Indigenous Peoples and the Collaborative Stewardship of Nature

Knowledge Binds and Institutional Conflicts

Anne Ross, Kathleen Pickering Sherman, Jeffrey G Snodgrass, Henry D Delcore, Richard Sherman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315426594
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Involving Indigenous peoples and traditional knowledge into natural resource management produces more equitable and successful outcomes. Unfortunately, argue Anne Ross and co-authors, even many "progressive" methods fail to produce truly equal partnerships. This book offers a comprehensive and global overview of the theoretical, methodological, and practical dimensions of co-management. The authors critically evaluate the range of management options that claim to have integrated Indigenous peoples and knowledge, and then outline an innovative, alternative model of co-management, the Indigenous Stewardship Model. They provide detailed case studies and concrete details for application in a variety of contexts. Broad in coverage and uniting robust theoretical insights with applied detail, this book is ideal for scholars and students as well as for professionals in resource management and policy.

31Chapter 1

INDIGENOUS AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. (Einstein, quoted in Ellen 2004: 425)

In his book A Forest of Time, Nabokov (2002) describes a meeting between an archaeologist and an elderly Navajo man. The archaeologist was keen to know what the Navajo man thought of archaeological descriptions of the past. The elder began to explain that, for Navajo, one could not understand the origin of people on the land without first knowing about insects and corn kernels and their place in the creation of people and the landscape. The archaeologist, mystified by these stories, tried asking his questions in different ways. He laid out maps of migration routes across the Bering Strait and held up pictures of Folsom points and Clovis arrowheads. The Navajo elder, however, indicated that horny toads had made these stone tools. At this point, the archaeologist appears to have given up his quest for Navajo corroboration of scientific knowledge (Nabokov 2002: 29–31).

Nabokov uses this vignette to demonstrate the nature of Indigenous modes of narrating history and imparting knowledge about the past. For the Navajo and other Indigenous communities, according to Nabokov, objects and archaeological sites are not just neutral and ‘objective’ records of past human events (cf. Appadurai 1986; Bradley 2008; Byrne 2005). They are locales that document interactions between those human and nonhuman persons who have come before the present generation and, as importantly, who continue to interact in contemporary times. History for these communities is thus a living entity that documents but also maintains past and present relationships of dependency between humans and nonhuman persons such as insects, corn kernels, and horny toads. In Indigenous worldviews, as Nabokov explains, these relationships have structured the naming of places and the creation of such material 32artifacts as arrowheads; but they continue to structure the contemporary production of places and artifacts (Nabokov 2002: 126–149; see also Bradley 2008). For Indigenous communities, as Nabokov elaborates, the narration of history is a multimedia production involving the communal creation of stories, songs, dances, music, and visual art. For Indigenous groups to separate the past from these contemporary performative and social contexts, like separating the past from human relations with corn kernels and horny toads, would entail killing history by robbing it of most of its power to evoke commitment and passion in living human beings (Nabokov 2002: 29–57).

For Nabokov, the uniqueness of Indigenous epistemologies points to the fundamentally different understandings of time and space, landscape, and the past held by Indigenous peoples on the one hand and scientists on the other. In framing the past by evoking and paying homage to the ‘subjectivities’ of human and nonhuman persons, Indigenous peoples personify history in a way that cannot be easily heard or fathomed by archaeologists pursuing purely ‘objective’ forms of analysis (cf. Bradley 2008; Godwin 2005; Nabokov 2002: 150–171; Ross 2008; Rowlands 1994). It is not surprising, then, that the interaction between the archaeologist and Navajo elder described above, informed as it is by these individuals’ contrasting assumptions and priorities regarding the past that literally ‘crackle off the page’, is characterized by ‘halting exchanges’ that never quite take off (Nabokov 2002: 31).

Solomon Islands nationals, Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo, discuss this and other related issues in the context of their comparative analysis of Indigenous and Western (scientific) epistemologies. They define Indigenous epistemology as ‘a cultural group’s way of thinking and of creating, reformulating, and theorizing about knowledge via traditional discourses’ (2001: 58, emphasis added). Scientific epistemologies, in contrast, are rarely recognized as having this social and communal context, despite anthropological discourse to the contrary (Nabokov 2002; Nadasdy 1999; Sillitoe 2002; Stevenson 2006). To most Western-trained academics, science is based on an objective ‘knowledge without a knower’ that is usually foreign to Indigenous peoples for whom knowledge is very much personalized and social (Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo 2001: 62). Although Indigenous knowledge is owned and shared asymmetrically (Ellen and Harris 2000: 4–5) – often only certain individuals have the right to speak about certain aspects of local knowledge (Rose 1996a) – such knowledge is put back together as a whole when the community gathers together on practical and ritual occasions (Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo 2001: 62).

