Showing papers on "Traditional knowledge published in 2010"

Framework for integrating indigenous and scientific knowledge for disaster risk reduction.

Abstract: A growing awareness of the value of indigenous knowledge has prompted calls for its use within disaster risk reduction. The use of indigenous knowledge alongside scientific knowledge is increasingly advocated but there is as yet no clearly developed framework demonstrating how the two may be integrated to reduce community vulnerability to environmental hazards. This paper presents such a framework, using a participatory approach in which relevant indigenous and scientific knowledge may be integrated to reduce a community's vulnerability to environmental hazards. Focusing on small island developing states it presents an analysis of the need for such a framework alongside the difficulties of incorporating indigenous knowledge. This is followed by an explanation of the various processes within the framework, drawing on research completed in Papua New Guinea. This framework is an important first step in identifying how indigenous and scientific knowledge may be integrated to reduce community vulnerability to environmental hazards.

Indigenous Worldviews, Knowledge, and Research: The Development of an Indigenous Research Paradigm

Abstract: This article presents the initial development of one Indigenous research paradigm. The article begins with an overview of worldviews and Indigenous knowledge before addressing how these perspectives have been blinded by Eurocentric thought and practices. These sections set the background for the focus of the article, namely the development of an Indigenous research paradigm. This paradigm is based upon the framework shared by Wilson (2001), who suggested that a research paradigm consists of an ontology, epistemology, methodology, and axiology. By presenting Indigenous perspectives on each of the framework components, an Indigenous research paradigm that was used for research with Indigenous Elders and Indigenous social workers who are based within Indigenous worldviews and ways of being is presented.

Indigenous climate knowledge in southern Uganda: the multiple components of a dynamic regional system

Abstract: Farmers in southern Uganda seek information to anticipate the interannual variability in the timing and amount of precipitation, a matter of great importance to them since they rely on rain-fed agriculture for food supplies and income. The four major components of their knowledge system are: (1) longstanding familiarity with the seasonal patterns of precipitation and temperature, (2) a set of local traditional climate indicators, (3) observation of meteorological events, (4) information about the progress of the seasons elsewhere in the region. We examine these components and show the connections among them. We discuss the social contexts in which this information is perceived, evaluated, discussed and applied, and we consider the cultural frameworks that support the use of this information. This system of indigenous knowledge leads farmers to participate as agents as well as consumers in programs that use modern climate science to plan for and adapt to climate variability and climate change.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge Trends in the Transition to a Market Economy: Empirical Study in the Doñana Natural Areas

Abstract: Researchers and conservation managers largely agree on the relevance of traditional ecological knowledge for natural resource management in indigenous communities, but its prevalence and role as societies modernize are contested. We analyzed the transmission of traditional knowledge among rural local people in communities linked to protected areas in Donana, southwestern Spain. We studied changes in knowledge related to local practices in agriculture and livestock farming among 198 informants from three generations that cover the period in which the area transited from an economy strongly dependent on local ecosystem services to a market economy with intensified production systems. Our results suggest an abrupt loss of traditional agricultural knowledge related to rapid transformations and intensification of agricultural systems, but maintenance of knowledge of traditional livestock farming, an activity allowed in the protected areas that maintains strong links with local cultural identity. Our results demonstrate the potential of protected areas in protecting remaining bodies of traditional ecological knowledge in developed country settings. Nevertheless, we note that strict protection in cultural-landscape-dominated areas can disrupt transmission of traditional knowledge if local resource users and related practices are excluded from ecosystem management.

