You are now in the main content area

Indigenocracy

Indigenocracy: Democratic leadership for sustainable futures

Saagajiwe is an Indigenous center for “organizational design” that works with organizations to creatively design their futures. Saagajiwe facilitates strategic action planning, Search conferences with community groups, educational institutions, and local government. A role that fits well in the cultural and creative industries, Saagajiwe teaches democracy to Indigenous peoples.

Indigenocracy: democratic leadership for sustainable futures

Indigenous leadership convenes, facilitates, and mediates human interactions to find solutions to locally identified problems. As exemplars of democratic process, leaders become democracy’s best teachers. Situating this model for Indigenous teaching and learning in the Learning Organization has foundations in critical pedagogy. Creating a learning community includes practicing consensus-building, team-learning, conflict resolution, and critical reflection by individuals. Indigenocracy seeks perspective transformations through experiential learning (Mezirow). Saagajiwe reminds the Learning Community to value personal needs (Glasser). Respecting human diversity begins with deliberative and critically reflective Learning Community members (hooks; Shor). These processes create a platform for success through individual creative products and creative outputs. Indigenocracy values collaborative inquiry and cogenerated knowledge by teams. Leaders posit the locus of control in the local community to find local solutions to locally identified problems using local wisdom and local knowledge.

  

In 2018, the B.C. government and the First Nations Leadership Council began the collaborative development of landmark provincial legislation. The drafting team introduced the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act in 14 months’ time. The Declaration Act was unanimously passed, making B.C. the first jurisdiction in Canada, and one of the few in the world, to pass such a law. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada considers this the framework for reconciliation.