That this editorial appears in the premier journal Science, and is one of a growing number of pieces urging us to respect “indigenous ways of knowing”, suggests that the woke movement has sprouted a new branch. It’s one I’ve discussed many times with respect to Māori “ways of knowing” (Mātauranga Māori, or MM) in New Zealand.
The problem with MM is that it’s not just empirical knowledge (i.e., “practical knowledge”, like when to collect eels or berries), but also includes nonscientific things like morality, religion, spirituality, guides for living, and “life forces” (an important element, mauri) that turns the whole enterprise into an exercise in vitalism. It is this infection of indigenous knowledge with supernaturalism or religion that should make us wary of saying, “Let’s merge indigenous ways of knowing with modern science!”
Now the spirit of MM has made its way across the Pacific to Canada and the U.S. as an offshoot of the “oppressor vs. oppressed” narrative. In this case, indigenous people, regarded as oppressed—and they largely were—are supposed to be given scientific credibility as a form of reparations. As Luana and I wrote in our paper, “The ideological subversion of biology,”
The promotion of these other ways of knowing comes from a desire to valorize oppressed groups by holding up much of their culture as having the same epistemic authority as science, a view that philosopher Molly McGrath called “the authority of the sacred victim.” In its secular form, this authority derives from postmodern views that science is just one of many “ways of knowing” and that the hegemony of science reflects power rather than accomplishment. This is encapsulated by the motto, espoused by some on both the Right and the Left for decades, that “science is always political.”
Like biblical creationism, much indigenous knowledge has a substantial spiritual or theological component that comes not from evidence but from authority or revelation. To add any of this knowledge to modern science, you must first separate the empirical wheat from the spiritual chaff. This is what the nondenominational Pastor Mike Aus meant when, after giving up his faith, he described “religious knowledge” this way: “There are not different ways of knowing. There is knowing and not knowing, and those are the only two options in this world.”
And so we have a new editorial in Science that’s an expression of this mentality. Granted, it’s not as dogmatic or misguided as articles promoting MM in New Zealand, but give North America some time. . .
Click to read:
Before we start supporting “indigenous science,” we need to know what the “science” is. If Native Americans have better ways of conserving the environment than does modern science, then yes, we should learn from them. But do they? I can’t think of any, and in fact some of their practices, like overkilling buffalo or burning the prairie to provide grass for their horses, may well be the opposite of what conservationists recommend today. As far as knowing the temporal habits and schedules of native plants and animals, yes, we should learn from Native Americans.
But this is all practical knowledge, and to truly verify it as scientific knowledge, you need to verify assertions about what’s empirically true using the methods of modern science: experiments, hypotheses, replicability, the use of controls and so on.
In contrast to modern science, indigenous science is rarely hypothesis-driven, and so is limited to the much narrower sphere of practical knowledge: what can be detected by observation alone. Again, that doesn’t mean that indigenous knowledge should be ignored, but perhaps we should be wary of indigenous ways of knowing. These often involve a spiritual element that simply gets in the way of modern scientific understanding, preventing the building of telescopes, the study of ancient remains, and so on. Further, by neglecting modern scientific tools, indigenous “ways of knowing” aren’t really ways of knowing. Does eating plant X really cure you of arthritis? How do you know that without controls? Simple attestations of the afflicted is not sufficient. If they were, then homeopathy, chiropractic, and aura therapy would also be “ways of knowing.”
This doesn’t mean that we can’t incorporate empirical observations of indigenous people into science. But it does mean that indigenous “ways of knowing” are almost never really ways of knowing. They only become so when the tools of modern science are used to actually produce “knowledge’: understanding of something in the universe that is widely accepted after repeated and rigorous testing.
