Abstract
This exploratory research investigates how Indigenous Peoples (IPs) reshape International Relations (IR) and challenge established boundaries through an analysis of two Indigenous Climate Funds: the “Shandia Alliance for People, Nature and Climate” and the “Podáali Fund,” both autonomously managed by indigenous communities. By examining their engagements at COP-26 and conducting interviews, this study demonstrates how IPs act as pivotal agents shaping IR through their distinct ontologies and epistemologies. The findings underscore these funds’ role in broadening international perspectives, particularly in navigating tensions and fostering dialogues that redefine climate justice as an ongoing process of resistance. Ultimately, this paper contributes to re-rooting IR frameworks by centering indigenous perspectives and practices, thus exemplifying a “worlding” exercise that enriches our understanding of climate justice in motion.
Introduction
It is urgent and essential to strengthen Indigenous funds and financing mechanisms that correspond to our reality, such as the Brazilian Amazon Indigenous Fund – Podáali. These resources should promote the implementation of Indigenous Peoples’ life plans in addition to socio-environmental policies. Nonetheless, none of these efforts will have an effect until the government demarcates all Indigenous lands, 80% of the Amazon biome is protected, and all stakeholders have committed to ambitious and achievable goals. In this way, it becomes clear that changing the current political and economic system is necessary.
This article investigates Indigenous Peoples’ demands and actions in the climate arena, aiming to contribute to diversifying International Relations as a field of study and to challenge mainstream perspectives of what constitutes (i)International (r)Relations (IR). Indigenous Peoples (IPs) have been claiming direct access to climate financing, an arena dominated by states and private actors, who are moved by an instrumental and expansionist logic. During climate conferences, Indigenous leaders advocate for climate justice and assert their rightful place at the decision-making table as uniquely qualified actors to discuss forest and biodiversity conservation and determine the policies to be implemented in their territories. These hold a significant percentage of the planet’s biodiversity and forests vital for climate stability. They also point out that their ways of life have not contributed to climate change but have been threatened by environmental changes, 2 demanding the recognition of their knowledge and practices in tackling climate change, the rights to their traditional lands, and, ultimately, their existential rights. When Indigenous Peoples engage in discussions concerning climate finance, they challenge some of its underlying assumptions.
On the one hand, financial mechanisms created and run by IPs can be an instrument of climate justice, as indigenous organizations vindicate their place to negotiate climate-forest policies in their territory. On the other hand, they must adapt their initiatives to make them interesting and comprehensive for Western financial actors since different ontologies operate in this relationship. By doing so, palatable terms for international donors are used—forest as “carbon stock” and IPs connection with the forest as “environmental services.”
IPs are in a constant process of navigating worlds and keep creating strategies for that 3 in a context of inequality and an ongoing relationship with the violent colonial world. Herby, worlding IR means being aware of the multiple worlds that exist, opening up to other ways of knowing and being, and having a critical gaze on our own epistemologies, theories and concepts while recognizing the world making power of knowledge. 4 We are interested in exploring what Indigenous Peoples bring to the fore in global climate finance and what that means to International Relations as a field of study. Changing IR in the context of climate change politics means going beyond incorporating new actors, like IPs’ presence in specific spaces or framing them in pre-defined IR categories. This approach begins from IPs’ views, claims, and actions. Studying IPs in climate change politics opens the field to different epistemologies and ontologies. It helps us to face the complexities of our times and the different makings of the world.
By focusing on IPs as actors and acknowledging their agency, interaction strategies, the dialog between worlds (their world and the financier’s world), and recognizing them as knowledge and practices producers, we aim to broaden the “international” of IR. In dialog with efforts that have been “claiming the international” beyond the IR’s mainstream perspectives and have been opening the field for plural and diverse epistemologies and ontologies, 5 we speak from IR, searching to contribute to worlding the study of environmental politics. 6 We claim that IP’s knowledge, experiences, actions, and voices can make valuable contributions to IR beyond their specific contexts.
This exploratory research interrogates how IPs change (i)International (r)Relations (IR) and challenge conventional IR boundaries through the investigation of two Indigenous Climate Funds, selected according to the following criteria: both were established by Indigenous communities, both advocate for direct management by Indigenous people without intermediaries, and both emphasize autonomy in decision-making regarding the types of projects to be supported. We adopt a perspective focused on Indigenous claims, recognizing different ways of living and dealing with forests, carbon, and money. For that, we explore the “Shandia Alliance for People, Nature and Climate,” created by the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities with a global scope, and the Podáali fund, a regional fund developed by the Coordination of the Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon—COIAB. We map the funds’ characteristics and specificities—guiding principles, governance structure, potential partners and financiers, scope, and justifications for autonomy—and their implications.
