I used to think that true "science" was all done according to what we call the scientific method, and my mind initially rebelled against the idea that indigenous people's did science when I was first introduced to the concept. I now understand that what I had was a bias rooted so deep in my subconscious that I didn't even know it was there. Of course indigenous peoples did and still do science - now it blows my mind that I ever thought otherwise.
Indigenous peoples haven't been stumbling along clueless for thousands of years. They have traditions. They know things about their land. They know what to eat and what not to eat. They leaned what to use as medicines or to build their canoes or clothes out of. This was not done by accident - it was a source of trial and error and a careful approach to learning about their surroundings (AKA science). And imagine the kind of learning that can be done over thousands of years living in the same place, passing that information forward from generation to generation. There is an intimate relationship that is formed and abundant knowledge that is gained over such a long time. This knowledge has value and needs to be given respect, the same as our "scientific" ecological knowledge.
I always felt a sense of ridiculousness in making students test something that they will instinctively know the outcome of. What are we really trying to teach them? Are they really wrong when they say it is a waste of time? Making them measure the temperature in the sun and the shade, for example, would be pointless. Of course it is warmer in the sun. So why can't we treat them like the intelligent people they are and just get on to asking *why*?
The one thing we need to be careful of when discussing TEK is romanticizing indigenous peoples. There may be a collective wealth of knowledge in the first peoples of this land, but not every indigenous person is an expert in TEK. What's more, not every indigenous person with TEK will choose to share that with us. We need to approach each person as an individual, not as a library of ecological knowledge.
Traditional ecological knowledge has value alongside "scientific" ecological knowledge. The two compliment one another as each have added valuable information to our collective information database. Don't throw out the data just because you're not familiar with the source. Get to know where it came from and you may find a deeper respect for the data and those who collected it.
Indigenous peoples haven't been stumbling along clueless for thousands of years. They have traditions. They know things about their land. They know what to eat and what not to eat. They leaned what to use as medicines or to build their canoes or clothes out of. This was not done by accident - it was a source of trial and error and a careful approach to learning about their surroundings (AKA science). And imagine the kind of learning that can be done over thousands of years living in the same place, passing that information forward from generation to generation. There is an intimate relationship that is formed and abundant knowledge that is gained over such a long time. This knowledge has value and needs to be given respect, the same as our "scientific" ecological knowledge.
I always felt a sense of ridiculousness in making students test something that they will instinctively know the outcome of. What are we really trying to teach them? Are they really wrong when they say it is a waste of time? Making them measure the temperature in the sun and the shade, for example, would be pointless. Of course it is warmer in the sun. So why can't we treat them like the intelligent people they are and just get on to asking *why*?
The one thing we need to be careful of when discussing TEK is romanticizing indigenous peoples. There may be a collective wealth of knowledge in the first peoples of this land, but not every indigenous person is an expert in TEK. What's more, not every indigenous person with TEK will choose to share that with us. We need to approach each person as an individual, not as a library of ecological knowledge.
Traditional ecological knowledge has value alongside "scientific" ecological knowledge. The two compliment one another as each have added valuable information to our collective information database. Don't throw out the data just because you're not familiar with the source. Get to know where it came from and you may find a deeper respect for the data and those who collected it.
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