Aspiring Indigenous 'wise women' become UNESCO chairs to promote traditional knowledge

Two Indigenous women from opposite sides of the globe are partnering together with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to protect Indigenous knowledge and move toward matriarchal values to achieve that goal.

Scholars Amy Parent and Sonajharia Minz will spend the next four years as the first UNESCO co-chairs in Transforming Indigenous Knowledge Research Governance and Rematriation. 

"I want to work with as many strong Indigenous women as possible," said Parent of her partnership with Minz. 

Parent, who is Nisga'a and her traditional name is Noxs Ts'aawit, said their plan is to focus on policy changes that allow Indigenous people to decide how research is conducted, what knowledge is shared, what language is used and who is involved in the process. 

Those priorities of respecting Indigenous knowledge and sovereignty also connect to rematriation: the process of returning stolen items while respecting matriarchal values. 

While Parent led the way in applying for the position with UNESCO, she approached Minz early on in the process thanks to elder and scholar Lorna Williams who put the two in touch. 

Minz, a member of the Oroan Tribe which is one of over 700 Adivasi (Aboriginal peoples) from India, said it was an "utter privilege" to have Williams recommend her to Parent. 

"First I was surprised, and second I was delighted," Minz said of being approached by Parent to apply for the position. 

"I not only consider it as a responsibility, but I consider it as a justice journey for four years."

As a mathematician, computer scientist and traditional language speaker, Minz said she hopes to use some of her time as co-chair to build an archival system to provide opportunities for Indigenous people to access information — especially their own languages. 

"I think Indigenous people worldwide have had a common experience. India or Canada or New Zealand, no exceptions. Everywhere it has been the same," she said.

Digital platforms for Indigenous languages could help preserve cultures, Minz said, but only if Indigenous data sovereignty is respected.

She said in the past, colonizers reaped the benefits of natural resources and land that were stolen while Indigenous peoples did not. Today, she added, Indigenous people face the same effects of colonization with technology — particularly when it comes to language.

Part of her work with Parent will focus on ensuring Indigenous people remain beneficiaries of their own knowledge, especially as it's used more and more often in the fight against climate change, she said. 

'Storming the British Museum' 

Parent, who is an associate professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., and also Canada research chair in Indigenous education and governance, was part of the group that travelled to get a totem pole returned to Nisga'a territory from a Scottish museum in 2022. 

She said through that process she learned a lot about how museums and Indigenous people approach rematriation differently. 

Internationally, there's "no clear cut policy for the return of cultural belongings taken during times of genocide or colonial theft," according to Parent. 

She and Minz hope to change that. 

Parent said working within the UNESCO network has its advantages.

"It is a really beautiful experience to be able to work with such a diverse group of people, but also to have such a strong communication network ready to support the work that we're doing," she said. 

"There's over 200 million tribal peoples in India and I'm thinking with those numbers and our experience of kicking down the door in Scotland, that we're going to have no problem storming the British Museum."

While Minz and Parent come from different cultures, they share views about the importance of uplifting matriarchal values and practices. 

In some Advasi communities, women who uphold traditional knowledge and pass it on to future generations are called wise women, Minz said. She said she hopes to inspire more women to undertake this work. 

"I like to dream that the work that gets started… and that the knowledge systems and the self-determination gets louder. Maybe there'll be more UNESCO chairs," Minz said. 

"We might, like Lorna Williams, become those wise women."