaining and rebuilding connections to their home-places in order to continue and develop their distinctive ways of being in the world. It also aims to connect these groups with each other, and with organizations working with non-Indigenous communities who are no longer Indigenous to place but who desire more meaningful relationships in and with the lands on which they live now. Among the Alliance's founding ideas is the view that cultural practices and principles of Indigenous peoples hold insights that can not only contribute to those peoples’ own ongoing struggles against colonizing powers, but can also contribute to the paradigmatic shift in worldview required if humanity is to maintain and develop forms of resilience needed to meet the unprecedented social and ecological challenges of the 21st century and life in the anthropocene (MacKinnon, Williams and Waller, 2017). 5

Particularly relevant to this paper for their theoretical findings on intergenerational resilience capability-building are two sustainability education and research projects undertaken by AIR. The first of these projects the “Ecology of Well-being Project” investigated psycho-spiritual well-being in relation to land with racialized international and refugee, and Indigenous women affected by issues of forced migration and cultural dislocation in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Canada. (Williams and Hall 2014; Williams, 2017). The second project “The Elders’ Voices Summit” investigated pedagogical practices that enable reconnection to place and the formation of epistemological and relational solidarities at an international land-based summit held over several days which brought Indigenous and non-Indigenous people together in Canada (Williams, Bunda, Claxton and MacKinnon, 2017; Mackinnon, Williams and Waller, 2018). Both projects contributed to findings surrounding pedagogical practices relating to cultural re-mapping or the ‘reproduction of culture in place’ (Sommerville, 2010) and the related concept of ‘onto-epistemological rupture’ (Williams, Bunda, Claxton and MacKinnon, 2017); both of which are explained in the following section. A significant departure of AIR’s work from the majority of decolonising and sustainability initiatives are our efforts to dig underneath the Indigenous–non-Indigenous binary and associated identity politics, to fundamental issues of ontology and epistemology. Ultimately, this work is about the recovery of our larger experience of the animate and interconnected Life-World (Williams, 2012, p.93) we inhabit. It takes account of Indigenous peoples’ varying connections to territory and culture and the severing of the deep empathic links to the land for many settler–migrant peoples whose ancestors were once Indigenous to place (O’Hara, 2006). All peoples develop from ecological origins. Ecology is the animating force — derived neither from political or theological ideology—that teaches us how to be human (Battiste, Bell, Findlay, Findlay, & Henderson, 2005). Theoretical Underpinnings The theoretical underpinnings of this paper continue to be inspired by scholarship which troubles the Indigenous-non-Indigenous binary (Lange, 2017; Williams, 2012). For the purposes of this paper, Indigenous and no-longer Indigenous to place, encapsulates a range of subject positions that include Indigenous peoples living on traditional territories, those who are Indigenous to their country or place of origin and identify with, and are grounded to varying extents in their cosmologies, languages and cultures; and those who are not in the place of origin of their ancestors, being one or more generations removed. In this sense, being Indigenous to place is an ontological continuance and not being in ‘place’ is an act of colonial continuance (Williams, Bunda, Claxton & MacKinnon, 2017). The second theoretical construct, the ‘reproduction of culture in place’ (Sommerville, 2010) refers to the recovery of Indigenous cultural ecologies, knowledge systems and ways of being in ways that significantly remap dominant (Euro-Western) understandings of the cultural ecology of place. Drawing on previous scholarship in critical Indigenous studies and social geography (Kraidy, 2002; Fredericks, 2013), AIR applied this concept throughout the previously mentioned projects in two key ways: (1) the re-mapping of sociohistorical narratives that involves the disruption of dominant settler narratives of the ecology of culture and place through re-surfacing and repositioning Indigenous narratives of country, culture and kin; and, (2) the remapping of ontology and epistemology in an embodied sense upon the human psyche through ceremony, stories, arts-based approaches, and simply being one with country.

