Cavendish Space is grounded in disabled and neurodivergent lived experience, but it resonates with broader relational ways of knowing — including insights articulated by Indigenous thinkers such as Tyson Yunkaporta. These traditions emphasize that space is not neutral: environments are alive with relationship, responsibility, story, and power.
When we speak of caves, campfires, and watering holes, we are not naming an Indigenous framework or claiming origin. We are using a simple pattern language to describe timeless human modes of refuge, learning, and gathering — and to reject industrial, compliance-based designs that erase context and difference.
Indigenous cultures are not an aesthetic or a metaphor bank. Tyson Yunkaporta’s work isn’t a “cool framework” to borrow. The influence is about orientation: learning from relational ways of knowing, resisting colonial compliance systems, and designing spaces that honor place, kinship, and responsibility.
Indigenous relational thinking and Tyson Yunkaporta’s work influence Cavendish Space by reinforcing that space is alive with relationship, pattern, and responsibility — and that humane environments emerge through interdependence, not compliance.
Our influence here is ethical and directional: toward place-conscious, interdependent, non-carceral space-making. We offer this with respect, specificity, and care — and without appropriation.
Note on Origins and Influence
The Campfire is, for many cultures, home to storytelling—a place where people gather to hear stories told by others. Many of these stories evolved into myths that were used to explain the complexities of existence. One (of many) incredibly rich examples of this kind of story can be found in the legends of the Northwest Indian cultures in North America. Many stories in this tradition involved the escapades of Raven—a trickster—whose adventures explained the origin of day and night cycles and many other things. One fine example of this kind of story can be found in Raven stories told by Pacific Northwest Indians.1 These stories were the primary method that knowledge of the universe was shared with youngsters. The use of primordial archetypes (trickster, etc.) made them particularly engaging. This engagement was essential in preliterate societies because oral tradition was the only way to pass stories from one generation to another and it was important that the stories be remembered.
Thornburg, David. From the Campfire to the Holodeck: Creating Engaging and Powerful 21st Century Learning Environments (pp. 33-34).
We first encountered the language of caves, campfires, and watering holes through educational designer David Thornburg. Thornburg describes “campfires” as spaces of storytelling and shared meaning, and he notes that his conception was inspired in part by Indigenous storytelling traditions of the Pacific Northwest, including Raven stories.
We want to be explicit: these are not our stories to claim, and this pattern language is not an Indigenous framework we are presenting as such. We use caves, campfires, and watering holes as a simple metaphor for plural modes of learning and belonging—while recognizing that Indigenous knowledge systems are specific, living, and rooted in sovereignty, place, and relationship.
Our intent is relational, not appropriative: to build humane spaces that honor different nervous systems, support intermittent collaboration, and make room for many ways of being together.
A few points:
- Thornburg is borrowing Indigenous imagery.
He explicitly cites “Northwest Indian cultures” and Raven stories as inspiration. That means the caves/campfires/watering holes framing is not culturally neutral in origin, even if it has become generalized in education design discourse. - The way he references Indigenous cultures is dated and broad.
“Northwest Indian cultures” is imprecise, and treating these traditions primarily as an “engagement technique” for learning environments can slide into instrumentalization: using Indigenous knowledge as a pedagogical resource without accountability or specificity. - Stimpunks can acknowledge this transparently without appropriation.
The right move is not to pretend the metaphor is purely universal, but also not to claim Indigenous origin or authority. It’s to name the lineage, credit it, and state our ethical boundary.