We used multiple sources for the analysis, including publications from COP-26 and side events associated with the conference, produced by both the conference itself and participating states and organizations. We also gathered information from newspaper articles and organization reports. We attended online sessions of UNFCCC side events and civil society preparatory meetings focused on climate funds and watched interviews with the fund managers. Additionally, an essential aspect of our research involved conducting a personal interview with the Secretary Director of the Podáali fund. 7
This article has three main parts. The theoretical framework discusses worlding IR and the role of Indigenous peoples as actors in the climate arena. The second section focuses on Indigenous Climate Funds, examining their specificities and how they were presented at COP 26. Podáali and Shandia funds then are analyzed to showcase their objectives and governance structure. Finally, the article concludes by discussing how the experiences of Indigenous funds can contribute to worlding IR by addressing knowledge and justice.
Worlding IR: Indigenous Peoples as actors in the climate arena
The existence of many worlds, or many reals, 8 has political, economic, and social implications for (i)International (r)Relations. 9 Worlding IR implies, on one hand, understanding that the field of study (IR) has been enacted on modernity’s dichotomic assumptions (traditional/modern, nature/society, wild/civilized) and an aspiration to universalism that refuses to recognize multiple worlds, assuming instead that there is only one world. 10 An epistemological position that has consequences for international relations (economic, social, and political relations among diverse actors). On the other hand, worlding means acknowledging the existence of many worlds, or many reals, which also has political, economic, and social implications for (i)International (r)Relations. Thus, worlding is a double move of deconstruction—challenging IR’s parochialism and ethnocentrism by demonstrating how supposedly universals are in fact particular, and of reconstruction/constitution—by opening up, engaging with and applying traditions of thought that have not been part of the IR canon. 11
Inspired by feminist IR scholars like Pettman, we consider that worlding goes beyond deconstructions of the field of IR. It involves appreciating multiple knowledge systems, their encounters, and multiple conceptions of nature. Above all, it means taking Indigenous claims and “experiences of the international seriously.” 12 Indigenous knowledges are based on the intrinsic relation between body-territory. By rejecting the division between nature and culture/society, IPs offer a perspective grounded in territorial thinking that emphasizes interconnections and opens new pathways for conceptualizing IR. 13 In light of this, considering Indigenous knowledge systems and their conceptions of nature 14 is a crucial step toward reimagining the study of IR. Although departing from specific contexts, Indigenous knowledges carry a “universal” aspiration (as “sticky engagements” that travel and mobilize different peoples, according to Anna Tsing’s definition 15 ) that has the potential to invigorate, question, enrich, and diversify IR. A universal aspiration differs from a knowledge that claims to be universal in its aim to build bridges and dialog, instead of subjugating other ways of knowing.
IPs are part of the continuum construction of IR: they act, define agendas, offer concepts, meanings and practices from alternative worlds, in a way that “disciplinary ontologies are challenged by the continuous act of Indigenous peoples becoming political Indigenous groups and persons.” 16 According to Tickner and Blaney, 17 although there have been different attempts to acknowledge the presence of diverse worldviews, including IPs, 18 they tend to overlook the existence of multiple realities/worlds, only adding Indigenous peoples to the array of actors within IR, recognizing multiple actors beyond states, and performing an integration effort that departs from mainstream categories instead of embracing ontological plurality and equity between multiple knowledge systems. 19
Therefore, IR tends to reduce ontological conflicts to epistemological disagreements. 20 But as Mauro Almeida 21 indicates, “In ontological conflicts, coalitions and alliances are possible. Let us not be mistaken: these are not merely cultural conflicts, but ontological wars, as what is at stake is the existence of entities in a pragmatic sense” (our translation). Ontological conflicts are struggles for the right to exist, and existence is a diverse experience for different people. The limits to translating multiple worlds into a singular hegemonic reality become quite clear in the encounter of diverse practices rooted in radically different worldviews. 22 Decolonial perspectives challenge the tendency to reduce ontological ruptures and disconcerting moments to mere differences in perception or knowledge. Instead, these perspectives denounce how IPs and their knowledge were turned into objects that were either captured or destroyed. They also emphasize the need to recognize and appreciate the pluriverse, which encompasses the coexistence of diverse and distinct realities, even when incommensurabilities are in play. 23