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Within an Indigenous “Life-World” (Williams, 2012, p. 93) perspective, these embodied and discursive forms of cultural re-mapping are both significant: consciousness is embedded in the nature of all things, learning is holistic and relational, involving “human beings, animals, plants, the natural environment, and the metaphysical world of visions and dreams” (Fixico, 2003, p. 2). From an Indigenous worldview, it is the body’s knowing or perceiving that informs other levels of consciousness (Cajete 2000; Broadhead and Howard, 2011): a point on which Western scholarship on relational consciousness (Merleau-Ponty, 1964; Abram 1996) is particularly instructive. In particular the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, French phenomenological philosopher, articulated in his famous book “The Primacy of Perception” (1964) and David Abram’s (1996) thesis of an “Ecology of Language”, lay important theoretical groundwork with not only demonstrating the primacy of the embodied nature of human language and decentring language as an exclusive human property (Abram: 1996: 78); but also in articulating the reflexive relationship between embodied and discursive forms of human communication. For Merleau-Ponty, the body’s structures of perceptual consciousness are our first route of access to being and truth: “such structures underlie and accompany all the other structures of higher level individual consciousness” (1964: xvi). Similarly, David Abram’s ecology of language sees that prior to discursive language, preverbal communication is already in exchange. This exchange has its own coherence and articulation, suggesting that perception is the very soil and support of the more conscious exchange we call language (Abram: 1996: 74). It is this gestural, somatic dimension of language that is always present and underpins its abstract structure (Merleau-Ponty, 1964). However, also significant for extending our understandings of the reproduction of culture in place, are later post-structural theories emphasizing discursive forms of human language, and the ways these are situated within power relations, ultimately shaping human subjectivity and agency (Foucault, 1984; Weedon, 1997). Particularly notable is Foucault’s concept of the “Discursive Field” (Foucault, 1984) which theorises a field of power relations as permeating and influencing any discourse. However, just as discourses structure human agency, so too can they be points of resistance; a point which holds significance for conceptualizing Indigenous languages as a key human capability towards re-indigenization. The third concept “onto-epistemological rupture” (Williams, Bunda, Claxton & MacKinnon, 2017) also emerged from both the “Ecology of Wellbeing” and “Elder’s Voices’ Summit” projects. It refers to the divergence or incongruence that can occur between seemingly shared understandings of the nature of being or reality and subsequent action within culturally and socially diverse collectives. In other words, whilst different cultural groups (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) may attribute similar ontological priority to the metaphysical, material and intersubjective aspects of agency, the subsequent actions of groups may diverge, because of the ways they are positioned within the broader ecology or local social and political contexts. The implications are that whilst collectives may think they agree ontologically, subsequent actions around human-environmental wellbeing may vary greatly because of the different understandings, social and political structures activated in local-global contexts. For example, “The Ecology of Well-being Project” found that while significant overlaps in experiences and ontologies exist between displaced Indigenous and international migrant women, Indigenous women (particularly those still connected to traditional lands) will experience turangawaewae (their place of power) more directly in relation to land than immigrant women who often without immediate connection to land and the anchoring effects of local

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linguistic connections to place, sense of turangawaewae tends to be more orientated towards human social systems (Williams and Hall, 2014; Williams, 2017). Furthermore, international immigrant women, because of their disconnection from land and position as newcomers who are ‘trying to get into the nation state’ (Walsh, 2008) will likely be positioned differently within public policy and the broader political ecology in terms of co-option into public discourses which position them as ‘citizen-consumer’ (Williams, 2017). Building on these findings, this paper positions Indigenous languages as ‘discourses of resistance’ and therefore a key means of healing ruptures between ontology and epistemology at interpersonal and institutional levels. In doing so, it breaks with the Indigenous-nonIndigenous binary, positing Indigenous languages as significant capabilities within the full range of subject positions along the ‘Indigenous and no-longer Indigenous to place’ continuum. This intergenerational capability, it is argued is critical for constructing generative possibilities for human and other than human futures. Indigenous Languages and the Reproduction of Culture in Place Languages with their complex implications for identity, cultural diversity, spirituality, communication and social integration, education and development, are of crucial importance for people and planet. People not only embed in languages their history, traditions, memory, traditional knowledge, unique modes of thinking, meaning and expression, but more importantly they also construct their future through them5. Indigenous languages represent complex systems of knowledge developed and accumulated over thousands of years. Through giving life to local cultural specificities, customs and values which have endured through time, Indigenous languages are repositories of diversity and key resources for both understanding the environment and utilizing it to the best advantage of local populations, as well as humanity as a whole (UNESCO, 2017). For example, Indigenous peoples’ knowledge of traditional medicines, has contributed immensely to protecting the health of both indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples (Blackstock, 2013). Yet the linkages between Indigenous languages and human sustainability are rarely well articulated in public policy at either global or local levels. In a nutshell, the well-being of Indigenous peoples and their inalienable right to sustainable cultural, social and economic development is still predominantly perceived as a human right that solely concerns Indigenous peoples, rather than an imperative for human continuance. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples provides a critical starting point in setting out fundamental cornerstones of Indigenous self-determinantion with regard to language, Indigenous knowledge, cultural practices and environment – for examples the right to: “maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social, and cultural institutions” (Article 5); “revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, language, oral tradition, philosophies, writing systems and literatures and to designate and maintain their own names for communities, places and persons” (Article 13); “maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied lands, territories, waters, coastal seas and other resources, and to uphold their responsibilities to future generations in this regard” (Article 25); and 5

