Traditional knowledge

About: Traditional knowledge is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 10825 publications have been published within this topic receiving 202790 citations. The topic is also known as: indigenous knowledge & indigenous knowledge system.

Cultural Forests of the Amazon: A Historical Ecology of People and Their Landscapes

Abstract: Cultural Forests of the Amazon is a comprehensive and diverse account of how indigenous people transformed landscapes and managed resources in the most extensive region of tropical forests in the world. Until recently, most scholars and scientists, as well as the general public, thought indigenous people had a minimum impact on Amazon forests, once considered to be total wildernesses. William Balee's research, conducted over a span of three decades, shows a more complicated truth. In Cultural Forests of the Amazon , he argues that indigenous people, past and present, have time and time again profoundly transformed nature into culture. Moreover, they have done so using their traditional knowledge and technology developed over thousands of years. Balee demonstrates the inestimable value of indigenous knowledge in providing guideposts for a potentially less destructive future of environments and biota in the Amazon. He shows that we can no longer think about species and landscape diversity in any tropical forest without taking into account the intricacies of human history and the impact of all forms of knowledge and technology. Balee describes the development of his historical ecology approach in Amazonia, along with important material on little-known forest dwellers and their habitats, current thinking in Amazonian historical ecology, and a narrative of his own dialogue with the Amazon and its people.

Information Technology and Indigenous People

Abstract: Section I: Indigenous People and Information Technology: Issues and Perspectives Section II: Technology in Education Section III: Cultural Preservation and Revitalization Section IV: Applications Transforming Communities Section V: Linking Communities and Improving Access.

Keeping the local local: Recalibrating the status of science and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in education

Abstract: 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

A World of Possibilities: Six Restoration Strategies to support the United Nation's Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

Abstract: Ecological restoration is practiced worldwide as a direct response to the degradation and destruction of ecosystems. In addition to its ecological impact it has enormous potential to improve population health, socioeconomic well‐being, and the integrity of diverse national and ethnic cultures. In recognition of the critical role of restoration in ecosystem health, the United Nations (UN) declared 2021–2030 as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. We propose six practical strategies to strengthen the effectiveness and amplify the work of ecological restoration to meet the aspirations of the Decade: (1) incorporate holistic actions, including working at effective scale; (2) include traditional ecological knowledge (TEK); (3) collaborate with allied movements and organizations; (4) advance and apply soil microbiome science and technology; (5) provide training and capacity‐building opportunities for communities and practitioners; and (6) study and show the relationships between ecosystem health and human health. We offer these in the hope of identifying possible leverage points and pathways for collaborative action among interdisciplinary groups already committed to act and support the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Collectively, these six strategies work synergistically to improve human health and also the health of the ecosystems on which we all depend, and can be the basis for a global restorative culture.