These alternative systems, these distinct worlds, rarely align harmoniously, and their encounter often entails violence, silencing, co-option, and capture. Nonetheless, despite these challenges, there exist moments of encounter and connections, and through the resistance in coexistence, worlds can co-constitute or influence each other. “In this shared space, the contingency of encounters makes a difference.” 24 Anna Tsing characterizes these encounters as friction, meaning “the awkward, unequal, unstable, and creative qualities of interconnection across difference.” 25 According to Tsing, the lifeways of forest-based peoples should not be seen as passive responses to global trends. On the contrary, they have the agency to actively engage with these trends and translate them into their local realities, aligning them with their specific struggles, and producing global connections. 26
The prevailing economic and political order is a contextual condition that compels resistance. In the encounters between multiple worlds, amidst the resistance against attacks, a diverse set of narratives and alternative paths emerge, embodying a steadfast resistance manifested through dialogues. The challenge lies in acknowledging capitalism and colonialism’s central role while maintaining an open perspective about agency and everyday forms of resistance. 27 In this direction, shifting the geography of reason, 28 Indigenous claims for climate funds on their own terms can represent struggles for justice in distributive terms, as rights to land and resources, procedural justice in the form of equitable participation, the right to have voice and decision-making power, and, above all, recognition of their ways of knowing and being. 29
If IR constitutes practices of worlding, which relations conform to what is the definition of the “international” will become a constant dispute in the field. In these battles, when these alternative worlds become part of IR, ontological, epistemological, and methodological challenges come to the fore. 30 In this sense, worlding is not just recognizing a plurality of agents but being open to “what other worlds make of IR.” 31 One of the challenges in this research is to listen, to make sense, and to learn from Indigenous peoples engaged in struggles and experiments in the climate finance arena without reproducing IR epistemic boundaries but enlarging or breaking them. In this listening exercise, we realized that IPs are particularly engaged in global/planetary climate justice. However, we chose here to consider “climate justice in motion.” This was a path chosen to avoid the attempt of universalizing or to settle an ethical position, which has historically relied on denials, violence, and destruction “for the imposition of common political institutions and the settling of questions of what counts as human moral advance.” 32 Worlding moves us away from a settled sense of justice toward delving into IPs’ proposals for climate funds to infer their own concepts and practices of climate justice and how these have been changing IR and international relations.
Our assumption is that we are in a position of encounter, an attempt at a bi-directional translation exercise in which we put ourselves at risk 33 because it is a move that changes both the content and the terms of conversation in IR. Thus, worlding IR entails embracing frictions, double translations, and resistance that come with new perspectives and practices from IPs in climate arenas. Indigenous knowledge systems are dynamic and adapt to their contexts through responses, reactions, and creativity. By studying these expressions of knowledge and practices, we can gain insights into the global landscape, as IPs play a vital role in co-creating transformative shifts in discussions surrounding climate change, forests, and climate financial mechanisms.
Indigenous climate funds: a claim for a place at the table
Indigenous people’s presence at COPs has increased. At COP-26 in 2021, the Indigenous delegation from the Brazilian Amazon rainforest had 23 Indigenous leaders (16 of them were women), the largest one in the history of climate conferences. 34 During that COP, although there were pledges of $1.7 billion from five governments and 17 private donors to support Indigenous peoples’ land and resource rights 35 from 2021 to 2025, there was a notable absence of IP in the official COP agenda for climate finance. 36 However, in various side events, highly coordinated Indigenous representatives demanded direct climate finance to support their crucial role as “guardians of the forests,” a term constantly used by themselves. The Tarumã Declaration, quoted at the beginning of this text and issued right before COP 26, declares indigenous funds as a means to implement indigenous life plans.