And so, like many of these articles, this one is long on equity and oppression but short on science. Where are the examples of how we can fruitfully merge indigenous “science’ with modern science? There are none:
Here, for example, we have empathic and sweet-sounding words, but a worrying lack of specificity:
Faced with the profound challenges of a rapidly changing environment, society needs other ways of knowing to illuminate a different way forward. Thanks to the leadership of Indigenous scholars and allied collaborators, Indigenous knowledge is receiving long overdue recognition for its potential to provide solutions for the mutual thriving of lands and cultures. An urgent question is how institutions can appropriately support (and not hinder) Indigenous science’s key role in creating a sustainable future.
After years of marginalization by Western science, regard for Indigenous knowledge is reaching high places. For example, in 2022, the White House called for elevating such knowledge in research, policy, and land management. This is extraordinary given the United States’ track record of attempted erasure of Indigenous thought through policies of removal and forced assimilation.
There is a global groundswell of Indigenous-led research on stewardship of lands and waters, providing opportunities for Indigenous and Western knowledges to flourish together.
Is any new “knowledge” described in the paragraphs above? I don’t see any.
The text below describes an expensive U.S. government program that is designed to support indigenous science. But what it’s really doing is supporting indigenous people. There’s nothing wrong with that, but let’s not pretend that this is a true melding of indigenous “science” and modern science.
A major step in this direction was announced last September by the US National Science Foundation, in its establishment of the Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science (CBIKS). Led by a team of 54 predominantly Indigenous scholars and headquartered at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, CBIKS aims to focus on complex issues at the nexus of nature and culture. The research teams, which span the globe, will address climate disruption, food insecurity, and cultural survival through learning from Indigenous community-based approaches. The goal is to identify and advance models of ethical and effective integration of Indigenous and Western sciences by creating mutually respectful and reciprocal relationships between them. CBIKS will develop generalizable approaches for a diversity of scientific communities.
Yes, one has to understand local cultures to implement these programs, and of course you have to be “respectful”, but you can bet your bippy that. the tools that will be used here will wind up being the tools of modern science.
In the end, all these programs are extensions of DEI initiatives. They are ways not to enrich modern science, but to help people regarded as oppressed. I emphasize again that this is not necessarily bad, or a simple manifestation of performative wokeness, but we have to realize that neither is this a way to enrich modern science. It is social engineering motivated by concern for the oppressed. And it is a way for marginalized people to gain power, whether or not they can use that power effectively:
CBIKS is a prime example of a model that supports research guided by the worldview and priorities of Indigenous peoples around the world. Similar initiatives in Australia, Canada, Aotearoa/New Zealand, and elsewhere are also leading the way. For too long, Indigenous peoples have been fighting for a voice in decisions regarding their lands, waters, and lives. Indigenous-led research efforts will point to different paths forward—those in which Indigenous peoples do not merely have a seat at Western science’s table but are setting research agendas that reflect their priorities and protocols.
You get a seat at modern (I hate “Western”) science’s table by earning a seat at the table. You’re not just given one because of your ethnicity. If bigotry or oppression has held back native people from studying or practicing science, then we must correct that by giving them the same opportunities as everyone else. Nor should we exploit their lands, their knowledge, or their resources without their full participation and collaboration. But we shouldn’t pretend that we’re doing all this as a way to enrich science. These programs are, pure and simple, DEI initiatives—ways to overcome obstacles erected by bigotry and oppression. (Conceived in this way, DEI isn’t always bad!)
Finally, the article tosses more word salad that promises to create a climate “that values pluralism while protecting sovereignty of diverse knowledges. In this way, solutions can emerge from the symbiosis between Western and Indigenous knowledges that benefit everyone.”
But what are “diverse knowledges”?
And when the authors say this:
For centuries, Indigenous scientists have had to adapt to, and develop fluency in, Western modes of knowledge making. It’s now Western scientists’ turn to learn from, and respect, Indigenous science.
Indigenous science’ seems a bizarre term to use in a science journal. Science is science globally, regardless of the source. It doesn’t vary between peoples or nations.
Any MM claims to science-based knowledge should be documented, tested and peer reviewed. Just like any other scientific claim.
Any claims that pass rigorous scrutiny will enrich global science. Any that don’t are just anecdotal and shouldn’t be documented in science journalism.
