For many in the corporate sector, the concept of the ‘triple bottom line’ (profit, people, planet), introduced by John Elkington in 1994 (Walters & Takamura, 2015), is the standard in sustainability discourse. Indigenous innovation ideology challenges and decolonizes the triple bottom line, and suggests a fourth ‘bottom line’ approach that is based in cultural and spiritual aspects of sustainable enterprise: community, spirituality, sustainability, and entrepreneurship, with a subset based largely on Indigenous perspectives of cultural, social, economic, and environmental themes (Walters & Takamura, 2015) that provide potential for future creation of sustainable Indigenous economic development.
Within the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action [TRC], a mandate has been put forth that directly engages the corporate sector in Canada; Section 92 (ii) recommends that businesses, “ensure that Aboriginal peoples have equitable access to jobs, training, and education opportunities in the corporate sector, and that Aboriginal communities gain long-term sustainable benefits from economic development projects” (TRC, 2015, p. 10). Reconciliation is a direct challenge for adult education practitioners engaging in organizational (workplace) learning.
What role does Indigenous innovation and sustainable Indigenous economic development have on my professional practice?
References
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada [TRC], (2015). Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to action. Winnipeg, MB: Author.
Walters, F., and Takamura, J. (2015). The decolonized quadruple bottom line: A framework for developing Indigenous innovation. Wicazo Sa Review, 30(2), 77-99.
Cindy I like your observation that the TRC poses a “direct challenge” to learning in the workplace. I think it is interesting to work at the level of workplace cultures for a couple of reasons. First, bringing community explicitly into play invites a *lot* of rethinking about the nature of community for everyone — not just Indigenous people (I have the same thoughts about Indigenous pedagogies). Second, I am skeptical of equity policies. They are well intentioned, but seem to simply bolt on to an education and training system that has never worked well for Indigenous people.