There is a pattern to the universe and everything in it, and there are knowledge systems and traditions that follow this pattern to maintain balance…… recent traditions have emerged that break down creation systems like a virus, infecting complex patterns with artificial simplicity, exercising a civilizing control over what some see as chaos…. an imposition of stupidity and simplicity over wisdom and complexity.
Tyson Yunkaporta
Aboriginal scholar Tyson Yunkaporta builds on his dissertation to write this eminently accessible work of genius. In his doctoral thesis he introduced the “8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning” pedagogical framework, developed in close collaboration with traditional knowledge keepers and Aborigine Elders, using methodology grounded in Aboriginal knowledge generation principles, which he calls “Research Business”. An interdisciplinary scholar, Yunkaporta is a developer of meta-knowledge – “thinking about thinking” – and in Sand Talk, he offers us the 5 minds (ways of thinking) as a way to bridge the often incommensurate challenges that create barriers to understanding amongst the various different knowledge systems.
The book clearly and concisely introduces the practicalities of implementing cognitive justice in everyday life and work by showing us the “How” to it, rather than simply describing the “What” and the “Why” its done. This is really what makes Sand Talk so powerful and worth reading. The diagram introduces these 5 minds, and situates them in his own particular mnemonic device – symbols drawn in the sand (sand talk) that he links in kinship pairs and connects them across the landscape of his hand.
If you’ve been looking for ways to incorporate and integrate Indigenous thinking into your own work, critical for addressing our global challenges here on our shared planetary home, then I highly recommend this book as an excellent introduction to a whole new world of meta-knowledge and perspective.