Science has worked on this basis for a long time. The process works. No need to change it because some people think they have ‘special’ science.
A note on your “special”, and the suggested speciality – or, perhaps, superiority – of Indigenous science:
Secret knowledge is what cults promise access to via their special consciousness, e.g. critical consciousness.
100%. Cults often like to keep their ‘secret knowledge’ among those who have been indoctrinated because exposure to the light usually reveals the lies. I’m surprised MM is being opened to scrutiny. Although it may be the type of ‘scrutiny’ that only lets in people who are open to indoctrination, and not the rest of us. Science journal seems to be ready to suspend skepticism.
Another pithy observation that is right on the money, TP.
Appreciate that
I know saying “cult” sounds and feels flippant, but these are the terms I think need to be in play, because they clarify. It’s almost as if “cult” is assumed to be an insult, and therefore is taken advantage of – but cults are real. Two authors to check:
Steven Hassan (escaped The Moonies)
Margaret Thaler Singer especially Cults in our Midst
… and as I suggest below, though I’d like to take credit for these “insights”, it’s really due to James Lindsay’s writing/etc., which includes references to literature to follow up. It is an uncomfortable subject – but reading is the antidote.
But I ramble…
Growing up I was told Communism was based on science. The party was in the VANGARD of protecting Native people’s against the capitalists.
The present anti settler/colonialist demonstrations against the US and Israel are the prodigy of what I was brought up with. You would think leftist wouldn’t make common cause with Islamist but just remember the pact between USSR and Hitler.
“Science is science globally…”
Presumably the point is that “science” is the systematic ordering, sorting, and classifying of the natural, empirical world, and as such we do find different ways of ordering, classifying, etc in other cultures. In the West, we tend to use the term “science” for both the ordering, classifying, etc — “science” most narrowly — and for various ways of testing or confirming the validity of those ordering, classifying principles. The “scientific method” is a powerful way to determine if our ordering, classifying, sorting, etc is accurate, but absent the “scientific method” we still can have science. I have worked with an indigenous community that classifies fish into those that are bottom feeders and those that are surface feeders. A perfectly reasonable and “scientific” classification if you rely on successful fishing for your dinner. If your goal is to map evolutionary connections between or among types of fish, however, it would probably fail.
I think the most powerful critiques of “indigenous science” are, as Prof. Coyne suggests, those that focus on empirical accuracy and those that reject ‘vitalism.’ But apart from that it might be possible to conceive of “science” as something that is fundamentally human in the propensity to classify, order, and sort the world in ways that make sense, if only for relatively narrow purposes.
“Science is science globally…”
By this I meant that gravity is the same for everyone, even for gravity deniers. The earth revolves around the sun, despite the myth above that someone placed it in the sky. Classifying a fish as a bottom feeder doesn’t stop it being a fish, just as saying sex is a spectrum doesn’t make it so. I was thinking of the abstract facts that govern our existence.
But I understand what you mean, thanks.
“…A major step in this direction was announced last September by the US National Science Foundation, in its establishment of the Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science (CBIKS). Led by a team of 54 predominantly Indigenous scholars and headquartered at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, CBIKS aims to focus on complex issues at the nexus of nature and culture. The research teams, which span the globe, will address climate disruption, food insecurity, and cultural survival through learning from Indigenous community-based approaches. The goal is to identify and advance models of ethical and effective integration of Indigenous and Western sciences by creating mutually respectful and reciprocal relationships between them. CBIKS will develop generalizable approaches for a diversity of scientific communities.”
Rarely have I read a paragraph so devoid of content, but so replete with buzzwords. And in Science for Jod’s sake!
To be generous, I guess that we might be able to learn from “Indigenous community-based approaches” how to deal with some very specific environmental or agricultural problems. But we would still have to test those approaches to see if, or how, they work.
But yes, apart from that it’s basically b*llocks.
“But what are “diverse knowledges”?”
Marxism.
Because Marxism is excluded from free societies on purpose.