UNESCO (2018), page 2.

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“conservation and protection of the environment and the productive capacity of their lands or territories or resources” (Article 29). More than 10 years since the UN Declaration was adopted, significant challenges remain, including its lack of integration with public policy aimed at sustainable development. Whilst efforts continue to secure the identity, languages and cultures of Indigenous peoples (United Nations, 2017), the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development (probably the most significant statement on sustainable development at global levels) makes little explicit mention of Indigenous peoples6. Notably SDG 17, “revitalize the global partnership” makes no mention of the transformative potential of Indigenous partnerships for sustainable development. Rather, Indigenous peoples continue to be solely positioned as vulnerable populations with focus remaining primarily at the level of nation states, business and civil society more generally. The situation is similar in Aotearoa where much of the support for te reo Māori (the Māori language) revitalization has focused on Māori identity, culture and well-being. For example, in their recent report on Languages in Aotearoa (2013), The Royal Society of New Zealand appears to make a promising start in its positioning of language as the “the primary means of interpreting reality and therefore...basic to cultural evolution and change” (p.2). The report goes on to acknowledge that given the “inextricable relationship between language and evolving social change, language practices will play an important role in emerging national issues.....” (p.2), seemingly laying down a broad agenda. The report then emphaises the fragmented nature of language policy, and related need for interdisciplinary approaches to guide policy development in a number of areas such as the role of language in learning, identity, neuroplasticity and the labour force. However, mention of reo Māori in the report is expressed under the guise of the well worn narrative of ‘the endangered staus of te reo Māori and its primary significance “as a marker of cultural persistance” that is of critical importance to Māori identity and well-being’ (p. 4-5). Whilst true this may be, te reo Māori needs to occupy a much greater place of prominance in the Nation’s psyche, public discourses and policies if the people and the government of the day are serious about their intentions for viable and sustainable futures. The Māori Language Act of 1987, was introduced following the Waitangi Tribunal’s7 finding the year earlier that te reo Māori was a taonga (a socially or culturally valuable resource) and that urgent action was needed to improve its health. Among subsequent measures was the First Māori Language Strategy in 2003 which in articulating an overarching vision of widespread use and appreciation of te reo by Māori and non-Māori respectively by 2028, was clearly a generational plan (Waitangi Tribunal, 2011). However since that time the status of Māori language in Aotearoa has steadily declined throughout all age groups. In the 2013 Census, 21.3 percent of all Māori reported they could hold a conversation about everyday things. This was a decline from 23.7 percent in 2006 and 25.2 percent in 2001 (Ministry of Social Development, 2016).

