The Good Life (Sumak Kawsay) and the Good Mind (Ganigonhi:oh)
The Good Life (Sumak Kawsay) and the Good Mind (Ganigonhi:oh)
Indigenous Values and Keeping Fossil Fuels in the Ground
The authors, Jack Manno and Pamela Martin, explore the influence of two Indigenous peoples embattled in efforts to keep fossil fuels in the ground. They focus on two key concepts: one known as the good life—sumak kawsay, in the Quichua language and buen vivir in Spanish—and the other the good mind (ganigonhi:yoh), in the language of the Onondaga, the central keepers of the fire, or capital, of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) confederacy. In these cases, the authors show how these two similar concepts influence and inspire social movements that are beginning to imagine a path beyond fossil fuels. In opposing fossil fuel mining, the people of the Ecuadorian Amazon and their allies and the Haudenosaunee people and their allies in upstate New York have drawn on their traditional values and philosophical perspectives that are complex and highly developed, having evolved over centuries, even millennia.
Keywords: Indigenous values, Onondaga Nation, Hydrofracking, Yasuní, Ecuador, Rights of Nature, Haudenosaunee, Resilience, Pachamama, Native Sovereignty
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