Phase I

Background

Conversations around the Cosmovisions of the Pacific project started in 2018, and included Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons primarily from the Indigenous Education Institute (IEI), ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawaii’ and Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI). In the following years, the team worked to refine a set of strategic goals and objectives. When COVID-19 hit in 2020, it forced them to delay plans to hold the Cosmovisions gathering to further develop the initiative. Finally, in January 2023, thanks to support from the Heising-Simons Foundation, we held a small pilot program (Cosmovisions Phase I) at Northwest Indian College. The gathering included 30 Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers, educators, students and knowledge holders to explore the concept of Cosmovisions, and to establish a framework for a future gathering to include 100 Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons interested in establishing a more formal Cosmovisions network of collaborators.

Phase I Overview

January 2023 – Seattle, Washington

Cultivating culturally responsive collaboration for the awareness and advancement of Indigenous ways of knowing, and astronomy-related education and research in the 21st century.

Cosmovisions Phase I was a gathering of 30 Indigenous knowledge holders and non-Indigenous researchers and educators in STEM from the Pacific and Pacific Rim nations, and others from around the world who wished to walk the middle ground together, building new knowledge and relationships across cultures and ways of knowing our universe.

The gathering resulted in a draft of a white paper identifying key areas of future collaborative research between Indigenous and non-Indigenous investigators and practitioners, as well as a protocol for implementation of collaborative research based on principles of “Collaboration with Integrity”, developed through the work of the Indigenous Education Institute.

Gathering Design

Uncovering commonalities and differences across cosmovisions, opportunities for Indigenous–non-Indigenous collaboration, and a protocol for collaborative engagement required deep consideration and participation. Cosmovisions implemented a participatory design (PD) approach for the gathering and required direct participation by Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge holders, researchers, educators and other key stakeholders.

This participatory design approach is premised on the deep interconnection of cognitive processes and cultural systems. To ensure that those interdependencies are made explicit and are addressed in the design process, PD emphasizes the importance of bringing representatives of the community of end users into direct collaboration to identify and understand design problems (Blomberg, et al, 1993).  PD originated in cooperative design and action research in the 1960s and 1970s (Ehn, Nilsson & Topgaard, 2014). PD can advance our understanding of how to design for communities that are deeply diverse by ensuring that our approaches to design are persistently challenged by the perspectives of populations that may, for example, be far outside the curve of what is considered a “typical” community perspective. This is particularly true relative to the needs and interests of members of those communities who have been framed as underserved (Fayard & Van Maanen, 2015; Suchman, 2013). By bringing representative stakeholders to the center of this project’s mission and ways of working, we were able to both produce innovative, responsive new tools and resources for these communities, and shed new light on how interests can evolve to meet the needs of all members.

Agenda