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The exception is SDG # 4 “ensuring inclusive and quality education for all”. Set up by the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, the Waitangi Tribunal is a permanent commission of inquiry that makes recommendations on claims brought by Māori relating to Crown actions which breach the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi. 7

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Contributing to Māori cultural and language loss in New Zealand particularly amongst the younger generations, is environmental degradation (Taiapa et al, 2014). For example, as the fastest growing region in New Zealand, Tauranga Moana (Western Bay of Plenty) is experiencing increasing environmental pressures due to rapid development. This is having a number of impacts on the natural environment which include continuous encroachment of iwi (tribal) spaces, physically, culturally and spiritually, through for example noise, air and visual pollution; excessive “Water Take” by commercial industries leaving the estuaries and riverbeds with insufficient water; and contamination of rivers and foreshores due to oil spills, factory production and run-off from farms (Bennett, 2015; Taiapa, et al, 2014). Among the impacts of these continuing forms of environmental degradation are that Māori, and youth, continue to lose connection with the environment; including its waterways, as a primary source of kaimoana (seafood), cultural and spiritual connectedness, and mātauranga Māori (traditional Māori knowledge). For many young people, without the immediacy of contact with key environmental taonga, the meaning and lived experience of language often becomes a distant reality. Overall among the most promising developments for te reo and sustainable development in Aotearoa have come from the fields of Māori Environmental Science (Awatere, Harmsworth, & Robb, M., 2017; Perrot et al, 2018; Whaanga, & Wehi, P., 2016) and Treaty of Waitangi (Waitangi Tribunal, 2011) claims through their emphasis on the closely connected role of te reo Māori in mātauranga Māori and the preservation of bio-cultural diversity generally here in Aotearoa. Arguably the most famous claim by Māori against the Crown under the Treaty of Waitangi is claim Wai 262. Known as the “Flora and Fauna Claim (Waitangi Tribunal, 2011), Wai 262 sought rights around Indigenous flora and fauna and other taonga such as mātauranga Māori (traditional knowledge) and intellectual property rights over cultural ideas, design, and language (Waitangi Tribunal, 2011). According to the Tribunal report, the environmental issues raised by the Wai 262 claim pose one essential challenge: how can the voice of mātauranga Māori, etched as it is in the land, still speak in our changed circumstances? Two key concepts are essential to understanding this question. The first is whanaungatanga or kinship which describes relationships between people, between people and natural resources and even between related bodies of knowledge – everything has a whakapapa – genealogy. Here, an essential Māori belief is that the first step to understanding the Māori relationship with the landscape for example, is to understand that descent from it. The second core concept is kaitiakitanga (guardianship) where kaitiakitanga is a product of whanaungatanga – that is an intergenerational obligation that arises from whanaungatanga. For Māori, it is whakapapa that provides the cultural connection to place and resources. To confirm value and the recognition of all things, Māori commonly begin by reaffirming cultural connections and relationship to place – this starts with whakapapa; for example connection can involve recitation of ancestral lineage, stories, narratives, verse, whakatauki (proverbs), mōteatea (laments), pepeha (formulaic expressions of tribal identity), waiata (songs), korero, mātauranga Māori which together validate: connection to the resource (whakapapa); spiritual attachment to the resource (wairua), use of the resource (mahinga kai), and sense of wellbeing based on the resource (e.g. mauri-life force) (Awatere, Harmsworth and Robb, 2017).

