Tales of river and ice: Indigenous art and water justice in the Arctic and the Amazon

Abstract

Indigenous water knowledge recognizes water as living, and that the relationship between people and water is one of reciprocity. Yet, Indigenous Peoples continue to struggle for water justice due to centuries long and ongoing colonial legacies that have intergenerational effects on self-determination, culture, and wellbeing. Using a narrative review, this paper explores how published research has used art and arts-based approaches to explore dimensions of water injustice, wellbeing and mental health with Indigenous communities living in the Arctic and Amazon regions. Within the three central themes of the review (wellbeing, water justice, and arts-based research approaches), the most discussed emergent themes were: relationship to place, kinship, the lived experience of water, ongoing changes to water, and storytelling and art as instruments of resistance and to make visible what is not visible. The paper discusses those themes from the literature, and possible areas of future research. The findings underscore the importance of including diverse voices, worldviews and knowledges in water governance, and the potential for arts-based approaches to facilitate intercultural and intergenerational efforts to address water injustice and advance Indigenous Peoples’ rights to self-determination.

Keywords

• arts-based methods
• water sovereignty
• freshwater
• climate change
• reconciliation
• storytelling