Entrism (or Entryism, and yes, that’s a thing) of Marxism needs anything with revolutionary potential (here, Indigenous culture) to be included in an institution such that Marxism can colonize that institution.
Articles that set up reflexive, dialectical political warfare, promote Marxism. The perception of opposing contradictions pulls the resolution of that conflict towards Marxism’s
The issue is never the issue – the issue is the Revolution.
In theory, of course.
BTW I do not pretend to have found this out on my own, it’s James Lindsay who finds all this literature, which can then be read independently.
Marxism, particularly in the USSR, was VERY much into valorization of the indigenous (Siberian) tribes. Apart from being hard to get at they were relatively safe from Stalin.
Meat grinder Mao was similar in words (didn’t stop him killing a bunch, though. Ask a Tibetan).
And Pol Pot’s clique used Montegard (indigenous, very primitive non-Khmer forest people of the NE) as bodyguards and messengers in Democratic Kampuchea.
It is a uniquely leftist retardation.
D.A.
NYC
That’s fascinating. Never heard about this in my college Marxism course (maybe because the prof was an proud admitted Marxist himself). I learn so much from all of you here. Thank you
Was that claim by the Dogon tribe in Nigeria that Sirius was a double star ever sufficiently debunked ?
We don’t hear much about this nonsense from the indigenous populations of Scotland or Norway or Japan and many many other peoples. I wonder why that is? Not oppressed enough? Too busy living and working and contributing to their country perhaps?
I am not sympathetic to these claims, period! We are or were all “indigenous “ at some time in our ancestry and it is time to stop pandering to these groups or tribes or first nations and science is science.
Indigenous Scots like John Logie Baird, Alexander Graham Bell, Williamina Fleming, Alexander Fleming, Joseph Lister, James Young Simpron, Marjorie Ritchie, James Watt and Thomas Telford?
Just jesting, but most Scots now are of Nordic (Viking) or Germanic descent, with Picts, Angles, Gaels and Britons in the mix. I can’t think of any group that could really call itself ‘indigenous’ in the same way indigenous people of other countries can. Our heritage is very mixed.
JOOLZ, fair comment and Scotland has an amazing history of famous Scots, look at the “Lighthouse Stevensons” for another example.
The point I was trying to make is that claiming special treatment as “ indigenous “ is just a matter of time, ie they are in the early stages of what the rest of humanity has already transited, this does not make them special, just recent and it doesn’t make their claims any more relevant imo. As someone who grew up in Scotland as a Scot it makes me connected to Scotland but with no special claim to other ways of knowing and as for the Sami of Norway my Norwegian friends tell me they, the Sami are just jumping on the “indigenous “ band wagon and they are simply Norwegians like everyone else 😊
I was just kidding, but it’s akin to a debate going on here at the moment. Some are claiming that only ‘native’ Scots should vote in an independence referendum. I’ve explained to many that ‘pure bred’ Scots are few. There are many like me who were born elsewhere but spent all their working lives here paying taxes, and many people born Scottish can claim that heritage but don’t contribute. Luckily most ScotNats are civic nationalists and don’t care where you were born, unlike EngNats who tend to be ethnic nationalists.
I’d assumed that Sami were indigenous. I must read more.
JOOLZ.
Personally I prefer unity with England, Wales and Ireland. I do not believe much of what the SNP claim and they are remarkably not forthcoming on the details of joining the EU and costs etc. England and the rest of the UK are Scotlands largest export market and there is also the problem of currency again the SNP are vague. I have not lived in Scotland for more than sixty years so I guess I would not get to vote anyway.
Regards and enjoy Scotland, nowhere quite like it and I live in “New Scotland” which is absolutely nothing whatsoever like the original.
I can’t reply to your latest comment. Scotland can be independent, just like Denmark, Netherlands etc. We wanted to stay in the EU and will be fast-tracked back in if we want. Currency is not an issue. England is a major market, yes, they need our water and power and will keep buying it. We’ll save a fortune on Trident and wars.