Meaningful Consideration? A Review of Traditional Knowledge in Environmental Decision Making

Abstract: In Canada’s Northwest Territories, governments, industrial corporations, and other organizations have tried many strategies to promote the meaningful consideration of traditional knowledge in environmental decision making, acknowledging that such consideration can foster more socially egalitarian and environmentally sustainable relationships between human societies and Nature. These initiatives have taken the form of both “top-down” strategies (preparing environmental governance authorities to receive traditional knowledge) and “bottom-up” strategies (fostering the capacity of aboriginal people to bring traditional knowledge to bear in environmental decision making). Unfortunately, most of these strategies have had only marginally beneficial effects, primarily because they failed to overcome certain significant barriers. These include communication barriers, arising from the different languages and styles of expression used by traditional knowledge holders; conceptual barriers, stemming from the organizations’ difficulties in comprehending the values, practices, and context underlying traditional knowledge; and political barriers, resulting from an unwillingness to acknowledge traditional-knowledge messages that may conflict with the agendas of government or industry. Still other barriers emanate from the co-opting of traditional knowledge by non-aboriginal researchers and their institutions. These barriers help maintain a power imbalance between the practitioners of science and European-style environmental governance and the aboriginal people and their traditional knowledge. This imbalance fosters the rejection of traditional knowledge or its transformation and assimilation into Euro-Canadian ways of knowing and doing.

Indigenous knowledge of a changing climate

Abstract: Anthropogenic climate change is perhaps the ultimate manifestation of humans’ growing disconnect with the natural world, although not all societies share the same burden of responsibility for its creation. Compared to the dominant industrialised societies whose activities in the last 200 years or so have caused most of the climate impacts currently observed, Indigenous people living on their traditional lands bear little responsibility for current and future projected consequences of a changing climate. Despite this, they are likely to suffer the most from direct and indirect climate change due to their close connection to the natural world and their reduced social–ecological resilience—consequence of centuries of oppressive policies imposed on them by dominant non-Indigenous societies. Much of the world’s remaining diversity—biological, ecosystem, landscape, cultural and linguistic—resides in Indigenous territories. The main knowledge-holders of the site-specific holistic knowledge about various aspects of this diversity, Indigenous peoples, play a significant role in maintaining locally resilient social–ecological systems. Despite the recent adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2007, Indigenous people continue to be denied their rights and are subjected to climate injustice, remaining largely excluded from the official UN climate negotiations. In a recent statement, World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick acknowledged that Indigenous people carry a ‘disproportionate share of the burden of climate change effects’ and must be included in international climate change discussions. Translating this largely theoretical recognition into practice remains a major challenge, in large part because of the perceived inferiority of local Indigenous knowledge compared to the conventional western scientific mode of inquiry. While

Adapting to climate change in andean ecosystems: landscapes, capitals, and perceptions shaping rural livelihood strategies and linking knowledge systems.

Abstract: In the Bolivian Altiplano, indigenous systems for dealing with weather and climate risk are failing or being lost as a result of migration, climate change, and market integration. Andean rural comm...

Inuit vulnerability and adaptive capacity to climate change in Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories, Canada.

Abstract: Climate change is already being experienced in the Arctic with implications for ecosystems and the communities that depend on them. This paper argues that an assessment of community vulnerability to climate change requires knowledge of past experience with climate conditions, responses to climatic variations, future climate change projections, and non-climate factors that influence people's susceptibility and adaptive capacity. The paper documents and describes exposure sensitivities to climate change experienced in the community of Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories and the adaptive strategies employed. It is based on collaborative research involving semi- structured interviews, secondary sources of information, and participant observations. In the context of subsistence hunting, changes in temperature, seasonal patterns (for example timing and nature of the spring melt), sea ice and wind dynamics, and weather variability have affected the health and availability of some species of wildlife important for subsistence and have exacerbated risks associated with hunting and travel. Inuit in Ulukhaktok are coping with these changes by taking extra precautions when travelling, shifting modes of transportation, travel routes and hunting areas to deal with changing trail conditions, switching species harvested, and supplementing their diet with store bought foods. Limited access to capital resources, changing levels of traditional knowledge and land skills, and substance abuse were identified as key constraints to adaptation. The research demonstrates the need to consider the perspectives and experiences of local people for climate change research to have practical relevance to Arctic communities such as for the development and promotion of adaptive strategies.

Indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants used by Saperas community of Khetawas, Jhajjar District, Haryana, India.

