Indigenous Ontologies and Healing Practices

Abstract (English)

This roundtable seeks to discuss various indigenous ontologies, indigenous hermeneutics and spiritual healing practices around the world. The focus of this panel are indigenous worldviews and indigenous knowledge systems offering intellectual, philosophical and spiritual alternatives how to perceive the human within the world and ecology.
We concentrate on non-dualistic perceptions embedded in environmental humanities and indigenous knowledge systems on sustainability and biodiversity conservation (Sahoo/ Kumar 2021) discussed as eco-cosmologies (Guzy 2021) and indigenous hermeneutics (Gomez-Rincon 2021) and relate them to diverse indigenous healing practices and ethics.
Indigenous ontologies and healing practices emphasize often the interconnectedness, balance, and respect for all empirically living and spiritual beings, representing a holistic ecology.
With the ecological destruction alongside the modernization and rationalization project of modernity disconnecting the human from the non-human, most valuable local knowledge systems and eco-cosmological worldviews have been endangered or had to adopt to dramatic landscape and ideological changes. Simultaneously with the ecological destruction, also indigenous cultures continued to be devalued, ridiculed and belittled as they were opposed to a scientific and materialistic worldview of global urban knowledge cultures ( Brabec de Mori 2016).
Indigenous ontologies, indigenous hermeneutics, eco-cosmologies (Guzy, Skoda, Beggiora 2024) ) and spiritual healing could however be an important alternative discourse on modernity and corrective to dilemmas of contemporary humanity. This panel will explore the rich tapestry of Indigenous ontologies and their healing practices.

References:
Brabec de Mori, Bernd 2016. What makes indigenous unique? Overview of Knowledge Systems among the World’s Indigenous People. In “Past-Future-2016: Seminar on the Protection of Aboriginal Wisdom; Proceedings, pp. 78-85. Huailien: National Dong Hwa University
Gomez, Carlos Miguel 2021. Palabra de remedio u otras historias de yage. Los Conjurados.
Guzy, L., Skoda, U., & Beggiora, S. 2024. Eco-cosmology, Sustainability, and a Spirit of Resilience: An Introduction. The Oriental Anthropologist, 24(1), 7-10.
Guzy, L. 2021b. “Indigenous Shamanic Worldviews as Dialogical Eco-Cosmology”. Lagoonscapes. The Venice Journal of Environmental Humanities, 1(2), 281-294
Sahoo, Ranju Hasini / Anil Kumar 2021. Traditional Knowledge systems for Biodiversity conservation in India: An Analutical Review. In Kalyan Bharati Volume – 36 No. (VI) 2021: 2029- 2036.