Galileo Commission Worldviews Study: Provocation Conversation Two – The Kinship Worldview

Tuesday, 29 July 2025
5:00 – 6:30 PM (BST)

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85186367865?pwd=Pz94akLmAc8WiKlSpii75b3DIAlpzz.1

Meeting ID: 85186367865
Passcode: 047688

This session explores the Kinship Worldview as articulated by Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez — a perspective rooted in Indigenous wisdom, ecological interdependence, and relational consciousness. As the Galileo Commission investigates the plurality of worldviews, this dialogue invites us to re-evaluate modern assumptions of separateness, progress, and human exceptionalism.

1. Welcome & Setting the Scene

We have asked Four Arrows and Darcia to introduce us to the Worldview
Chart they explored in their 2022 book, Restoring the Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth. This book is about human worldviews and the levels of consciousness that they create and reflect. It is a topic of utmost importance for the continuation of humanity. “Worldview is a concept ‘whose time has come, ’and its increasing appearance in the contemporary climate change and global sustainability debates can be understood as
both response to, and reflection of, the challenges of our time and the solutions they demand.” Everyone acts according to their own worldview an implicit set of assumptions that guide human behaviour.

The Kinship Worldview Chart is not intended as a rigid binary, but a true dichotomy best viewed as a continuum. It is meant to encourage seeking complementarity and dialogue. The chart assumes that all diverse cultures, religions, and philosophies can be grouped under one of the two worldviews that we explored in year one of the study i.e. the Dualistic/Linear Worldview (DLW) and the Holistic/Non-linear Worldview (HNW).  These are epistemological orientations, or ways of understanding the world. It’s about understanding the human relationship to life, land, and learning.

While they are framed as a dichotomy, the authors emphasize that it’s a continuum—the goal is not to polarize but to foster dialogue, reflection, and complementarity. They stress that the ‘Indigenous Worldview’ does not belong to a race or group of people, but Indigenous cultures who still hold on to their traditional place-based knowledge are the wisdom keepers of this original Nature-based worldview.  All people are indigenous to Earth and have the right and the responsibility to practise and teach the IW precepts. All have the responsibility to support Indigenous sovereignty, dignity, and use of traditional lands.

2. The Kinship Worldview Darcia and Four Arrows (15 mins)
3. Deepening the Conversation – Big Picture Questions – All (30 mins)

• What kind of worldview we need for the future
• How human worldviews are formed
• What local conditions optimise the formation of worldviews
• What local conditions undermine the formation of worldviews
• The current world situation and the worldviews that have created this

The changes that are needed i.e. families and early years development, communities of care, education systems, academic systems, redefining wealth and the nature of success, restoring the connection with nature, intuition and embodiment, ceremony and ritual, interbeing and forms of knowing, humans as part of nature (rather than above it) other species as our kin, trauma healing

4. Question and Answer (20 mins)
5. Closure and thanks (5 mins)

Darcia Narvaez is Professor Emerita of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, and Fellow of the American Psychological Association, American Educational Research Association, Association for Psychological Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Born in Minnesota (USA), she grew up living around the world as a bilingual/bicultural Puerto Rican-German American but calls Earth her home. Her earlier careers include professional musician, business owner, classroom music teacher, classroom Spanish teacher, and seminarian, among other endeavors. She uses an interdisciplinary approach to studying evolved morality, child development and human flourishing. Her most recent books include Restoring the Kinship Worldview, and The Evolved Nest: Nature’s Way of Raising Children and Creating Connected Communities. Her book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom won the 2015 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association and the 2017 Expanded Reason Award. Her recent short films are Breaking the Cycle, The Evolved Nest, and Reimagining Humanity. She hosts the webpage EvolvedNest.org and serves as president of KindredWorld.org.

Four Arrows (Wahinkpe Topa) aka Dr. Don Trent Jacobs is faculty in the School of Leadership Studies at Fielding Graduate University. Formerly Dean of Education at Oglala Lakota College and tenured Associate Professor at Northern Arizona University, he has authored 24 books relating to wellness, critical theory, education and Indigenous worldview. His many publications have been praised by many notable thinkers, including John Pilger, Greg Cajete, Noam Chomsky, Thom Hartman, Henry Giroux, Sam Keen, Bruce Lipton, Dan Millman, Vine Deloris, Jr., Tyson Yunkaporta, and many others. AERO elected him as one of 27 visionaries for their text, Turning Points, and he is recipient of a number of recognitions for his activism, including the Martin-SPringer Institute’s Moral Courage Award. He is currently involved in helping create the first No Take Zone Marine Park on the Costalegre in Mexico. Four Arrow was first alternate for the 1996 Olympic Equestrian Endurance Team and placed 4th in the World Championship Old Time Piano Contest. He enjoys a number of ocean sports at his homes in Jalisco, Mexico and British Columbia, Canada with his artist wife. His most recent books include Sitting Bull’s Words for a World in Crises (2021, DIO) and Restoring our Kinship Worldview (April, 2022, NAB/Penguin/Random House).