Last year, we shared insights from a series of conversations we hosted with Indigenous people, exploring the potential of a social psychological model of values to support their social and environmental justice campaigns. At the time, we viewed this as the beginning of a broader, ongoing conversation. We were eager to invite voices from other Indigenous communities and different parts of the globe.
This year, we are deeply grateful to have welcomed three new participants into this dialogue—two of Māori heritage and one of Aboriginal heritage. Their contributions have enriched the discussion, leading to the creation of a short report that we are excited to publish today. In this report, we reflect on how these conversations have challenged our perspectives and explore some implications for our future work.
One moment that stood out for me personally was when a participant pointed out a common approach taken by environmental activists of white European descent. Often, these activists enter dialogue with Indigenous people seeking to learn how to avert ecological collapse, asking, “What can we learn from you?”
This question was at the forefront of my mind throughout these conversations and was perhaps a key motivation for initiating this project. The intertwined social and environmental crises we face today seem rooted in a disconnection from both community and the natural world. Indigenous cultures, with their deep reverence for and connection to both human and beyond-human communities, seem to offer valuable insights. Could mainstream Western societies learn something essential from these traditions? I guess I had in mind plant medicine ceremonies, vision quests, or maybe promoting a less consumptive lifestyle closer to nature – and it is true that these things came up in our conversations.
However, one Māori participant offered a different perspective that challenged these preconceptions. They suggested that instead of asking what we can learn from Indigenous communities, perhaps the more critical question for white Europeans is: “What can we learn about ourselves from our historical commitment to the genocide of Indigenous people?” and “How might such reflection inform our understanding of our role in driving today’s continued and intensifying crises?”
These questions take the conversation in a very different direction. They prompt us to consider whether the social and environmental crises we face today are driven by the same impulses that drove historical genocides—an urge to dominate, differently politicized and expressed, but equally destructive.
If many of today’s crises are, in their different manifestations, crises of oppression, then transformative change will only be possible in the context of examining the origins of oppression and the urge to dominate. The social psychology of values, we believe, has a great deal to contribute to that discussion and it is here that we will build at the next stage in this enquiry.