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Thus te reo Māori as embedded in place and people, holds important knowledge not only of the environment but in relational ethics – the protocol for how to be in relationship with human and other than human life forms – otherwise known “Te Reo me ngā Tikanga”) (the language and the cultural protocols). According to Derby (2016), a Tauranga Moana Māori scholar, the philosophical constructs underlying tikanga (protocol) allowed Māori to frame their world in a manner that was distinctly Māori and it was by participating in customs within these kin groups that identity was formed. Linguistic knowledge was (and is) therefore key to the transmission of tikanga and the transmission of all other knowledge and information. Furthermore, whilst in the first instance, te reo Māori had and continues to have a transactional value (i.e. it is the means by which the transmission of knowledge occurs), it also has a has a spiritual value. In Te Ao Māori, the Māori world, everything has a mauri (life force). The well-known whakatauki (proverb) communicates just this: Ko te reo te mauri o te mana Māori. Language is the lifeforce of Māori. Te reo Māori not only acts as a medium by which the culture was transmitted, it also carries the mauri of the people - the interconnecting life-force energy that binds a people to place and in providing an embodied knowing and connection to place acts as the pre-reflective ground of human consciousness (Merleau-Ponty, 1964); Whilst the discursive aspects of te reo Māori provide the more conscious ground of human expression and structure human subjectivity and agency (Foucault, 1984; Weeden, 1997). It is this means of becoming of place, I argue which provides a critical window for sustainability generally, and relatedly, for those who are no longer Indigenous to place, to becoming of place. Conclusion: Three Capabilities for Intergenerational Resilience In our interconnected and globalized world, the work of sustainability can only be a collective effort between generations, cultures and sectors. Intergenerational resilience – connectivity and knowledge tranmission across and within species – framed within an interconnected Indigenous Life-World paradigm, acts as a unifying capability which holds a number of sub-themes or capabilities of which I name three in particular. Ira tangata-to be human: Re-indigenization Capability One In this paper I have refered to literature by Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars that articulates the ability of all humans to be of place – an innate capacity to have an intimate and empathically resonant relationship with place (Ausbel, 2008, O’Hara, 2006, Lange, 2017, Williams, 2012). Largely exerienced within the embodied pre-reflective ground of human consciousness, the strength of this capability is it’s compelling felt, sense. Metaphorically, this universal human capacity is evident in the prominent role of star constellations that have united human kind (ira tangata) throughout the ages. For example, the open star cluster known to Māori as Matariki which traditionally guided Māori cultivation and harvesting is known by other names in other cultures. The Greeks called it Pleiades, the Chinese called it Mao, the Babylonians called it Mul, whilst the Persians knew it as Thurayya. As well as having practical applications (for exmples, astronomy, navigation) it also spiritually inspires, being mentioned several times in Christian scriptures and having its own sacred meaning and literal 11

Māori translation ( for example, Mata ariki – the eyes of the creator watching over us) (Wananga o Aotearoa, 2018). This universal capability of indigeneity is essential to human continuance, but on its own it is not enough and as we have seen, even problematic. Onto-epistemological differentiation: Re-indigeniztion Capability Two Throughout this paper, I have referred to “onto-epistemological rupture” - the divergence or incongruence that can occur between seemingly shared understandings of the nature of being or reality and subsequent action within culturally and socially diverse collectives (Williams, Bunda, Claxton & MacKinnon, 2017). In other words, whilst different cultural groups (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) may attribute similar ontological priority to the metaphysical, material and intersubjective aspects of agency, the subsequent actions of groups may diverge, because of the ways they are positioned within the broader ecology or local social and political contexts. A counter practice to this is onto-epistemological differentiation – the ability to differentiate the tension points between conflicting ontologies (experiences of reality) epistemologies (actions as these are anchored in local political ecologies) and agency imperatives – reasons for acting. This capability is critical for dealing with the more-subtle differences in subject positions that exist along the Indigenous-nonIndigenous continuum rather that the Indigenous – non-Indigenous binary. This capability is critical even within Indigenous societies who whilst assuming similar connections to territory, can have quite different historical relationships and kōrero (stories) and therefore linguistic understandings attached to those places. Elsewhere I have published a series of reflective questions “De-Colonial Reflections for Scaling Deep” (Williams, 2018, p.16) intended to assist transformative sustainability educators with the practice of onto-epistemological differentiation. Giving voice and construct worldviews through Indigenous languages of place: Reindigenization Capability Three. From an Indigenous Life-world perspective, language provides the medium to become of place. Through sharing the mauri (life-force energy) with papatuanuku (mother earth) and all our other relations of place we are empatically connected and knowing of place. Indigenous discourses of place, however, are critical in consciously shaping a deeply interconnected relationship with place and embuing cultural beliefs that encourage an ethical relationship. Take for example, the Māori whakatuaki (proverb): Whatungarongaro te tangata, toitū whenua People pass on, but the land remains

This intergenerational capability to become of place will be enhanced through our reappreciation of our human capacity for indigenous relationship to place and the need for sensitive onto-epistemological differentiation regarding the continuum of being of place and expertise in the knowledge of that place.

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