Made Selly Dwi Suryanti, M. Zaenul Muttaqin, Melpayanty Sinaga, Claudia Conchita Renyoet
This article analyzes Indigenous peoples’ negotiations in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals through a comparative study of the Malaumkarta communities in Indonesia and the Bonda communities in India. Integrating Gramsci and Spivak’s subaltern theories with Escobar’s political ecology, this study identifies five dimensions of negotiation: everyday resistance, strategic adaptation, lawfare, maintenance of traditional practices, and multi-scale negotiation. Malaumkarta adopts formal engagement through the Sasi system and the Customary Council, while Bonda employs strategic isolation through traditional millet farming. The findings demonstrate that Indigenous peoples’ environmental struggles are ontological struggles that articulate the pluriversity of knowledge, challenging the hegemony of modern development discourse. This article calls for decolonizing the Sustainable Development Goals toward a platform that recognizes Indigenous knowledge as an equal epistemology. © The Author(s) 2026
Balinese Tribe, Cenderawasih University, Indonesia; Balinese Tribe, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia; Cenderawasih University, Indonesia; Makassar State University, Sasak Tribe, Indonesia; Cenderawasih University, Indonesia; Cenderawasih University, Indonesia
