Introduction: toward more inclusive definitions of sustainability

This article identifies core dimensions in the notion of “sustainability” as it is conceptualized among Indigenous peoples. These are context-based relationality, community-based governance, education, language, quality of life and health, and communal recognition of certain nonhumans as life-givers. Taking into account different Indigenous cultural and socio-philosophical experiences and their process of sociality with different life forms, it has become clear that these are little spelt out in the previous sustainability definitions. Thus, understanding how local interconnections are sustained and reproduced, both for humans and nonhumans, should inform policy mechanisms as well as new forms of evidence. We want to point out that the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cannot and should not be taken as universal due to conceptual and moral differences among different communities and peoples.