Various international, 37 regional, 38 and local 39 funds exist to support Indigenous communities. However, these funds provide financial assistance for Indigenous community projects and address their specific demands. What IPs demand is a “paradigm shift,” wherein they are not viewed as victims or mere beneficiary parties in need of assistance but rather as equal partners and active agents who can contribute to climate solutions on an equal footing. 40 Why do IPs advocate for specific, direct, and autonomous financial instruments, even though many funds already include Indigenous groups as beneficiaries? The answer, according to Toya Manchineri from COICA, is that “Indigenous peoples must participate in deciding what to do in the territory, and this participation is essential, considering their role in combating climate change.” 41
The Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus Opening Statement for COP-26 claimed direct funding, linked with self-determinations and land rights: “Our expectations for this COP are that: Equitable and long-term climate financing directly to Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations across all seven regions.” 42 The Message from the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) in the same sense, stressed the importance of climate funding to Indigenous people: “Indigenous Peoples and local communities demand to be included in spaces for debate and decision making in order to influence the definition of international policies and agreements.” 43
Below, we further explore Podáali and Shandia (which encompasses the Brazilian Amazon but is not restricted to it). The two cases revealed a distinction: Podáali emerged from a well-developed, organic, and structured debate, characterized by numerous meetings and gatherings over the last 10 years about the fund specifically and more than 20 years of Indigenous Peoples coordination efforts. Consequently, its principles and guidelines are more clearly defined, with a strong emphasis on autonomy. Since a relatively “smaller” organization initiated Podáali, acting in a single country, internal differences are less pronounced. On the other hand, Shandia presents a more ambitious proposition involving organizations from diverse continents with varying demands and goals, resulting in a comparatively less defined overall proposal. In both cases, however, IPs representatives at COPs emphasize the importance of learning from Indigenous Peoples about forest preservation, addressing elements of knowledge and epistemic justice that dialog with IR as a field of study.
The Podáali Fund
The Podáali Fund—Indigenous Fund of the Brazilian Amazon was created by the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB), which gathers 75 member organizations from the 9 states of the Brazilian Legal Amazon. The fund’s name, Podáali, is the name of a ritual celebration in the Baniwa language, in which food and drinks are offered to visitors in a context of reciprocity. The Podáali website translates it as “giving and not expecting anything in return,” which relates to the aim of not attaching retributions and compensations to the donations. 44
The governance structure of Podáali is exclusively composed of Indigenous representatives. 45 The Deliberative Board consists of 11 Indigenous leaders representing 9 states in the Amazon region. Valeria Paye, an indigenous individual from the Tiriyó and Kaxuyana people of Parque do Tumucumaque in the states of Pará and Amapá, currently holds the position of Executive Director of Podáali.
The funds raised are destined for projects presented by Indigenous groups from the Brazilian Amazon and selected by Podáali Deliberative Board. These projects encompass a wide range of areas, including Indigenous territorial and environmental management and protection, sustainable economy and food sovereignty, institutional strengthening and promotion of rights, professional qualification, ancestral medicine, and indigenous health, cultural strengthening and preservation of traditional knowledge, as well as addressing the specific needs of gender, generations, and Indigenous people with disabilities. Furthermore, the fund also places significant emphasis on ensuring the rights and well-being of isolated indigenous peoples. 46
The fund was established in January 2020 during a challenging period marked by significant setbacks in the Brazilian environmental, climate, and indigenous policies, 47 coupled with a drastic increase in deforestation rates in the Amazon. The adverse impacts of discontinuous public policies, lack of federal support to address the COVID-19 pandemic, 48 and limited financial resources available to Indigenous communities served as the driving force behind COIAB’s initiative to realize an idea that had been under discussion for more than a decade: creating a mechanism that guarantees Indigenous populations the autonomy to manage resources without the intermediation of the State.
The pursuit of autonomy also entails a reevaluation of the traditional role of NGOs as the supporters and partners of Indigenous movements. Rose Meire, Financial Director of the Podáali Fund and a member of the Apurinã people from the Purus region in the Brazilian Amazon, stressed: “If the international community values our forests and acknowledges that Indigenous Peoples contribute to humanity by preserving and combating the destruction of our planet, they need to provide more effective support and direct funding through our own mechanisms.” 49
Antonio Enesio Tenharim, Coordinator of the Organization of Indigenous People of Alto Madeira (OPIAM), highlighted in a meeting to present Podaali to Indigenous leaders that “[t]he Indigenous Fund is a demonstration that our people are prepared to manage their own resources.” 50 Angelisson Tenharim, Coordinator of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Tenharim Morogitá (APITEM), echoed this sentiment by stating: “We are shifting the dynamics with our supporters, demonstrating that we also have our own criteria for establishing partnerships. That is true autonomy.” 51
IPs have actively engaged in institutionalizing the fund, focusing not only on the legal aspects but also on capacity building. The donors for Podáali in 2022 include the Wellspring Fund, Pawanka Fund, ICS (Climate and Society Institute), Talmapais Trust, Fundo Casa SocioAmbiental, and the Norwegian Embassy in Brazil. 52
The statutes 53 and reports of Podáali do not explicitly mention any veto on funding sources or project types, such as carbon offset projects. Instead, they emphasize the autonomy of Indigenous communities in making those decisions. Potential donors must fulfill requirements related to the scope and principles of the fund. In this sense, they have already rejected funders. The partners must be there “not for money, but to do good for our people,” according to one of the directors of Podáali Fund (personal interview with a board member on 22 December, 2022).