Abstract: Plants have traditionally been used as a source of medicine in India by indigenous people of different ethnic groups inhabiting various terrains for the control of various ailments afflicting human and their domestic animals. The indigenous community of snake charmers belongs to the 'Nath' community in India have played important role of healers in treating snake bite victims. Snake charmers also sell herbal remedies for common ailments. In the present paper an attempt has been made to document on ethno botanical survey and traditional medicines used by snake charmers of village Khetawas located in district Jhajjar of Haryana, India as the little work has been made in the past to document the knowledge from this community. Ethno botanical data and traditional uses of plants information was obtained by semi structured oral interviews from experienced rural folk, traditional herbal medicine practitioners of the 'Nath' community. A total of 42 selected inhabitants were interviewed, 41 were male and only one woman. The age of the healers was between 25 years and 75 years. The plant specimens were identified according to different references concerning the medicinal plants of Haryana and adjoining areas and further confirmation from Forest Research Institute, Dehradun. The present study revealed that the people of the snake charmer community used 57 medicinal plants species that belonged to 51 genera and 35 families for the treatment of various diseases. The study has brought to light that the main diseases treated by this community was snakebite in which 19 different types of medicinal plants belongs to 13 families were used. Significantly higher number of medicinal plants was claimed by men as compared to women. The highest numbers of medicinal plants for traditional uses utilized by this community were belonging to family Fabaceae. This community carries a vast knowledge of medicinal plants but as snake charming is banned in India as part of efforts to protect India's steadily depleting wildlife, this knowledge is also rapidly disappearing in this community. Such type of ethno botanical studies will help in systematic documentation of ethno botanical knowledge and availing to the scientific world plant therapies used as antivenin by the Saperas community.

Where the Grass Grows Again: Knowledge Exchange in the Sustainable Agriculture Movement.

Abstract: Many analysts of sustainable agriculture have given considerable attention to issues of knowledge production, but in general they have not engaged social movement theory. This neglect is addressed by examining the emergence of intensive rotational grazing as a local expression of the sustainable agriculture movement. Conceptual frameworks drawn from recent contributions to social movement theory are used to describe the cognitive praxis of graziers along technological, cosmological, and organizational dimensions. Contrary to current interpretations, which emphasize the idiosyncratic character of local knowledge in agriculture, this analysis shows that through horizontal forms of organizing and information exchange, graziers overcome the limits of their personal experience and usefully share local knowledge in networks that they have forged expressly for that purpose.

Aboriginal Environmental Wisdom, Stewardship, and Sustainability: Lessons From the Walpole Island First Nations, Ontario, Canada

Abstract: Generally speaking, environmental education teaching, research, and practice have been informed by the traditions of western, Euro-centric culture. In this context indigenous perspectives are often marginalized, maligned, and perceived to be unscientific and therefore inferior. This essay adds to the growing body of literature exploring aboriginal indigenous environmental epistemologies and responsible human interactions with the natural environment. The paper provides a Canadian context as it examines the environmental philosophy and attitude of a Canadian First Nations community to the natural environment grounded in the lived experiences of adults, children and elders from the Walpole Island First Nation. We make the argument that while not a panacea, Aboriginal environmental epistemologies hold lessons for teaching environmental stewardship and sustainability behavior in mainstream classrooms.

Ethnobotanical survey in Canhane village, district of Massingir, Mozambique: medicinal plants and traditional knowledge.

