Vol. 19 No. 2 (2020)

Fourth World peoples occupy a unique role in the human family. The more than 5000 nations, ranging in population size from a few families to more than 25 million people, demonstrate their immense cultural diversity on virtually every continent. While corporate societies (organized to demand unrestrained development in socially complex states) become more standardized, Fourth World peoples continue, as they have for thousands of years, to diversify and evolve cultural ways influenced by their social, economic, and ecological environments. Fourth World nations, no matter the size, tend to be egalitarian and operate on consensus. Do some nations adjust to corporate society and adopt some patterns of corporate society conduct? Yes, they do. Such social patterns are often disruptive of Fourth World societies. Such disruption of cultural continuity can and does break up a nation and cause it to disappear.

Resilience is a term frequently used to describe Fourth World societies that have been disrupted by corporate societal forces that recover their former way of existing—demonstrating human flexibility to adjust and restore. What is it about these societies, born from ancient beginnings, that permit them to recover and continue cultural evolution? The answer is self-evident. The culture, the relationship between the people, the land, and the Cosmos provides the means for restoration and continuity. Organic and dynamic relationships between people for social wellbeing engage the physical environment to support life, balancing need versus the capacity of the earth to restore. The Cosmos is the source of wonder that actualizes and affirms human and environmental relationships. In this issue of Fourth World Journal, our contributors elevate our awareness and understanding as a result of careful research and compelling narratives. In this volume of the Fourth World Journal, our contributors give narrative reinforcement to the resilience of Fourth World peoples. We are pleased to have such contributors doing work in Kashmir (Gilgit-Baltistan) between Pakistan, China, and India; and studies from Nigeria, the Philippines, and a comparison study between the United States and the Israelis and Palestinians.