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The more something is shared, the greater its value becomes. (pg. 27)
The Gift of Strawberries (pp. 22-32)
Scholarly Articles - Native Science and Indigenous Ways of Knowing
- An analysis of the food plants and drug plants of native North America This paper compares the medicinal and food floras of the native peoples of North America. There is a surprising overlap of these floras by both family and taxon. Yet there are also substantial differences — food and medicine tend to involve different plant parts, plant habit, and plant character. The similarities and differences are considered in an evolutionary context and a theoretical perspective is suggested to account for these facts.
- Traditional ecological knowledge: the third alternative Abstract. Contemporary Western attitudes concerning the management of natural resources, treatment of nonhuman animals, and the natural world emerge from traditions derived from Western European philosophy, i.e., they assume that humans are autonomous from, and in control of, the natural world. A different approach is presented by Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of indigenous peoples of North America. Although spiritually oriented, TEK converges on Western scientific approaches. TEK is based on close observation of nature and natural phenomena; however, it is combined with a concept of community membership that differs from that of Western political and social thought. TEK is strongly tied to specific physical localities; therefore, all aspects of the physical space can be considered part of the community, including animals, plants, and landforms. As a consequence, native worldviews can be considered to be spatially oriented, in contrast to the temporal orientation of Western political and historical thought. TEK also emphasizes the idea that individual plants and animals exist on their own terms. This sense of place and concern for individuals leads to two basic TEK concepts: (1) all things are connected, which is conceptually related to Western community ecology, and (2) all things are related, which changes the emphasis from the human to the ecological community as the focus of theories concerning nature. Connectedness and relatedness are involved in the clan systems of many indigenous peoples, where nonhuman organisms are recognized as relatives whom the humans are obliged to treat with respect and honor. Convergence of TEK and Western science suggests that there may be areas in which TEK can contribute insights, or possibly even new concepts, to Western science. TEK is inherently multidisciplinary in that it links the human and the nonhuman, and is the basis not only for indigenous concepts of nature, but also for concepts of indigenous politics and ethics. This multidisciplinary aspect suggests that TEK may be useful in resolving conflicts involving a variety of stakeholders and interest groups in controversies over natural resource use, animal rights, and conservation. TEK may also have implications for human behavior and obligations toward other forms of life that are often unrecognized, or at least not emphasized, in Western science. We present examples from community and behavioral ecology where a TEK-based approach yielded unexpected and nonintuitive insights into natural phenomena. Understanding of TEK may be useful in helping scientists respond to the changing public perceptions of science, and new cultural pressures in our society.
- Food Plants of the North American Indian The shifting environment of Indigenous community-based research demands reflexivity because the negotiation and maintenance of relationships are central (Findlay, Ray, & Basualdo, 2014). This paper expands on the importance of social relationships in the Nehinuw (Cree) worldview by reflecting on an ongoing research partnership among a team of Indigenous and Settler researchers from three universities and one Indigenous community agency. The Nehinuw relationships of weechihitowin (supporting and helping each other), weechiyauguneetowin (partnership, collaborative or shared action), otootemitowin (respectful openness and acceptance of others), and weechiseechigemitowin (alliances for common action) (L. Goulet & K. Goulet, 2014) form the theoretical framework for analyzing the challenges and successes that have sustained this collaboration for almost 10 years. This article will enhance understanding of Indigenous community-based research to promote an epistemological shift toward Indigenous modes of inquiry.
- The Importance of a Rose”: Evaluating the Cultural Significance of Plants in Thompson and Lillooet Interior Salish The evaluation of the cultural significance of plants in ethnobotanical studies is an essential step in various types of investigations, including research on lexical retention of plant names in diverging languages, on trade and material exchange between groups, on subsistence strategies, and on folk classification. An index of cultural significance was developed, based on ethnobotanical data on Thompson and Lillooet, two Interior Salish groups of British Columbia. For a given plant taxon, the index is a composite of a wide variety of potential applications of a plant, ranked according to the contribution of each separate application to survival in traditional cultures, together with estimates of intensity and exclusivity of use for each. Example calculations of the derivation of the index are provided, as well as a summary of calculations for more than 500 plant species from Thompson and Lillooet territories. The index has some limitations, but overall it seems to provide a meaningful and valid assessment of the relative importance of a plant taxon in Thompson and Lillooet.
- Traditional use of medicinal plants in the boreal forest of Canada: review and perspectives The boreal forest of Canada is home to several hundred thousands Aboriginal people who have been using medicinal plants in traditional health care systems for thousands of years. This knowledge, transmitted by oral tradition from generation to generation, has been eroding in recent decades due to rapid cultural change. Until now, published reviews about traditional uses of medicinal plants in boreal Canada have focused either on particular Aboriginal groups or on restricted regions. Here, we present a review of traditional uses of medicinal plants by the Aboriginal people of the entire Canadian boreal forest in order to provide comprehensive documentation, identify research gaps, and suggest perspectives for future research.
- Keeping the local local: Recalibrating the status of science and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in education The debate on the status of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in science curricula is currently centered on a juxtaposition of two incompatible frameworks: multiculturalism and universalism. The aim of this paper is to establish a framework that overcomes this opposition between multiculturalism and universalism in science education, so that they become but one-sided expressions of an integrated unit. To be able to do so, we abandon the concept of “truth.” Instead, we adopt a contemporary epistemology that (a) entails both the cultural and material aspects of human, intersubjective reality; (b) concerns the usefulness of knowledge; and (c) highlights the dynamic, heterogeneous, and plural nature of products of human being and understanding. Drawing on narratives of scientists and aboriginal people explaining a comparable natural phenomenon (a salmon run), we show that both TEK and scientific knowledge, though simultaneously available, are incommensurable and irreducible to each other, as are the different processes of knowledge construction/evolution inherent to the constituting artifacts. Drawing on social studies of science, we point out that the transcendent nature of scientific knowledge implies absence of local heterogeneity, dynamic, and plurality making it useless in local contexts other than itself. We discuss the educational implications of this recalibration.
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Web Resources
- The USDA Plant Database Plant List of Accepted Nomenclature, Taxonomy, and Symbols. The PLANTS Database provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories.
- Native Science: Understanding and Respecting Other Ways of Knowing - U.S. Fish and Wildlife "Over generations, Native Americans have developed a timely and reliable knowledge of the land, its processes, and its management needs. This knowledge has been referred to as Native science. Native science employs many concepts such as observation, background research, and experimentation familiar to non-Native researchers and recognizes the interconnectedness of science. Good rangeland management also requires recognition of interrelatedness. If we are open to it, Native science can give us “new” ways of looking at the landscape and all that it has to offer in terms of chemical, physical, and ecological processes and communities." Linda Black Elk
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)
New course at University of Alberta combines science with Indigenous knowledge
CBC News ·
(photo courtesy of CBC)
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Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Call Number: E98.P5 K56 2016Publication Date: 2021
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