DEWI Project
Dewesternized Worldview Simulator
(beta test version 1.2)
Dewesternized Worldview Simulator
(beta test version 1.2)
Click here to use the Dewesternized Thinking Simulator aka Project DEWI (built on ChatGPT). Your chat sessions will not be stored in the Project DEWI server.
A Practical Guide for Instructors
Project DEWI (De-Westernized Worldview Simulator) is an AI-assisted learning tool designed to help teachers and students explore Indigenous and relational ways of knowing alongside dominant Western frameworks. Unlike conventional AI tools that often default to Western logic and individualist reasoning, DEWI intentionally surfaces alternative epistemic perspectives grounded in Indigenous worldviews, relational ethics, and intergenerational responsibility.
For IPED (Indigenous Peoples Education) instructors, DEWI functions not as a content authority, but as a pedagogical scaffold—supporting reflection, dialogue, and experiential engagement with Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKSPs). Its design aligns with the principles of contextualization, respect for community knowledge, and learner reflexivity emphasized in IPED frameworks .
Project DEWI supports IPED goals in three key ways:
Epistemic Decentering
DEWI helps students recognize that Western academic knowledge is not universal. By presenting multiple relational perspectives, it encourages learners to critically examine whose knowledge is centered and whose is marginalized.
Experiential Reflection
Instead of merely reading about Indigenous concepts, students interact with simulated worldviews that emphasize relationality, stewardship, kinship, and cyclical time, mirroring how Indigenous knowledge is lived rather than abstracted.
Safe Entry Point for Dialogue
DEWI allows students, including non-Indigenous learners, to encounter Indigenous perspectives without asking communities to repeatedly explain, justify, or translate their knowledge.
1. Pre-Lesson Framing
Before using DEWI, explain to students that:
The tool does not replace elders, community knowledge holders, or lived experience.
Its purpose is reflection, not validation or extraction of Indigenous knowledge.
Outputs should be discussed critically, not accepted as “answers.”
2. Guided Prompting
Ask students to input culturally grounded questions such as:
“How should a community respond to environmental degradation?”
“What does leadership mean in times of ecological crisis?”
“How should knowledge be passed across generations?”
Encourage students to compare DEWI’s responses with textbook explanations and community narratives.
3. Reflective Activities
After interaction, assign reflective outputs:
Learning journals comparing Western and Indigenous framings
Group discussions on relational vs. individual responsibility
Mapping exercises linking DEWI insights to local IKSPs
4. Community Anchoring
Where possible, connect DEWI-based insights to:
Elders’ talks
Community immersion
Local case studies
This reinforces that DEWI is a bridge, not a substitute, for Indigenous knowledge holders.
Do not treat DEWI outputs as Indigenous authority.
Avoid decontextualized use without grounding in local culture.
Prioritize respect, consent, and reflexivity in all learning activities.
Project DEWI was designed by configuring an AI system using de-Westernized cognitive principles, Indigenous relational ontologies, and epistemic depth theory. Key source materials were deliberately embedded into the system, including the full script of Whale Rider (used to model Māori relational reasoning, whakapapa, mana, and kaitiakitanga) and the epistemic depth framework developed by Laukkonen and Chandaria (2023), which explains how worldviews operate as layered cognitive priors. These materials were combined with structured system instructions that prompt the AI to reinterpret user questions through multiple Whalerider-based perspectives, supporting reflection, pluralism, and experiential learning rather than authoritative knowledge delivery
Project DEWI is available online at:
www.ili.asianschoolofgovernance.com/projects/DEWI-project