At this general level, then, Western scientific and Indigenous ways of knowing would seem to constitute distinctive modes of thought. In this 33chapter we analyze the nature of both difference and similarity between these two knowledge systems, dealing not so much with what is known but rather with how different ways of knowing are valorized and institutionalized in modern scientific and Indigenous contexts. In grappling with these epistemological issues we realize that we are in illustrious and daunting company. Anthropological luminaries from Frazer to Tylor, from Malinowski to Evans-Pritchard and Tambiah have all wrestled with the separation or lack of separation between science and magic, which we see as a proxy discussion for the relationship between scientific and Indigenous knowledge more generally. Further, an immense literature spanning most of the social sciences as well as philosophy and history has attempted to define the nature of science and thus, by extension, the nature of nonscientific forms of knowing. Indeed, this literature has been polarized into what has been termed the ‘science wars’ (Anderson 2000; Ellen 2004). In this discursive ‘war’, one side argues for the distinctive and superior nature of scientific forms of understanding: scientists discover ‘truths’ about the way the world really works. The other side, in a position with roots in extreme ‘postmodernist’ forms of cultural relativism, denies any special status for scientific forms of understanding: ‘science’ is merely a label used to privilege certain forms of knowledge and thus to denigrate and marginalize other non-scientific modes of thought (see the discussion on constructivism in the Introduction).

We are not under the illusion that we will resolve all the contentious issues related to how scientists and nonscientists understand the world. However, in this chapter we sketch a position that lies between the two poles of this debate, a position that frames the arguments of this book. We do believe that there are good reasons to separate scientific from Indigenous modes of thought. We argue, however, that such differences lie primarily on the level of cultural ideals and methodological prescriptions: scientists privilege impersonal and decontextualized knowledge, for example, in a way that Indigenous peoples generally do not; they strive to follow a method that seeks to eliminate observer bias and the peculiarity of context in a way, again, that Indigenous peoples usually do not. Nevertheless, we still see important continuities between scientific and Indigenous ways of knowing, especially on the level of actual epistemological practice: for example, we accept that scientific knowledge, like Indigenous ways of knowing, ‘draws its form from its social and cultural roots’ (Nader 1996b: xi; see also Ede and Cormack 2004; Peloquin and Berkes 2009). To decontextualize science from its social roots is to grant science a privileged status and an unfounded superiority over other ways of knowing (Agrawal 1995; Nadasdy 1999; Nader 1996a; Sillitoe 2002). Alternatively, to argue that only Indigenous knowledge 34has a social context tends to produce views of Indigenous peoples as ‘ecological savages’ (Krech 1999; Milton 1996; Redford 1990) with no ‘objective’ knowledge of value in a modern political world (Kuper 2003). These are positions we cannot support.

Overall, we hope this chapter introduces some important differences between scientific and Indigenous ways of knowing without essentializing these differences or implying that they are absolute. To argue for an insurmountable ‘cognitive divide’ between scientists and nonscientists would in fact defeat one of the primary aims of this book, which is to show how barriers become constructed between government-based resource managers and Indigenous peoples and thus also how such barriers, as social constructs, might be bridged.

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE VERSUS SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