Abstract: Medicinal plants are used by 80% of people from developing countries to fulfill their primary health needs, occupying a key position on plant research and medicine. Taking into account that, besides their pharmaceutical importance, these plants contribute greatly to ecosystems' stability, a continuous documentation and preservation of traditional knowledge is a priority. The objective of this study was to organize a database of medicinal plants including their applications and associated procedures in Canhane village, district of Massingir, province of Gaza, Mozambique. In order to gather information about indigenous medicinal plants and to maximize the collection of local knowledge, eleven informants were selected taking into account the dimension of the site and the fact that the vegetation presents a great homogeneity. The data were collected through intensive structured and semi-structured interviews performed during field research. Taxonomical identification of plant species was based on field observations and herbarium collections. A total of 53 plant species have been reported, which were used to treat 50 different human health problems. More than half of the species were used for stomach and intestine related disturbances (including major diseases such as diarrhea and dysentery). Additionally, four species with therapeutic applications were reported for the first time, whose potential can further be exploited. The great majority of the identified species was also associated with beliefs and myths and/or used as food. In general, the community was conscientious and motivated about conservational issues and has adopted measures for the rational use of medicinal plants. The ethnomedicinal use of plant species was documented in the Canhane village. The local community had a rich ethnobotanical knowledge and adopted sound management conservation practices. The data compiled in this study show the social importance of the surveyed plants being a contribution to the documentation of PGR at the national and regional level.

The Premise and Promise of Indigenous Archaeology

Abstract: Researchers have increasingly promoted an emerging paradigm of Indigenous archaeology, which includes an array of practices conducted by, for, and with Indigenous communities to challenge the discipline's intellectual breadth and political economy. McGhee (2008) argues that Indigenous archaeology is not viable because it depends upon the essentialist concept of “Aboriginalism.” In this reply, we correct McGhee's description of Indigenous Archaeology and demonstrate why Indigenous rights are not founded on essentialist imaginings. Rather, the legacies of colonialism, sociopolitical context of scientific inquiry, and insights of traditional knowledge provide a strong foundation for collaborative and community-based archaeology projects that include Indigenous peoples.

Managing indigenous knowledge for sustainable agricultural development in developing countries: Knowledge management approaches in the social context

Abstract: This paper is based on a PhD study (Lwoga, 2009) that sought to assess the application of knowledge management (KM) approaches in managing indigenous knowledge (IK) for sustainable agricultural practices in developing countries, with a specific focus on Tanzania. This study used a mixed-research method which was conducted in six districts of Tanzania. Non-participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups were used to collect primary data from small-scale farmers in the selected districts. A total of 181 farmers participated in the semi-structured interviews, where the respondents ranged between 27 and 37 per district. Twelve focus group discussions were conducted in the selected districts. The study revealed that IK was acquired and shared within a small, weak and spontaneous network, and thus knowledge loss was prevalent in the surveyed communities. There were distinct variations in the acquisition of agricultural IK both in different locations and between genders. Information and communication technologies (ICT), culture, trust, and status influenced the sharing and distribution of IK in the surveyed communities. The research findings showed that KM models can be used to manage and integrate IK with other knowledge systems, taking the differences into account (for example, gender, location, culture, infrastructure). The paper concludes with recommendations for the application of KM approaches for the management of IK and its integration with other knowledge systems for agricultural development in developing countries, including Tanzania.

New Rights for Forest-Based Communities? Understanding Processes of Forest Tenure Reform

Abstract: SUMMARY This article reports on findings from a research project, in more than 30 sites in 10 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, aimed at analyzing cases where changes in formal tenure rights for forest-based communities had recently occurred or were in process. Though by far largest proportion of the world's forests are owned by the state, over a quarter of forests in developing countries are now owned by or assigned to communities. This suggests, at least in some ways, a marked departure from the historic trend towards centralizing. The project, led by the Center for International Forestry Research in coordination with the Rights and Resources Initiative in 2006–2008, sought to identify issues and concerns from the perspective of socially and economically vulnerable groups that were seeking rights reforms. The objectives were to understand reform processes, particularly the extent to which community rights had improved in practice. This article reports on the analysis of three aspects of the r...

An Emerging Decolonizing Science Education in Canada

Abstract: The article describes developments in science education since 2006 related to an agenda to decolonize the Pan-Canadian Science Framework by recognizing Indigenous knowledge as being foundational to understanding the physical world Of particular interest is the Province of Saskatchewan's curriculum renewal that integrates Indigenous knowledge into school science, guided by continuous collaboration with Saskatchewan's Indigenous communities and with a textbook publisher to support a decolonizing, place-based, culturally responsive science instruction

Feminist Knowledge Claims, Local Knowledge, and Gender Divisions of Agricultural Labor: Constructing a Successor Science.