Furthermore, the fund strives to design a structure that includes diverse communities within the Amazon Forest while avoiding the creation of formal and bureaucratic barriers that might hinder access to the fund. 54 In this sense, there is a concern about streamlining bureaucratic processes with Podáali to prevent project suffocation. There is a “graveyard of Indigenous organizations,” meaning many organizations perish due to their inability to navigate bureaucracy (personal interview with a board member on 22 December, 2022).
Similarly, when discussing the bureaucratic challenge, Valeria Paye (Podáali’s Executive Director) emphasizes that the Indigenous fund is a mechanism and a relationship between IPs and society. 55 It involves resilience, a process in which IPs look inward and visualize paths and do not just react to demands from donors and funders. IPs have rules, ways of thinking, and organizing. The challenge becomes how to relate these ways of thinking and organizing with a financial mechanism alien to them. Paye affirms that it represents an exercise, a construction process, for IP and donors. 56 In this sense, it should be understood as an effort on both sides. That is where the fund fits: Podáali can be that bridge—it is a tool of the Indigenous movement to translate the language of climate finance.
Shandia
Unlike Podáali, Shandia 57 is not a specific fund but a “vision” for climate finance developed by Indigenous peoples. Shandia was created by the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC), which is a political platform of indigenous peoples and local communities from 24 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It is designed to guarantee autonomy over decisions regarding the implementation of financial instruments. Shandia is presented as a global ecosystem of direct community financing to compensate indigenous peoples for their role in preserving ecosystems. It serves as a booster for indigenous funds rather than a standalone fund. The rationale behind its creation aligns with other direct funds presented at COP-26, such as Podáali, in reimagining the financial architecture for Indigenous communities to ensure their voice and equal participation in negotiations.
Shandia was launched at the COP-26 Brazilian Climate Hub event, 58 but its development began in 2019. During the New York Climate Week, GATC organized the panel “Shandia Launch: Community-Based Finance Solutions” to introduce the platform’s vision and mission. Presenters highlighted that Shandia aims to support community-based solutions and existing activities from Indigenous communities, such as fire prevention and firefighting efforts in the Brazilian Amazon. 59 This direct connection to the field is seen as giving Shandia greater legitimacy than other funds, as it stems from the knowledge and experiences of Indigenous communities. The platform aims to reshape the funding process by embracing principles like shared accountability, co-creation, and transformation.
Shandia has progressed beyond the planning phase and is now in its implementation, integrating existing funding sources within the territories. However, no information outlining Shandia’s governance process or management is available. The subsequent phase, consolidation, aims to scale up the platform, involving GATC organizations’ financing instruments and inspiring other Indigenous communities. According to the GATC, Shandia is a pathway or route to other community funding. 60
In terms of scope, Shandia intends to encompass a wider range of projects, including REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and other forms of payment for environmental services and adaptation plans. Additionally, it addresses the recognition of land rights and collective rights, which are integral to its mission. According to Gustavo Sanchez, President of the Mexican Network of Peasant Forestry Organizations, “It is crucial that funds come in with the flexibility to finance activities that support the goal of sustainable forest management and not the idealized goals of someone thousands of miles away.” 61
The support from the Bezos Earth Fund is considered fundamental for enabling Shandia’s implementation, 62 and in 2022, the Christensen Fund also announced five years of support for Shandia’s vision. 63
Shandia, in the same way as Podáali, stresses the importance of donors’ flexibility to finance activities that support communities’ projects and not financers’ projects. IPs’ exclusion from accessing climate funds occurs not only because of the lack of donors to their initiatives but especially because of the institutional requirements and bureaucratic procedures that end up blocking their access to financing. According to Rukka Sombolinggi, secretary-general of the IPs Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), member of GATC: “Indigenous people are being judged by their capacity of writing proposals . . . capacity in providing receipts, the capacity of building this beautiful framework [Shandia]; capacity to speak in the language of colonizers, and that is far from the beautiful intention to bring justice to Indigenous peoples.” 64
Climate funds and “the capacity of speaking the language of the colonizers”
Podáali and Shandia represent a significant call for their inclusion in the decision-making process regarding climate-forest policies. IPs succeeded to connect the discourse on funding with their core objectives: the recognition of territorial rights and the requirement for free prior consent for any project in their territories.