From our field experiences, we have learned that Indigenous know-how is a form of ‘local knowledge’, intricately bound to particular communities and places as well as to whole ways of life. Such knowledge is often learned through informal trial and error processes and thus comes from direct personal experiences. Despite the highly personal and even individualized character of this knowledge, however, the acquisition and preservation of Indigenous understandings are usually mediated by social others in informal apprentice relationships. Such apprenticeships, in turn, are structured by highly repetitive and often unspoken demonstrations by, and silent imitations of, local experts. In similar terms, Indigenous knowledge is often pragmatic rather than abstractly theoretical – a knowledge how rather than an abstract knowledge of or knowledge about. Likewise, Indigenous knowledge, as suggested above, is orally preserved not only in the living memories of individuals but also within the textures of local songs, stories, and other performance traditions. Further, Indigenous knowledge is almost invariably informed by references to elusive spiritual beings such as gods, ghosts, and ancestors. Such knowledge, again as indicated above, interconnects local human communities with nonhuman societies of animals and plants (Feit 1987; Gadgil, Berkes, and Folke 1993; Nadasdy 1999; Posey 1992, 2000; Scott 1996; Sillitoe 2002; Snodgrass, Sharma, et al. 2007, 2008; Snodgrass, Lacy, et al. 2008) and with past-human realms of spirit and creator beings and ancestors (Bradley 2001, 2008; Merlan 1998; Nabokov 2002; Povinelli 1993; Rose 1996b; Snodgrass and Tiedje 2008; Tiedje and Snodgrass 2008). Overall, such knowledge is explicitly acknowledged as partaking in local ‘traditions’ that build on the know-how of multiple preceding generations. And such ‘traditional’ knowledge, it is argued, has helped its practitioners to manage 35their lands relatively sustainably across large expanses of time (but see Chapter 2).

By contrast, scientists are said to pursue knowledge that is replicable across contexts that are strictly controlled, making such knowledge more abstract and universalizing, rigorously empirical and experimental rather than simply experiential (Ede and Cormack 2004; Kalland 2000; Lindberg 1990; Nader 1996a; Schafersman 1997). Scientific knowledge is also preserved in impersonal institutional networks such as written and digital texts rather than only in the minds and bodies of living persons and in the fluid and unpredictable language of story (Ede and Cormack 2004: 147; Goody 1977, 1986, 1987; Nadasdy 1999; Wallerstein 2003: 459). Further, scientists are certainly interested in gaining technological knowledge how to control and manipulate the world. Nevertheless, such practical know-how is often subordinated to abstract knowledge of in the form of coherent systems of explanation, even logical syllogisms and proofs, statistical tables and rigorous taxonomies, and mathematical equations. Modern scientists, more than Indigenous peoples, seem to be interested in consciously coding their knowledge in formalized representations that can be manipulated according to the rules of logical inference to retrieve such knowledge. Such a coding, it is sometimes argued, also makes knowledge easier to critique and thus facilitates the critical distance that prevents irrational and blind commitment to traditional authority. Mathematics and formal logic, then, not narrative, performance, and social authority, are the watchwords of modern scientific practice. In this same vein, scientists are committed to the generation of testable hypotheses that are systematic, logically coherent, and empirically grounded (Schafersman 1997), not to mercurial spiritual beings. And scientific knowledge, owing to the institutional and technological forms it has engendered and in seeming direct contrast to Indigenous forms of knowing, has led to an unprecedented control over, and even exploitation and degradation of, the planet. Indeed, many social scientists preserve the distinction between these two forms of knowledge on precisely these grounds (Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo 2001, 2002; Hunn 2003; Hunn et al. 2003; Kalland 2000; Nadasdy 1999; Scott 1996; Silberbauer 1994; Sillitoe 1998, 2002).

Indigenous knowledge, we would thus argue, is eminently social as well as integrated. Here we wish to be careful, however, not to occlude the personalized, and even individualized, nature of such knowledge. Institutional structures such as totems, kinship relationships, proprietary stories/myths, political status, and so on influence the construction and indeed ownership of Indigenous knowledge and therefore the exclusive right to speak about and regulate certain resources. This individual ownership, it should be pointed out, makes Indigenous knowledge 36potentially unstable: important traditions can be lost with the death of a single expert; likewise, such knowledge can be acquired, or re-acquired, with the help of a single Native genius. Indigenous knowledge, then, can be said to be fragmented in a certain sense. Nevertheless, one typically finds Indigenous mechanisms that ensure that knowledge, even when shared asymmetrically, is available to many. This sharing of knowledge can occur through the bringing together of specialists at appropriate times to address important resource problems, to direct the extraction of resources, and/or to grant rights of access over these resources. In addition, much Indigenous ownership of knowledge is not limited to specific individuals; instead, it is spread over entire clans or communities, or it is distributed over categories of persons based on their age or their gender. This form of knowledge management adds to the understanding that Indigenous knowledge is social, and indeed redundant, rather than merely individualized (see Basso 1996; Bradley 2001; Feit 1987, 1994; Kearney 2008; Mearns 1994; Merculieff 1994; Pickering and Jewell 2008; Povinelli 1993; Rose 1996b; Silberbauer 1994; Williams and Mununggurr 1989).

