Notions of crisis and chaos have become the rationale for a new discourse in which empire is the logical outcome of a world no longer secure. One level at which this is manifested is in the rejection by the USA of international agreements to which it is signatory, in the demonstrated failure of the Bretton Woods system to meet its declared objectives, and in the increasingly broad and globalized resistance to globalization. Another is in the attacks on particular forms of knowledge and academic freedom by strong neoconservative elements which seek the reconstruction of societies within a particular cultural and ideological framework. In this context, the construction of pedagogies which articulate a different vision for global order has become a contested and critical task. This article argues two things: first, that the study of culture and ethnicity is vitally important in developing pedagogies for better ways of being in the world, and second, that indigenous cultural knowledge is profoundly relevant to this endeavour. (Contains 57 notes.)