IPs justify the necessity of Podáali and Shandia because while they are the leading players responsible for preserving forests, they receive a smaller share of financial resources to support their initiatives and territories. They claim for climate justice. Beyond ideal conceptions and abstract normative arguments of justice theory, it is necessary to remember that environmental justice claims are, firstly, a grassroots and people-driven movement linked to local contexts. 65 If IPs are changing IR by experimenting, experiencing, and making their own proposals in the climate arena, these two cases allow us to capture climate justice in motion. IPs provide insights into three aspects: money, translation as a diplomatic strategy, and how to live and perceive the “end of the world” (or how to deal with changes). In this sense, Indigenous climate funds offer cracks to appreciate the encounter of worlds in which we find friction (i), double translation, (ii) and resistance (iii).
Money and friction
Initially, our primary concern regarding both funds was the risk of co-option. We questioned whether they might replicate the hegemonic financial dynamics, undermining resistance and succumbing to bureaucratic governance structures and processes. Could these funds merely serve as additional intermediaries? Are Indigenous groups adopting business-management logic? However, we acknowledged through extensive reading and active listening that our binary perspective on Indigenous funds overlooked a crucial element. Rather than unidirectional assimilation, this interaction often leads to cultural and political encounters that may generate friction. 66
The anthropologist Alcida Rita Ramos, reflecting on the fear that Indigenous activists expressed about the assimilation or sold-out of Indigenous groups that decided to negotiate the division of the Indigenous territory proposed by the military during the 1970s in Brazil in exchange for benefits and royalties from mining companies activities in their territories, affirm that this fear is based on an idea of an “ideal indigenous,” or a “hiper-real indigenous”:
Virtuous principles, ideological purity, willingness to die heroically, and other moral feats are nothing more than fantasies of the white. However, it does not seem to occur to many Indigenous activists that by demanding these from the indigenous people, they are, in fact, creating the perfect model of one who does not succumb to pressures.
67
As we are not interested in claiming a “hiper-real indigenous,” it is necessary to interpret Podáali and Shandia through other terms—taking their recognition and agency demands seriously. The proposals neither offer rupture nor continuity with the established capitalist model, escaping the hegemony versus counter-hegemony opposition (which would fit in traditional IR boundaries). Combining Indigenous demands with global agenda topics such as climate finance is a political strategy 68 capable of ensuring recognition and funding the organization of communities.
There is a possibility that Podáali and Shandia can be “coopted.” Yes. Nevertheless, this is our one-world framework. If we think through that lens, we are not listening anymore. By worlding our perspective and avoiding the temptation of building an universal and generalizable approach, we open up to these funds’ experiences: even if they make the effort to speak the language of colonizers 69 (funds, credits, forest as carbon sinks, forest carbon credits, environmental services), even if they comply with the donors’ demands and receive funds, that does not necessarily mean that Indigenous climate funds can be reduced to co-option. Climate funds can express a neoliberal rationality that reduces forests to services and resources, 70 and they can also be a strategy for recognizing Indigenous people’s role in the international debates about how to deal with the climate emergency in their terms.
Shandia and Podáali representatives assert that granting them financial resources is equitable and their rightful place within the COP space, encompassing significant aspects of climate justice. They highlight the inherent challenge of discussing their world, livelihoods, and practices within a financial framework. Regardless, they persevere in their efforts. 71 This perseverance aligns with the resistance evident in this cross-cultural encounter, highlighting the significance of ontological aspects of justice.
Translation as a diplomatic strategy
Podáali and Shandia are an attempt to influence COPs design and outcomes debates on forests as much as possible. In both cases, their diplomatic effort can only be recognized by listening to how they frame, what they claim, and how they compromise. They are making international relations 72 in these encounters while teaching IR how to deal with different worlds.
We understand the funds as lived experiences—narratives of groups of people venturing into ‘foreign territory’, a challenging environment with an unfamiliar language and distinct social norms, to convey something in a manner comprehensible to them (to us, non-Indigenous people). In doing this effort, they pave the way for exploring different worlds and promoting a more inclusive coexistence.
When IPs present Podáali and Shandia and strategically advocate for climate financing at climate conferences, they go beyond simply being recipients of donations. They assert their right to determine how to use and manage the funds, utilizing a system of codes that challenges the colonial relationship between the territory, the forest, and themselves. They challenge the others at the table: do you take us seriously? Would you let us manage your money?