I won’t write more as this is off topic, but just don’t believe what you read in the media. There’s some good discussion on Twitter.
PS The nasty new ‘woke’ SNP will lose a lot of seats at the General Election this year.
Indigenous heritage in North America is similarly mixed, albeit with records that are written only in the genome. What else would war paint and warriors have been for? Certainly they didn’t arise spontaneously out of the dust just to fight little old us.
This has now made me wonder whether the electromagnetic theory of the great Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell counts as “indigenous science”
😀
What about Maxwell and Hume? They would be top of my list of the greatest Scots ever, but many in Scotland have never heard of them. /gripe
(Apologies to Andrew; meant as a reply to Joolz at 4.05 pm.)
I’d share the gripe. I love Hume’s writings, especially the “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion”, which I re-read every so often and never fail to find instructive and amusing.
There’s also James Boswell, who despite writing a great biography appears to be little celebrated in the city of his birth – at least according to the excellent series “Boswell & Johnson’s Scottish Road Trip”: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13448116/
The indigenous population of Scotland is nocht to leff behynde, as we know from the now ubiquitous use of the word “pixels”, derived of course from the Picts. As for the indigenous population of (northern) Norway, see: https://deeply.thenewhumanitarian.org/arctic/community/2016/10/07/the-saami-university-that-creates-indigenous-scientists .
My goodness, my Scots doesn’t go back that many centuries! I tracked the expression then had to google Bernardus de cura rei famuliaris. Thanks, interesting to learn that.
The reference to the indigenous population of Norway may have been meant as a kind of jokey remark. But the indigenous people of Norway are Sámi, part of the group of Sámi people in the Nordic countries. They do have traditional knowledge relevant to ecology. And indeed there are programs on Sámi cultural heritage in Scandinavia.
Interesting that the White House has apparently green-lighted headquartering CBIKS at UMass Amherst and not at a Tribal College and University institution. Not exactly all in, boys.
Pontificating one way or the other from the outside is all well and good, but personally I am curious as to the opinions of scientists (hard scientists, not social scientists btw) who themselves are indiginous. Is this bout of “inclusivity” a welcome thing? Do they feel that it is a positive development, legitimately deserving of its new scientific standing? Or do they feel pandered to, as though the world sees indiginous people as a demographic too ensconced in tradition to see beyond it, or worse, in need of a dumbed down version of science? Is it a recognition that is a long time coming, or does it, to them, represent the soft bigotry of low expectations?
Here is a list (not exhaustive) of nine living Canadians with at least some indigenous heritage who are described as “remarkable” scientists and researchers.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/remarkable-indigenous-scientists-and-researchers
Only one (Dyck) could be unambiguously called a scientist engaged in original research for a major portion of her career, using the same methods of science that other scientists use. (In 2005, she was appointed to the Canadian Senate, which is a sinecure to age 75 for accomplished individuals the governing political party wishes to reward for having done Good Works or for ticking DEI boxes. She turned to activism there but not in the specific sense of advocating the melding of indigenous woo with science.)
The rest are more accurately characterized as activists financed or inspired by what is called here “the Indian [Advocacy] Industry”, not as researchers as scientists understand the term. Several are lawyers and medical practitioners. (Law and medical schools in Canada are desperate to admit qualified indigenous applicants.) There are of course many other professional practitioners who are not engaged in high-profile activism to have made this list.
Reaching back further into the past and casting the STEM net wider to include non-scientists like tech workers, you can review another six:
https://www.sfu.ca/wwest/WWEST_blog/7-indigenous-people-in-stem-you-should-know.html (Prof. Dyck appears on this list, too.)
Another proponent of indigenous mathematics not on either list is Dr. Edward Doolittle. I won’t put a link to him as it will send this post to moderation and make more work for Jerry. In his talks, he wears his activism on his sleeve and embodies the opposite approach from Dr. Dyck, arguing that there is a mathematics grounded in indigenous ways of knowing that can be unlocked by people who have at least some indigenous heritage.
