
Earthy Governance and Interspecies Justice
For many Indigenous and other nature dependent peoples, the notion of community and the sense of ethical responsibility is not limited to humans but includes the Earth-’others’ who form part of their kin (across space and time). In this context, they have long established practices and protocols for earthy governance, where decision making is not restricted to the humans alone but includes and is rooted in deep relations of kinships and communication with Earth others. Critically, these systems of earthy governance do not ‘stand alone’, but are rooted in the struggle for self-determination, asserting that people living in their regions must have the autonomy to decide what happens to their lands and territories. Autonomy is at the heart of most community political mobilisations as it is both practice and theory of inter-existence and inter-beingness of living in land especially because of the history of violence perpetrated on these territories and their people. Along with the invisibilisation of these relations and the undervaluing of the associated knowledges.
In recent years, as the climate crisis and ecological unraveling intensify, there has been a surge of interest in earthy governance, amongst researchers, activists and community based organizations in the west, as part of a larger shift from more traditional approaches to environmental protection and animal ethics to multispecies justice. Recognising how current crises, including not only ecological, but also health and political crises, are rooted in forms of life and institutions that perpetuate human exceptionalism and enable (if not require) extractivism, they are seeking to transform dominant institutions, including those that shape decision making.
In exploring what earthy governance might look like, these researchers, activists and community organizations have often acknowledged the longstanding practices of Indigenous peoples, and recognised the importance of learning from them in non-appropriative ways. To date, however, there has been relatively little by way of rich and sustained encounters between Indigenous and nature dependent peoples and their knowledges, and those exploring and seeking to advocate for institutional transformation in western contexts.





































