Restoring the Kinship Worldview

A note from Four Arrow's on his personal journey to indigenous advocacy.

I have spent half my life trying to convince educators and my students (and just about everyone else) that the only solution for re-balancing life on Mother Earth is to return to our original, nature-based, oneness worldview. I refer to this as “The Indigenous Worldview” because the few remaining Indigenous nations and groups within nations that have been forced to forget it still, against all odds, are holding on to it. 

Four Arrows with Kogi mama (elder)

In our book, Restoring the Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth, my co-author, Darcia Narvaez, and I talk about why returning to an emphasis on our original worldview is essential.  

We live without a strong social purpose, fail to honor the earth as sacred, lead with the head while ignoring the heart, and place individual “rights” over collective responsibility. Restoring the Kinship Worldview is rooted in an Indigenous vision and strong social purpose that sees all life forms as sacred and sentient — that honors the wisdom of the heart, and grants equal standing to rights and responsibilities.

While UC Berkeley’s Science Center for the Greater Good refers to our book as “practical,” nothing is as real-time practical in terms of learning from Indigenous worldview as the Provensustainable.org website. The many real-time cultures proving the sustainable outcomes of the worldview and unique place-based knowledge can teach students of all ages the details that they can use in their own lives and communities.

---

Formerly the Director of Education at Oglala Lakota College, Four Arrows, aka Don Trent Jacobs, Ph.D., Ed.D., is currently a professor in the School of Leadership Studies at Fielding Graduate University. He is the author of 24 books and numerous other publications on Indigenous Worldview. Also an award-winning activist for Indigenous rights, his work has been endorsed by such notables as Vandanna Shive, Noam Chomsky, Hentry Giroux, Greg Cajete, Vine Deloria, Jr., and many others. He lives with his artist wife in Mexico.

Watch the full length Proven Sustainable Conversation with Four Arrows below.

The Proven Sustainable™ Conversation Series is a fiscally sponsored project of the Center for Transformative Action, a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization.