BCB Sand Talk

Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social

For readers of Sapiens, a paradigm-shifting book which brings a crucial Indigenous perspective to history, education, money, power, and sustainability—and offers a new template for living.

“Sand Talk unpacks for us something originally genius about Indigenous thought, which has for too long been dismissed as archaic folk knowledge from old oral cultures of interest only to academics and fetishists. This book shows how vital and alive and essential Indigenous ways of being and thinking are. Yunkaporta is so smart, funny, and accessible. Everyone needs to read this.”—Tommy Orange, bestselling author of There There

With the world in constant crisis—from environmental damage to corrupt leaders to human rights violations—it can be hard to imagine a way forward, a system of thinking that can pull us back from the brink of catastrophe and into a sustainable future.

In Sand Talk, Aboriginal scholar and artist Tyson Yunkaporta shows us what can be gained by viewing global systems through the lens of Indigenous Knowledge. By emphasizing community and connection over individualism and fragmentation—and by cultivating respect for the land—we can address the urgent challenges we face. Touching on everything from cooking to Schrödinger’s cat to sex, Yunkaporta offers a new (and ancient) paradigm to reimagine our relationship to sustainability, money, power, and education.

Each chapter is based on oral cultural exchanges with people from diverse cultures and communities, including a Tasmanian Indigenous thinker, a Worimi artist, and the deputy principal of a remote Aboriginal community school. To think through these yarns, Yunkaporta uses sand talk, honoring an Aboriginal custom of drawing images on the ground to convey knowledge and, ultimately, help us better understand the world.

Sand Talk is a dynamic, engaging look at how we can use Indigenous thinking to confront the problems that plague us and return to the pattern of creation.