Both financial mechanisms adopt the language of the colonizer, as emphasized by Rukka Sombolinggi. 73 This occurs within a diplomatic strategy that highlights the fundamental difference in how the code system of climate finance conceptualizes forest and territory. 74
Isabel Mesquita, in a study about the political action of COICA in climate negotiations, when proposing the Amazonian Indigenous REDD+ (RIA, in Portuguese), reflected on the powerful strategy of combining the language of climate negotiators with Indigenous peoples interests and goals, and on the challenges faced by these groups in order to use the language and managerial and bureaucratic rationality of the COPs. In this sense, RIA (as stressed by Mesquita), Podáali, and Shandia are translation efforts. They refer to a complex task of mediation between divergent worldviews as a way to be listened to, to make the political discourse effective, and also to introduce ideas and perspectives: “‘Speaking the language of the other’ - not just mastering the language itself but also the concepts and rationale that underlie it - is not only a political tool but also the approach that comes closest to achieving a genuine dialogue enabling mutual understanding among the involved parties”(authors translation). 75
The diplomatic effort involves a new conceptualization of, for example, forests. 76 During COPs, when representatives from Podaali and Shandia spoke about the funds, they consistently emphasized the vital role of preserved forests in their survival. They stressed the importance of securing territorial rights through funding as a fundamental means of safeguarding the integrity of the living forest. In this sense, they avoid the one-narrative shared in COP spaces that framed forests as carbon. Forest, they say, is Earth-Forest.
Direct Indigenous funds like Podáali and Shandia involve an epistemic effort of exchange, when possible, between different worlds, meanings, and ways of thinking about life—it is a challenge IPs face and propose to non-indigenous at climate conferences. It is a concession—in the sense that a financial mechanism can be seen as a perfect symbol of the contemporary global economic system—and at the same time, it is a possibility to bring Indigenous primary agendas—territorial rights and safeguards, free and prior consent—to the negotiation table at COPs. It is a dialog, as stressed by Valeria Paie. 77 This dialog is changing international relations from below. It should also change IR as a field of study, challenging international institutions, like funding mechanisms run by different donors, and challenging concepts like money and climate-related projects on the ground, due to a different body-territory and culture-society relationships.
The end of “the world”—lessons from Indigenous Peoples resistance
In the context of an imminent climate collapse, of such profound transformations in the Earth System that may result in the falling of the sky 78 and in search for new forms of climate governmentality, Indigenous groups create strategies of interaction, of navigating worlds (their world and the financier’s world) that may inform and inspire us about pluralistic forms of governance, as a dialog between Worlds 79 which may open breaches to new social-ecological configurations. After all, as stressed by Ailton Krenak, the apocalyptic anxiety of the Anthropocene is only new to Western perspectives. 80 Present-day Indigenous peoples have survived the end of their worlds and maintain their ways of life and knowledge through forms of resistance that include learning the language of the colonizer, translation, and building possible alliances and partial connections despite ontological conflicts and epistemological agreements. The different worlds in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous people live are not completely isolated from one another. 81 At times, the boundaries are blurred, and the connection points enable dialogs that enhance resistance to the ones whose realities are being erased and provide learning opportunities for those facing imminent climate collapse.
IP claims for recognition of their ability to create and manage funds are (also) a form of resistance. Indigenous funds encompass knowledge, understandings, and practices that transcend the confines of transactional logic inherent in traditional funding models. These solutions are not static but rather call for a dynamic movement. They are not solely focused on immediate carbon-related concerns. They demand the recognition of their knowledge in tackling climate change, the rights to their traditional lands, and ultimately their existential rights, 82 engaging in a long-term battle against the harms and violence resulting from the encounter of different worlds.
Indigenous funds may create an opening to introduce elements from different worlds, encouraging interactions and, at times, conflicts between diverse ways of knowing and living, which we identified that may occur through at least two distinct ways.
Firstly, Indigenous climate finance funds represent IPs agency in different terms—more than being beneficiaries, they present new negotiation conditions that embody IPs worldviews and practices in conflicts and encounters with mainstream concepts of international finance. It is a different seat at the table, even if it does not have the same magnitude in terms of the amount of money.
