Session Description
Despite growing recognition of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) as essential to impact assessment, its meaningful integration into formal IA processes remains fraught with challenges. This session, co-led by two practitioners currently working on Indigenous-Led Impact Assessments in Canada, examines the persistent barriers that prevent Indigenous Knowledge systems from being genuinely embedded within impact assessments. Key challenges to be explored include: the mismatch between Western scientific frameworks and place-based, relational, and intergenerational IK systems; successful and misguided attempts of co-created processes; regulatory and institutional timelines that fail to accommodate the time needed for genuine engagement and knowledge-sharing with Indigenous communities; risks of extractive or tokenistic consultation practices that treat IK as supplementary data rather than a legitimate knowledge system in its own right; issues of consent, ownership, and protection of culturally sensitive information; and the capacity gaps—on both practitioner and community sides—that hinder equitable collaboration. We invite contributions that critically reflect on real-world cases —successes, failures, and lessons learned—where Indigenous communities, practitioners, and regulators, have grappled with these tensions. Contributions might address methodological innovations for co-produced assessments, governance models that support Indigenous-led or Indigenous-informed IA, legal and policy reforms enabling deeper integration, or frank accounts of where integration efforts have fallen short and why.
Session Summary
Co-led by two practitioners working on Indigenous-Led IAs in Canada, this session examines barriers to genuinely embedding IK in IA—epistemological mismatches, rigid timelines, false promises, tokenistic consultation, and capacity gaps—and explores what meaningful integration requires as Indigenous-led assessments grow.
Session Chair
Christine Foster
Suslop Inc.
Canada
Session Co-chair
Farrah Ali-Khan
Suslop Inc.
Canada