Mission
Indigenous Ark Urban Technologies, a California 501(c)(3), aims to empower indigenous peoples to protect planet Earth. As part of this mission we endeavor to harmonize the ways of being of indigenous peoples with recent urban technologies in order to face more effectively the ramifications of climate change for both urban and rural populations by facilitating a transition towards practices that restore and protect our planet. We are comprised of professionals in the fields of artificial intelligence, civil rights, education, and investment regulation with an execution team spanning decades of field experience with indigenous peoples. We are by internal mandate majority women and represent a broad spectrum of the global demographic.
Vision
“Indigeneity assumes a spiritual interconnectedness between all creations, their right to exist and the value of their contributions to the larger whole. At the core of Indigenous thinking is that coexistence relies on the ability of all peoples’ and living things’ voices be heard and heard equally.”
– LaDonna Harris, Founder and President of Americans for Indian Opportunity
Indigenous Ark Urban Technologies envisions a world in harmony. To this end, IAUT advocates for a transcendence of paradigm driven by re-indigenization. We strive to (1) elevate indigenous voices to center stewardship of land use, water, environment, climate change, transportation, housing, and investment upon indigenous principles; (2) to ensure that indigenous stewardship benefits communities through accountability of programs, processes, and policies and (3) to re-orient and innovate technology based on indigenous-wisdom.
Our strategy is to co-power indigenous leadership to fundamentally transform the paradigm by which decision making occurs. Co-powerment is equitable decision-making as shared by residents, communities, partners, and other stakeholders so as to work together by leveraging expertise to develop shared solutions and create change.
Values
Indigenous Ark Urban Technologies strives to operate in line with indigenist cultural values used by Indigenous leaders such as LaDonna Harris.
In brief, these values include (A) relationships, (B) relational accountability, (C) reciprocity, and (D) redistribution.
Relationships
We are all related in the most profound sense – not only as humans, but to all things, including the Land.
In being true relatives to one another, it is important to normalize positions of dominance (e.g. share power). There is no “one expert” in a field. Multiplicity of perspectives is valued including lived experience, service experience, and representation/representative experience. We honor the community’s expertise by acknowledging it.
Relational Accountability
As relatives, we have a responsibility to care for one another. We do this by lifting up the voices of relatives who may not normally be heard, and we do this by showing up for one another (“proxy”). This advocacy includes reporting and publishing as part of relational accountability. We want to be accountable to communities in sharing what we learn, by representing communities in the most effective way possible, and in working together to plan.
Reciprocity
Reciprocity may be seen as the practice of sharing or exchanging for mutual benefit. From this perspective, we find that this practice runs deep in our communities. E.g. we use medicines from the land and we give back with a prayer and an offering; if our families are somehow honored by the community, we often have a practice of giving back by way of gifts, food, et al.
Redistribution
“Our reciprocal relationships and responsibilities guides us to share our resources and help us to maintain balance” (Americans for Indian Opportunity, www.aio.org). We find it important to share our resources and include the community.
We aim to call attention to the needs of our community with the understanding that we wish to have more dedicated resources for counting our community, housing our community, and having culturally centered processes and people serving our community.
Source: https://lanaic.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/LANAIC-Mar-2019-Rpt._2-1.pdf (page 4)
Programs & Projects (under construction)
- Indigenous Essential Needs & Climate Migration
- Food Justice: Innovate urban agricultural structures that eliminate food apartheid, universalize food access, and close disparities in nourishment. Currently our organization is working with an agrotechnology start-up to develop a residentially integrated, vertical aquaponics system that can be scaled at the community and municipal level in low-resource communities.
- Housing Justice: Guarantee environmentally regenerative and sustainable housing as a human right to prepare for urbanization as a result of climate displacement through education regarding construction design technologies and their codification.
- Indigenous Urban Planning: Indigenous Ark Urban Technologies currently serves on the Los Angeles City’s Westside Community Plans Advisory Group.
- Urban Nature Connection: establishing urban access to connecting with nature as a human right by providing intercultural and cross-disciplinary forums to facilitate the integration of building, institutional, and community design.
- Urban Indigenous Cultural Districts: Community Identity-based Visibility for Resilience and Equity
- Indigenous-Principles-Based Specific Plans: Specific Solutions for Specific Needs
- Essential-Needs-Based Placemaking