International Relations scholarship has shown that persisting epistemic hierarchies rooted in colonial domination continue to exclude, silence, or sideline alternative knowledges in global governance, even as International Organizations increasingly open up to formally marginalized groups and attempt to pluralize their expertise. While building on such accounts, this article argues that epistemic hierarchies are deeply entangled with political-economic logics, which permeate global epistemic politics in multiple ways. These intersecting epistemic and political-economic logics produce complex forms of ‘political-epistemic disciplining’, which do not simply exclude alternative knowledges, but rearticulate them. I identify three intertwined modalities of this process: de-epistemization, whereby alternative knowledge claims are recoded as social or identity concerns rather than treated as competing epistemologies. This operation recognizes the subjects of the critique but not the epistemic critique itself. Conditional recognition occurs when prevailing criteria of validity regulate the acknowledgement of such claims. Finally, transposition constitutes or reformulates alternative knowledge claims through the lenses of dominant epistemic frameworks and categories. These processes rearticulate alternative knowledges and transform them a new into ‘globalized alternative knowledges’. The argument is developed through an in-depth analysis of engagements with Indigenous knowledges in Global Mental Health governance.

Placing Lauren Berlant’s concept of “cruel optimism,” in conversation with Tuck and Yang’s work, “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor,” this paper examines affective attachments to mass tree-planting efforts, which encourage unquestioned faith in these initiatives, serving to enable their persistence despite their consistent failures. This paper questions how affective attachments to mass tree-plantings teach publics to remain invested in the ability of settler-colonial institutions to solve climate crises, thereby ensuring that climate crises remain meaningfully unaddressed. Drawing together decolonial scholarship, affect theory, Indigenous thought and scholarship on environmental education, I demonstrate that mainstream tree-planting initiatives do not challenge the logics that permit forest and land degradation, but in fact, reproduce these logics. Rejecting a model which considers the act of planting trees as a success in and of itself, I instead ask what is missed when the planting of a tree is more important than the life of the forest.

Within the dynamic realm of historiography and the generation of knowledge, the process of “Becoming Independent” serves as a profound testament to the tenacity and resolve exhibited by a wide array of intellectual communities in their efforts to confront and transform established narratives. This afterword explores the themes in this special issue, which not only offers a critical analysis of historiographical practices from both past and present but also emphasises the imperative for ongoing dedication in the endeavour to cultivate diverse and independent historical narratives. By discussing the different articles of this collection, the afterword explores shared themes, such as the decoloniality of historical scholarship through ethnographic inquiry, prospects of de-emphasising the Eurocentric gaze, fragmentation of history as evidence of varied epistemological sovereignties, and the decolonial agenda through “white expatriates.” By doing so, this Afterword serves as a resounding appeal for the continuous pursuit of intellectual liberation.

The stewardship of wahi kūpuna (Hawaiian ancestral places and resources and the knowledge systems and practices inherently tied to them.) requires an interdisciplinary approach that weaves together Hawaiian and Western knowledge systems. However, for the past century, those not native to Hawaiʻi have held the authority to “manage” Hawaiian heritage. To transform and restore this unbalanced system, there remains a critical need to increase opportunities for Native Hawaiians to care for our own cultural heritage. In 2010, the Native Hawaiian-led non-profit organization, Huliauapa‘a, established the Wahi Kūpuna Internship Program (WKIP). The primary goal of the WKIP is to develop leaders and advocates in Hawaiʻi’s cultural heritage fields by training the next generation of stewards in both Indigenous and Western knowledge systems, so they have a strong cultural foundation, elevate their roles and responsibilities to our lands and communities, obtain higher education degrees, and gain professional career-ready skillsets. The Internship takes a progressive approach that recognizes the constraints of a conventional indoor learning environment, and instead creates an authentic experience for students outside the classroom, on the land, and in the community. Our goal is to re-establish our connections to and care of these ancestral places in order to re-invigorate our cultural practices as a key element of perpetuating our Hawaiian identity and self determination.

In the final decades of its existence, the Qing imperial state sought to unify and standardize policies of frontier management. In this context, mapping and surveying practices developed as socio-technological discourses that transformed how Qing authorities asserted their territorial claims in the Eastern Himalayas. Most scholarship on the history of Qing-era frontier management has tended to focus on Chinese nation-building practices. However, this article foregrounds the deconstruction of the epistemic regime governing the production of geo-knowledge about the Eastern Himalayas by investigating the appropriation and rejection of the interlocutors of local and indigenous knowledge, networks, and actors.

