In this Futures4Europe Conversations episode, Nahima Dávalos-Vázquez reflects on her work with Indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Mexico, and on what their collective practices can teach us about futures thinking. Drawing on examples such as Tequio, community assemblies, councils of elders, and collective care for land and natural resources, the conversation explores how many communities engage in anticipation and decision-making without necessarily calling it “foresight.” Rather than treating Indigenous knowledge as something to preserve from the outside, the discussion asks what can be learned from these living practices of collective organisation, responsibility, and intergenerational thinking.
The interview also opens a broader reflection on time, knowledge, and imagination. It touches on non-linear understandings of past, present, and future; the role of ancestors, dreams, and spiritual knowledge; and the Latin American notion of sentipensar — thinking-feeling — as a way to resist the separation between reason, emotion, body, land, and experience.
