| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Today, the less desirable fruits of the Western growth paradigm are readily apparent as we are confronted with significant threats to our collective well-being. Such threats include: environmental degradation, increasing health, wealth and power disparities, forced migrations and on-going violent conflicts between groups. These problems have been recognized as interrelated with the same root cause: the almost total dominance of the particular assumptions, worldview and social practices of the modern paradigm.2 Correspondingly, it is increasingly argued that human security and well-being are closely connected to linking social and ecological resilience through the re-integration of onto-epistemologies3 of deep interconnectedness into human progress and well-being narratives, worldviews closely associated with Indigenous and other traditional peoples.4 Paradoxically, it is these same peoples, particularly impoverished women and children, who have often borne the brunt of the modernist development paradigm. Whether through inter-racial and ethnic conflict, or for environmental or economic reasons, these seemingly disparate communities are often similarly positioned at the margins of society as a result of forced migration, ensuing cultural dislocation and resulting psycho-spiritual distress.
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