How did military surveyors establish authoritative ideas about their own expertise? This article focuses on the late-Qing surveys of the Dzayul river basin commissioned by Zhao Erfeng and carried out by his subordinate officials Cheng Fengxian, Duan Pengrui, and Xia Hu. Between 1910 and 1911, Zhao Erfeng ordered new surveys of the regions located at the north-easternmost tip of modern-day Arunachal Pradesh, to demarcate the Qing Tibetan dominions and Chinese territory from that of British India. The surveyors Cheng Fengxian, Duan Pengrui, and Xia Hu, mapped the route of the Dzayul River which flowed into British Indian territory through the Mishmi hills into Assam as the Lohit. These surveys largely claimed that natural features marked the “natural” or “traditional” boundaries of the imperial state, against local knowledge productions that framed those same topographical features as connectors rather than dividers. By dissembling the various strands that informed this archive of Qing colonial knowledge, I investigate the processes by which state-produced narratives created new kinds of citational practices to designate who could be recognized as an “expert” of the mountainous geography of Tibet and the trans-Himalayan regions.

An aspect of the Indigenous struggle against colonial oppression is the struggle for the inclusion of their knowledge in policymaking. Perceived as epistemically inferior to science, Indigenous knowledge and subsequently interests are systematically excluded in science-based policy. This article advances an anti-colonial political philosophy of science. As Indigenous knowledge feeds into the necessary political value judgments in policy-relevant science, Indigenous knowledge inclusion, I contend, should be treated as a political, not solely epistemic, matter. I further argue that Indigenous peoples, not just scientists, should have the power to make such political value judgments given the politics of representation under coloniality.

Our research focused on the Critically Endangered Chinese pangolin Manis pentadactyla in the Siang River basin of Arunachal Pradesh in north-east India, home to the Indigenous Adi People. We found evidence of a resident Chinese pangolin population in the study area after assessing pangolin presence from walking surveys and camera trapping at pangolin burrows. We assessed the effectiveness of positioning camera traps based on the local knowledge of the Adi People. Camera-trap capture rates (5.1%) were comparable to or higher than those reported in other studies across Africa and Asia, highlighting the value of incorporating local ecological knowledge in camera-trap surveys. Our findings underscore the complementary nature of Indigenous knowledge and scientific methods, especially for elusive species such as pangolins.

Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately impacted at every stage of the plastic lifecycle, from the extraction of the fossil fuel feedstock and plastic production, to the widespread dispersal of maco-, micro- and nanoplastics in the natural environment. They face many barriers to their participation in UN processes and must constantly push for their rights to be upheld and for their full and effective participation to be secured. This constant basic struggle for Indigenous rights and participation can consume all the energy and efforts of Indigenous delegates in UN processes at the expense of all the other important knowledge and messages they carry from their communities and nations to address the very real and serious harms that have been inflicted on their territories and all the life within it. Negotiators at INC-5.2 have a great responsibility to address this serious global crisis, while being reminded that Indigenous Peoples, who are on the frontlines of the plastic pollution crisis, must be equal participants as experts of their own knowledge and science and participate in the process as rightsholders in all decision-making that affects them.

In this communication, the Australian authors – two Indigenous women and one woman with Anglo-Celtic ancestry – take us into Western Australian Indigenous language and worldviews, to help us reach toward a regenerative worldview. Indigenous words such as rinyi, pirlirr, and liyan are explored to point us in a direction unfamiliar to many English speakers, to Land and Country as living and responsive. The authors notice that it is very difficult to describe these terms in English, because English language does not seem sufficiently capacious to describe the depth of relational being-with Country that Indigenous languages portray. This may be changing, as various Indigenous and place-based groups publish their messages to the world. Within a methodology that is poetic and ontological, a storying method is used to illustrate elements of an Indigenous regenerative worldview that highlights the lyrics of life, for hope. It is for change agents who want to be transformative of the ways they participate with Country; and enable children to learn.

Biodesign, an innovative multidisciplinary approach to design, addresses anthropocentric challenges by minimizing ecological footprints in product and system creation. It incorporates living organisms such as bacteria, fungi, plants and algae into products and manufacturing processes. This approach harnesses the organisms’ potential, including their metabolic activities, growth, stimuli responses, reproductive capabilities, and relationships with other life forms, to create living-like design outcomes. Indigenous communities have a historical connection to living systems in agriculture, wine making and traditional crafts, offering valuable insights.

