Indigenous Discourse for Peaceful Coexistence: Engaging in Intercultural Polylogue for Tackling Global Challenges

Abstract

Many national and multinational interventions have proven toothless in addressing global challenges such as those defined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This article addresses SDG 16 ‘Peace, justice and strong institutions’ and elaborates on how indigenous knowledge can contribute to fostering this goal. The theoretical framework relates SDG 16 to the concept of interculturality as promoted by liberation theology. This framework is translated into a methodology by pursuing a sociology-ofknowledge approach to discourse (SKAD), thus comprising a focus on power relations and on the social construction of knowledge and realities. This article analyzes indigenous approaches to conflict transformation across all inhabited continents and provides a systematization of these approaches as well as insight into their shared characteristics, resulting in a theoretic discourse on the subject. While this synthesized discourse is inevitably an expression of Western academia, a decolonialization of the very same is called for, particularly regarding development research. This article therefore concludes on a note of how global goals, such as SDG 16, can be fostered through the collaboration of indigenous peoples, NGOs, academia, politics, and the broader public, thus bringing together the different traditions of thought in an intercultural polylogue.