Secondly, how money is governed has different assumptions based on the friction of worlds and translation efforts. When discussing these funds in the context of COPs, Indigenous representatives present definitions that diverge from those officially endorsed regarding concepts such as forest, preservation, and sustainability. This difference extends the discourse beyond carbon-centric perspectives, injecting nuanced perspectives into the climate debates, such as not focusing solely on the amount of resources, but on how the existing resources are negotiated and implemented more effectively and equitably, and the recognition of other modes of living and being within the current climate crisis. Podáali fund stresses IPs autonomy in project selection, while Shandia aims to influence climate governance architecture through IPs alliances and resource allocation without intermediaries. Criteria definition and prioritization of projects are a reflex of power and agency. These initiatives established their own terms of funding, having a board exclusively formed by indigenous peoples, selecting donors, and designing different forms of finance governance based on their territories and ways of being.
When approaching climate justice through an analytical lens that focuses on resistance, the significance of Indigenous funds transcends their role as mere instruments for accessing financial resources. Instead, they can become powerful tools that encapsulate resistance struggles. These funds provide Indigenous communities with a means to express and defend non-Western notions of justice, nature, and ways of life.
Their strategy at the COPs may also resonate with something that IR as a field has been struggling to assimilate: how to live and to (re)act in the face of a tremendous global challenge—the climate emergency? IR scholars have been struggling with theoretical and political challenges that global environmental changes pose to the field: societies’ rapprochement to wildness 83 and the abdication (or at least denaturalization) of the impetus of controlling the Earth and its physical-chemical-biological processes. These changes challenge us to learn about the malefices and consequences of knowledge founded on human-nature dualism as it transforms nature—or the Earth System, the environment, Gaia—into a “political agent and a moral entity.” 84
For IR, this means that we cannot overlook the Earth System as a political actor both at the local level, within specific territories, and globally, in the complex socio-environmental interconnections between different beings. The Indigenous groups’ strategy of creating Podáali and Shandia tells us about not necessarily “fixing” it with a single, certain, controlled solution. As they are opening themselves at COPs to ontological battles, they are teaching something about dialog and cooperation as forms of resisting, about climate justice as a form of resisting in motion, as well as how to survive the end of the world.
Final remarks
Worlding IR with Indigenous Peoples knowledges and agency presents opportunities to work with conflicts and encounters that challenge IR beyond the dichotomies present in its mainstream scholarship. Our findings contribute to the study of the environment and climate change in IR, situating frictions, translations, and resistance as a form of climate justice in motion.The investigation of two climate funds provides examples of interactions of worlds and opens a breach to creatively introduce diversity and contradictions of the encounter of different worlds. Furthermore, it gives an opportunity to consider the policy implications of these financial mechanisms. The significance of local and contextual cases goes beyond counterbalancing universal discourses and aspirations. Transformative change is driven by actors who resist and challenge structures and systems and by knowledge that disseminates and triggers, giving rise to new dynamics that shape history. Thus, small fissures could open spaces, spread, and activate changes. In our argument, the “universal” claim (or aspiration) involves the building of bridges, connections, efforts of dialog, and recognition. 85 By evoking Indigenous knowledges, voices, and experiences to study IR in times of climate emergency, we are not in search of generalizations or lessons learnt to replicate elsewhere. Nor do we claim that it is either one or other kind of knowledge or practice that will bring the necessary change. By re-rooting our focus toward a people-centric perspective, we aim to contribute to turning IR into a more socially conscious discipline that prioritizes the experiences and perspectives of different worlds. 86
Both cases are at the initial steps of implementation. The funds’ operationalization, the development of projects, and the assessment of impacts and results are yet to be seen. The Podáali Fund emerged from a decade-long grassroots debate with more structured governance and a regional scope. In contrast, the Shandia Vision has a global reach, encompassing indigenous groups of multiple nationalities and funders from diverse origins. However, its governance structure is less clear. The two cases show climate justice in motion through IPs’ claims for a say in the conception of different climate funds through frictions, translations, and resistance, and proposing diverse ways of climate finance governance. Moreover, they offer a fissure for the encounter of worlds. IPs are exerting their agency and resistance in coexistence by dealing with the risks of ontological and epistemic “co-option” when negotiating financial support and autonomy of management.
In this sense, we can learn about frictions and also about IPs ways of, on the one hand, imagining alternative strategies and political practices to deal with the climate crisis and injustices and, on the other, to re-imagine IR. However, it is necessary to acknowledge that IPs resistance unfolds within an asymmetric dynamic, shaped by the prevailing force of racism against IPs. Resisting the violence arising from encountering different worlds requires confronting structural constraints such as capitalism, colonialism, and racism. Following these fund initiatives from a worlding perspective can transcend mainstream IR paradigms and ensue in colorful parachutes for the current climate crisis.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
