From Pictures to Numbers: Vision Mapping and Sustainability Collaboration between Native American Community Members and Mainstream Scientists

Native communities, in managing their health, education, land, and community development, must constantly interact with mainstream government agencies, academic institutions, and other entities. Cultural worldviews influence such interactions, as do memories of the negative historical encounters Native communities have had with non-Native society. To help foster collaboration between mainstream scientists and Native people toward sustainability, a technique of having them cooperatively develop pictorial visions (i.e. Vision Maps) of Native community sustainability was employed. This paper describes the development of a method of analyzing the resulting pictures and the conclusions that were drawn from collaborative sustainability visions.