“Wolakota”: Grassroots Sustainable Innovation and Decolonial Systemic Design from Lakota Country
Despite being rooted in deep adaptation and biomimicry, Indigenous sustainable innovation and systemic design remains excluded from mainstream sustainability and climate adaptation discourse. This paper gives space to sustainability initiatives from the Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River Indian reservati...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Association Française d'Etudes Américaines
2025-07-01
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| Series: | Transatlantica |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/25663 |
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| Summary: | Despite being rooted in deep adaptation and biomimicry, Indigenous sustainable innovation and systemic design remains excluded from mainstream sustainability and climate adaptation discourse. This paper gives space to sustainability initiatives from the Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River Indian reservations, South Dakota, where Lakota tribal members increasingly undertake long-term grassroots projects to transform their livelihood in ecologically and culturally-significant ways. With a heavy reliance on frugal innovation, these projects blend ecological housing, renewable energy structures and indigenous permaculture with economic models centered around social wellbeing and cultural revitalization. Despite historical misperceptions resulting from colonial oppression and external pressure to conform to western development standards of success and resilience, Lakotas have continued challenging the American Dream and hegemonic capitalist mode of production for two centuries. Relying on five years of grounded research, this paper discusses how Lakota sustainable innovation and systemic design relates to place-based expressions of decolonized forms of identity. Findings suggest that while persistent colonial ontological hegemony suppresses the exogenous visibility of local innovation, it simultaneously increases local capacity to design systemic alternatives from the current ecocidal capitalist impasse. This paper concludes by exploring how Lakota sustainable innovation can inform a paradigm for a livable future within planetary boundaries. |
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| ISSN: | 1765-2766 |