This paper presents a real-life case study of the Kotpad craft community in Odisha, India, highlighting their challenges. As indigenous communities like the Mirigan craftsmen face pressure to integrate into the mainstream economy, there is a risk of losing their connection with nature, traditional knowledge, and unique identity. The paper envisions the possibility of Biodesign applications in indigenous craft practices and explores hypothetical approaches to problem-solving by application of Synthetic Biology to indigenous crafts preservation. It critically analyzes the advantages, disadvantages, ethical considerations and socio-economic-cultural implications for the community.

This work presents a reflection on the meaning and significance of knowledge coproduction in the field of glaciology. We start by invoking the paradigm of Structure–Form–Environment Interplay (SFEI) to formulate a generalised definition of glaciology, which highlights the relevance of knowledge coproduction. The adoption of a relational view of glaciological knowledge leads us to identify five core dimensions of knowledge coproduction: purpose, ethics, ambiguity, inclusion/exclusion, and relationships. Based on those dimensions, we delve into the decisive methodological aspects of the coproduction process, namely the definition of its purpose, the identification of participants, the organisation of the process, the recognition of ambiguity in Ways of Knowing (WoKs), and the consideration of ethical implications. In addition to the already known three stages of knowledge coproduction process (codesign, codevelopment, and codelivery), we propose the inclusion of an additional preparation stage, which entails the acknowledgment of the identity and involvement of all human and nonhuman participants, their positionality, and means to ensure their cultural and ontological safety. We reason that knowledge coproduction does not replace the scientific method, but rather complements it, eliciting the possibility to unveil deeper insights that might be difficult to attain through unilateral means.

How does Australia’s latest Indigenous defeat relate to Environmental Education? The answer is direct complicity. This paper begins with the premise that the failure of Australia’s 2023 referendum on “The Voice to Parliament” is directly connected with education. The chapter builds on the proposition that local and Indigenous public knowledge could — and should — be the heart of environmental education. We apply a post-qualitative practice that is underpinned by innovative feminisms and the post-qualitative methods within a Multispecies Collaboratory, an experimental way of transforming our learning by attending to the responsive, relational world of all beings. We use this practice to think with while exploring socio-ecological relations, especially our own. Collaboratory colleagues include rivers with their kincentric ecologies, urban park ecosystems and backyard kin or families. Journaling, creative writing and photography record our learning journeys. The article concludes that continuing colonisation, epistemic violence and a culture of denial reinforce the dominant paradigm of silencing Indigenous voices. We argue that an Indigenous-informed onto-epistemology of living place can — and should — inform the heart and practice of environmental education, and an Indigenous-informed Multispecies Collaboratory is one way to deepen the multispecies engagement that underpins environmental education.

This study explores the role of indigenous women in Malaysia as custodians of astronomical knowledge and their potential contributions to STEM education. Through ethnographic fieldwork with the Semelai community, it was observed that women possess advanced knowledge of stellar positioning, celestial events, and seasonal cycles, often surpassing their male counterparts in these areas. However, this traditional knowledge is undervalued in formal education systems that prioritize Western science paradigms, creating a disconnect between indigenous knowledge and modern STEM curricula. To address this gap, an educational and public outreach (EPO) pilot project was initiated to integrate indigenous and Western scientific paradigms. By involving mothers in STEM learning through cultural and technological tools, the project aims to empower indigenous women as educators and bridge the cultural divide in science education. This approach highlights the importance of embracing pluralistic knowledge systems to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion in STEM fields.

Real knowledge emerges from “impossible” worldviews. Or, put differently, it is possible to accept knowledge that is produced by people whose ontological presuppositions–their baseline assumptions about the nature of reality–one entirely rejects. How can this fact be accommodated, not by advancing a wishful post-dualism, dangerous post-secularism, or implausible ontological relativism, but by working within the tradition of secular political philosophy so that indigenous knowledge, too, can be a basis for public policy and collective action in secular societies? Via a reframing Amazonian multinaturalist perspectivism–which has so inspired post-dualist civilizational critiques–as a social theory of health and illness that informs contemporary Western epidemiology’s struggles to theorize the distribution of health and illness in mass society, this article advances a general approach to recognizing knowledge that has been developed on the other side of boundaries of ontological difference. It argues that the accuracy or efficacy of any particular indigenous knowledge-practice implies the generative potential as theory of the ontological presuppositions that facilitated the knowledge-practice’s evolution. Combining the ontological turn’s interest in the innovativeness of indigenous concepts with a proposal for superseding its incommensurable worlds and abandonment of the aspiration to more-than-local knowledge, the article shows that indigenous ideas and their underlying ontologies are more than generic alternatives to inspire Western civilizational renewal, and opens a path to their legitimization as actionable knowledge in the terms of secular public reason.