Indigenous and decolonial approaches to environmental learning

Abstract

The 2025 Special Issue of AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples—“Living a Life that Feels Just Right”: Indigenous and Decolonial Approaches to Environmental (Re)learning for Planetary Care in a Time of Climate Uncertainty, envisioned by guest editors Elizabeth Sumida Huaman and Sharon Stein, goes beyond merely describing ecological precarity in different places around the world. It brings together diverse learning interventions, many of which unfold outside of formal classrooms, that explore how people are talking about, researching, and teaching approaches to environmental engagement that seek to mend the separation between humans and the rest of nature. The Guest Editors share their motivations for assembling the special issue, observe major tensions in decolonial climate education work, and provide an overview of the contributions. We present key questions we are asking ourselves and key challenges we are observing, and we invite readers to consider these in their own learning contexts.