‘Like children doing a rain dance’: Indigenous knowledge, sovereignty and the politics of geoengineering

In response to proposals to test geoengineering technology over their land, the Saami council called on Harvard University to shut down the project involved (the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment or ScoPEx), writing that: “as representatives of Indigenous Peoples, we do not approve legitimizing development towards solar geoengineering technology, nor for it to be conducted in or above our lands, territories and skies, nor in any ecosystems anywhere.” This paper examines the conflicting scientific and indigenous epistemologies and associated conceptions of governance and sovereignty that are illustrated in such conflicts. It briefly elaborates the history of the ScoPEx proposal and sets it in the context of the role of scientific knowledge in climate and geoengineering debate. It then draws on indigenous expertise and scholarship, particularly that of Tyson Yunkaporta and Kyle Whyte, to work through a series of questions about how such knowledge generation activities might be appropriately evaluated, interrogated and decided upon with due respect for indigenous sovereignty, understood not only as territorial sovereignty but also as epistemic sovereignty. In doing so it contrasts these with the processes used to govern research, development and deployment of potentially risky technologies in sovereign nation states and multilateral institutions, noting parallels with challenges to such securitised governance raised by plurinationalism, deliberative participation processes and feminist ethics of care, amongst others. In conclusion it suggests that in engaging with technologies designed to directly manipulate environments and earth systems at a planetary scale, humanity will face a far-reaching clash of sovereignties. Learning from indigenous epistemologies may help us to resolve that clash in line with justice and sustainability.