Abstract: Issues raised by the feminist epistemic critique of social science are used to examine what is meant by local knowledge and its contribution to analyses of agricultural sustainability. Employing the concepts of partial perspective, lived experience, and the complexity of social context, this paper focuses attention on the juxtaposition of local and scientific knowledge and challenges those interpretations of local knowledge production that ignore the various people, relations, and interests constituting the rural economy. An examination of local as a contested, complex, and heterogeneous domain refines the work of Kloppenburg (1991) and his commitment to the significance of local knowledge in constructing opportunities for sustainable agriculture. Attention to the on-farm gender division of labor helps to identify gender differences as critical in constituting the family farm and to elaborate how the different experiences of women and men may offer alternative visions of what constitutes sustainable agricultural production.

Ethnobotanical Uses of Plants among the Bhotiya Tribal Communities of Niti Valley in Central Himalaya, India

Abstract: A study of the medicinal plants and knowledge of diseases was conducted in Bhotiya tribal communities in the Niti valley of Alaknanda catchment in Central Himalaya Indigenous knowledge of local traditional healers about plants used for medicinal purposes was collected through questionnaire and interviews Eighty-six plant species were identified as being used for treatment of 37 common ailments The methods and application of uses of these plants varies and was based on the nature of disease

The Use of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Forest Management: an Example from India

Abstract: Many forest communities possess considerable knowledge of the natural resources they use. Such knowledge can potentially inform scientific approaches to management, either as a source of baseline data to fill information gaps that cannot otherwise be addressed or to provide alternative management approaches from which scientists and managers might learn. In general, however, little attention has been given to the relevance of quantitative forms of such knowledge for resource management. Much discussion has focused on the integration of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) into management, but less attention has been paid to identifying specific areas where it is most useful and where it may be most problematic. We contrasted scientific data with information from TEK in the context of a threat to the sustainable harvesting of a nontimber forest product (NTFP) of livelihood importance in southern India, specifically, a fruit tree infected by mistletoe. The efficiency of deriving information from NTFP harvesters compared to scientific field studies was assessed. We further evaluated the potential of TEK to provide novel solutions to the management problem in question, the degree to which TEK could provide quantitative information, and the biases that might be associated with information derived from TEK. TEK complemented previously gathered ecological data by providing concordant and additional information, but also contradicted some results obtained using a scientific approach. TEK also gave a longer-term perspective with regard to NTFP harvesting patterns. Combining information on historical and current harvesting trends for the NTFP with official data suggests that current assessments of sustainability may be inaccurate and that the use of diverse information sources may provide an effective approach to assessing the status of harvested resources.

The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing: What is New and What are the Implications for Provider and User Countries and the Scientific Community?

Abstract: According to the Convention on Biological Biodiversity, as specified by the Nagoya Protocol of 2010 states have sovereign rights over their genetic resources. They are entitled to regulate the access to them and ask for the sharing of benefits drawn from them. A similar regime applies to traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources that is held by local and indigenous communities. The article lays out the details of the exchange relationships between providers and users of genetic resources and traditional knowledge, and elaborates reform suggestions for national legislation of both provider and user states implementing the Protocol.

Sustainability Science Education in Africa: Negotiating indigenous ways of living with nature in the third space

Abstract: In response to global climate change, loss of biodiversity, and the immense human impact on the carrying capacity of the earth systems, attention has been given to sustainable development worldwide. In this paper, we explore the emerging field of sustainability science within the context of the socio‐cultural milieu of Malawi, a sub‐Saharan African country. Through interviews in vernacular languages and observations in the field, our research explores how traditional agriculture practices of African elders may contribute to the sustainability of the environment and culture in Africa. Findings indicate that traditional farmers and food preservationists choose to practice indigenous ways of living with nature to live sustainably in a globalized economy. Further discussion elucidates how merging worldviews and hybridized knowledge and languages can be leveraged to create a third space for dialogue and curriculum development by connecting indigenous ways of living with Eurocentric science.