To elaborate on the social nature of Indigenous knowledge, Feit (1994) and Nadasdy (1999) argue that the ritual and political nature of Indigenous knowledge is central to the successful sharing of knowledge within a Native community as well as between Indigenous peoples, on the one hand, and scientists and resource managers, on the other. For Feit, local relations of power are particularly important in the praxis of hunting. Passing on the hunting culture from one generation to the next not only regenerates the hunt, it also ‘reproduces the social system of relations, including social differentiations that both hierarchically separate and link generations’ (Feit 1994: 436). For Nadasdy (1999), power lies in the choices made about the kinds of information brought to the management table. Local experience is the key to understanding management problems and to developing solutions, and social networks inform experience. Indigenous resource managers combine their knowledge and experience in a social context that ensures that all relevant elements of knowledge can come together regularly. Because Indigenous peoples form communities, their social structures ensure that they interrelate on a regular (often daily) basis, coming together for a range of social activities – including but not limited to the stewardship of natural resources and the resolution of ecological crises – as part of normal community activities.

In contrast to Indigenous peoples’ ‘holistic’ distribution of knowledge, scientists’ knowledge tends to be specialized, with research concentrated on narrow fields of knowledge. This highly specialized way of knowing, which is the dominant tendency of science, is often experienced by 37outsiders to the scientific enterprise – or to certain narrowly demarcated dimensions of the scientific enterprise – as the extremely esoteric nature of certain kinds of scientific knowledge and expertise. In 2003 one of us (AR) attended a workshop presenting scientific research undertaken in national parks in Queensland (Australia) as a collaborative venture of university and other scientists and national parks staff. Dr. Don Sands, from the Australian Commonwealth Scientific Industrial and Research Organisation (CSIRO) Division of Entomology discussed his work in communicating scientific research into Lepidoptera (butterflies) to the general public. His was the only paper relating to invertebrates. Most of the other speakers discussed research into ecosystems supporting rare and threatened plant and animal species, with large vertebrate mammals dominating the day’s proceedings. In speaking about butterflies and moths, Sands distinguished himself from his colleagues by referring to the other speakers at the gathering as ‘you vertebrate people’. He then outlined why his talk was only about Lepidoptera, explaining that he was interested only in collecting and researching butterflies and moths: ‘although I will do ants if someone needs me to’.

Suzuki documents a similar experience while on a visit to the Amazon rainforest: ‘Three scientists, frog experts, were there at the time, and their knowledge of their subject was impressive. One of them took us on a night hike and in pitch dark, could find frogs that were barely half an inch long. But when I asked about a bird we scared up and a strange plant on a tree, he shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t ask me, I’m a herpetologist”, he said’ (1992: xxxvi).

Kalland (2000) argues that this sometimes myopic knowledge bind of scientists is due to a one-dimensional focus on causation that is at the heart of the separation of scientific disciplines. As a result, scientists like Nabokov’s archaeologist often cannot understand the complex interconnections between different animal species that characterize Indigenous explanations of problems (Feit 1987; Nadasdy 1999; Scott 1996; Silberbauer 1994; Sillitoe 2002; Stevenson 2006). This problem is not so marked in those scientific fields that adopt a holistic approach to the environment, such as ecology, but even here there are some ecologists who take a narrow perspective on the discipline and therefore fail to realize the level of holism that is characteristic of so many nonscientific communities (Taylor 2001).

Such myopia is often evident in resource management. In most management agencies, especially those dealing with the protection of important – often endangered – species, individual species management plans are the most common instrument of fauna and flora conservation. Although holistic management of the entire protected area is desired and even required by legislation, holistic management is achieved by the 38separation of each element of the protected area and the development of individual management plans on a species-by-species basis. A review of any plan of management for a national park, for example, demonstrates this point. The plan is divided into separate management components, with a separate, individual, isolated set of policies and procedures for each compartment. Management ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Way Forward
• 1. Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge
• 2. Untangling the Historical Origins of Epistemological Conflict
• 3. Barriers to Integrating Indigenous Knowledge into Natural Resource Management
• 4. Exploring Obstacles in Action: Case Studies of Indigenous Knowledge and Protected-Areas Management
• 5. Joint Management and Co-Management as Strategies for Indigenous Involvement in Protected-Areas Management
• 6. The Indigenous Stewardship Model
• 7. Conclusion
• References
• Index
• About the Authors