Sand Talk

Sand Talk

Tyson Yunkaporta

Pub: May 5, 2020

Harper One

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With the world in constant crisis—from environmental damage to corrupt leaders to human rights violations—it can be hard to imagine a way forward, a system of thinking that can pull us back from the brink of catastrophe and into a sustainable future. In Sand Talk, Aboriginal scholar and artist Tyson Yunkaporta shows us what can be gained by viewing global systems through the lens of Indigenous Knowledge. Touching on everything from cooking to Schrodinger’s cat to sex, he offers a new (and ancient) paradigm to reimagine our relationship to sustainability, money, power, and education. Each chapter is based on oral cultural exchanges with people from diverse cultures and communities, including a Tasmanian Indigenous thinker, a Worimi artist, and the deputy principal of a remote Aboriginal community school. To think through these yarns, Yunkaporta uses sand talk, honoring an Aboriginal custom of drawing images on the ground to convey knowledge and, ultimately, help us better understand the world. Sand Talk is a dynamic, engaging look at how we can use Indigenous thinking to confront the problems that plague us and return to the pattern of creation.