Indigenous Knowledge and Long-term Ecological Change: Detection, Interpretation, and Responses to Changing Ecological Conditions in Pacific Island Communities

Abstract: When local resource users detect, understand, and respond to environmental change they can more effectively manage environmental resources. This article assesses these abilities among artisanal fishers in Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. In a comparison of two villages, it documents local resource users’ abilities to monitor long-term ecological change occurring to seagrass meadows near their communities, their understandings of the drivers of change, and their conceptualizations of seagrass ecology. Local observations of ecological change are compared with historical aerial photography and IKONOS satellite images that show 56 years of actual changes in seagrass meadows from 1947 to 2003. Results suggest that villagers detect long-term changes in the spatial cover of rapidly expanding seagrass meadows. However, for seagrass meadows that showed no long-term expansion or contraction in spatial cover over one-third of respondents incorrectly assumed changes had occurred. Examples from a community-based management initiative designed around indigenous ecological knowledge and customary sea tenure governance show how local observations of ecological change shape marine resource use and practices which, in turn, can increase the management adaptability of indigenous or hybrid governance systems.

Indigenous Knowledge, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology

Abstract: Introduction 1. Defining Traditional Ecological Knowledge 2. All Things Are Connected: Communities as Both Ecological and Social Entities in Indigenous American Thought 3. Predators Not Prey: "Wolves of Creation" Rather Than "Lambs of God" 4. Metaphors and Models: Indigenous Knowledge and Evolutionary Ecology 5. Cultural and Biological Creation and the Concept of Relatedness 6. Applying Principles of TEK within the Western Scientific Tradition 7. Connected to the Land: Nature and Spirit in Native American Novels 8. Ecological Indians: European Imaginations and Indigenous Reality 9. A Critical Comment on Both Western Science and Indigenous Responses to the Western Scientific Tradition 10. Who Speaks for the Buffalo? Finding the Indigenous in Academia 11. Traditional Ecological Knowledge: The Third Alternative

Assessment of indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants in Central Zone of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia

Abstract: This research was initiated to document indigenous knowledge associated with traditional medicinal plants; specifically to identify the plant parts used for medicinal purposes and investigate plant species that are used as medicines for the treatment of human health problems. Twelve traditional healers in the study area were interviewed to gather information on the knowledge and use of medicinal plants used as a remedy for human ailments. The study reported that 16 plant species were commonly used to treat various human ailments. Most of these species (68.75%) were wild and harvested mainly for their leaves and the remedies were administered through oral and dermal. The indigenous knowledge transfer was found to be different. Some traditional healers transfer their indigenous knowledge while others kept the knowledge with them for the sake of secrecy. Most of the traditional healers were found to have poor knowledge on the dosage and antidote while prescribing remedies to their patients. More than one medicinal plant species were used more frequently than the use of a single species for remedy preparations. Key words: Ethno-botany, indigenous knowledge, knowledge transfer, medicinal plants.

The Cultural Interface of Islander and Scientific Knowledge

Abstract: The interface between Indigenous knowledge systems and Western scientific knowledge systems is a contested space where the difficult dialogue between us and them is often reduced to a position of taking sides. Storytelling is however a very familiar tradition in Indigenous families where we can and do translate expertly difficult concepts from one generation to the next. This article is based on my attempt to story our way through the difficult dialogue and to posit opportunities for more productive engagements about the place of Indigenous knowledge in our future deliberations at the Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Knowledge Conference series.

Traditional medicinal plants indigenous to Al-Rass province, Saudi Arabia

Abstract: An ethnobotanical survey was conducted in different localities of Al-Rass province, Qassim area, Saudi Arabia. Information about the local and scientific names, parts used and therapeutic application of 47 medicinal plant species belonging to 28 families commonly used by local inhabitants and traditional practitioners of recognized competence were described. Key words: Medicinal plants, herbal drugs, ethnobotany, Al-Rass, Qassim, Saudi Arabia.