Since 2018 a collective of actors from diverse backgrounds has set out to investigate the rich biodiversity of Northeast India through new forms and methodologies of knowing and un-knowing, of learning and un-learning. Being with the location as a space of interactions and of connections with communities, together with the awareness of coexistence with the spirit and the natural world are at the core of our explorations.
Ethical and compassionate methodologies of cognition, affect, understanding, collaboration and exchange are at the roots of our interactions.
Over time, our aim was to curate not only a new narrative for Northeast India but overall for an alternative way of interaction between human, culture and nature. Accordingly, the geographical framing of Northeast India is understood beyond the political boundaries, but of an ecoregional and bioregional framing.
Our collective search and engagement is guided by individual trajectories of the involved actors in its multiplicities. The acknowledgment of individual contexts and stories forms a collaborative interconnection of mutual experience, trust and likewise resistance of individual and collectively felt forms of oppression and silencing of alternative ways of inter-being.
It exists as a flowing process that evolves in organic and authentic ways, in an attempt of following flowing circularities of nature, and inspired by seasonalities of local and lived livelihood and agricultural practices.
It engages with the local expressions of decoloniality, exploring the various sources and methods of decolonizing processes. Inspired by the mighty Brahmaputra river, the process creates and re-creates the space for merging individual thoughts, ideas and expressions into flows involving all senses, collecting deposits and shaping sediments and bringing about related histories, mythologies and memories.
About three years ago, I was invited to participate in a stimulating conversation on India's 'northeast'—a frontier region renowned for its abundant minerals, forests, wildlife, and biodiversity. This area is home to hundreds of tribal communities, each possessing its own distinct identity, culture, language, farming system, and oral tradition. These pluricultural attributes render the region exotic, mysterious, and often incomprehensible.
The dialogue, styled as ‘Northeast Workspace,’ was initiated by the New Delhi-based Heinrich Böll Stiftung, a German Green think tank. This initiative brought together a diverse group of individuals from various disciplines and backgrounds, including journalists, writers, cultural activists, artists, and academics. Most participants hailed from the northeast, while a few others shared a fascination for this richly diverse bio-cultural region.
This platform provided a rare opportunity to travel, meet, and engage in discussions, exchanging views and ideas, and reflecting together on addressing the myriad issues and concerns people in the region face. In the broader context, we also pondered how to respond to the looming climate crisis and the impact of human economic activities on the natural world. Additionally, we acknowledged the growing disillusionment among people worldwide with the modern developmental model and hedonistic lifestyle, which perpetuate a culture of pervasive consumerism.
After a series of meetings and discussions at various locations—Kaziranga, Guwahati, Majuli, Manas, and Haflong—we transitioned into the next phase, which we called the ‘deSchool process.’ This approach involved viewing the 'Northeast' and the world through a different lens or alternative perspective, rather than relying solely on the techno-scientific approaches promoted by modern institutional thinking and learning processes, which often mimic Western models.
The Northeast offers a bouquet of ecological knowledge, ideas, institutions, and practices developed and nurtured by numerous traditional communities for centuries. These communities have adopted lifestyles and livelihoods that are sustainable within the limits of their ecological resources. They live almost independent of the modern economic system. How do such communities manage to sustain their lives and thrive for generations amidst a monetized economy? What are the community concepts of life, living, and the natural world surrounding them?
To explore these questions, we immersed ourselves into the community life in a village, interacting with families, listening to their stories, and understanding their ways of learning. This immersion provided insights into how these communities sustain their unique ecological knowledge and practices, maintaining a balance with nature that is often lost in modern, consumer-driven societies.
Through this process, we aimed to highlight the importance of alternative perspectives and indigenous knowledge systems, advocating for a more sustainable and ecologically balanced approach to development.