That’s a great question (to use a much worn out expression… I despise it when interviewees use it). I’d love to hear their opinions, too.
Or do they feel a soupçon of apprehension, when they realise they are going to have their beliefs exhibited to the world? Attributing natural phenomena to the Great Spirit sounds lovely at an ecumenical council, but may not stand up so well at a scientific meeting.
The Indigenous peoples of the NW Pacific coast have this account of the origin of the sun: Raven stole it from a great chief, who had kept it in a secret box, and put it up in the sky to provide light for us down here. My research plan, based on this example of Indigenous Science, will explore the idea of putting the sun back in the box, so as to reduce global warming. The research proposal will of course go to the Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science. Since the account above comes mostly from the Kwakiutl way of knowing, my research proposal might fare best if sent directly to the Canada Research Coordinating Committee (see: https://www.canada.ca/en/research-coordinating-committee/priorities/indigenous-research/strategic-plan-2019-2022.html ).
Incidentally, novices may be puzzled by the term “Braiding” in the referenced NSF Center. As it turns out, there are fine distinctions between “braiding”, “bridging” and “weaving” in the literature relevant to the decolonialization of diverse Knowledges (see: https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/science-technology/indigenous-science.html ).
“putting the sun back in the box, so as to reduce global warming”
May have a similar result to those flat earth ‘researchers’ who had a documentary of themselves experimenting to prove the earth is flat….. and proved it’s not. They blamed it on an error with the way the experiment was conducted of course, and not the fact that they were wrong.
The discussion has been framed in terms of the contrast between modern science and indigenous knowledge. This leaves out early science in civilizations with written records, including Greek science and Mesopotamian science. This is quite different from indigenous forms of knowledge, and includes such things as the measurement of the circumference of the Earth, which requires a much more developed system of knowledge and systematic record-keeping than anything that indigenous people have ever done. Observational astronomy developed in various civilizations which kept written records of observations and were able to predict astronomical phenomena. Another important feature of early science (again contrasting with what indigenous non-literate people have done) is conceptual developments like the unit of measurement of a degree of a visual arc. The science Dante studied was not modern science, but it is reasonable to call it medieval science.
Great, a science journal promotes ethnic specificity in science, as “indigenous science”. Perhaps they think we should re-visit the concept of “Jewish physics”…?
If anything produced by indigenous people is science, then it’s just science.
I was wondering if anyone would invoke “Jewish physics” so thanks for this. My head aches in response to “indigenous science”. It’s like “alternative medicine”. If it works in a rigorously reproducible manner it’s medicine (ahh–should this be: western medicine?).
Tim Minchin said it best, in Storm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Minchin%27s_Law
Let me note here that people should not be posting more than 10-15% of the comments in a thread, as per Da Roolz.
“That this editorial appears in the premier journal Science, and is one of a growing number of pieces urging us to respect “indigenous ways of knowing”, suggests that the woke movement has sprouted a new branch.” – J. Coyne
Yes, indeed! There is a new branch within (Critical) Cultural Studies called (Critical) Indigenous Studies. See:
“The Routledge Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies is the first comprehensive overview of the rapidly expanding field of Indigenous scholarship. The book is ambitious in scope, ranging across disciplines and national boundaries, with particular reference to the lived conditions of Indigenous peoples in the first world.
The contributors are all themselves Indigenous scholars who provide critical understandings of indigeneity in relation to ontology (ways of being), epistemology (ways of knowing), and axiology (ways of doing) with a view to providing insights into how Indigenous peoples and communities engage and examine the worlds in which they are immersed. …
This handbook contributes to the re-centring of Indigenous knowledges, providing material and ideational analyses of social, political, and cultural institutions and critiquing and considering how Indigenous peoples situate themselves within, outside, and in relation to dominant discourses, dominant postcolonial cultures and prevailing Western thought.”
Source: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-of-Critical-Indigenous-Studies/Hokowhitu-Moreton-Robinson-Tuhiwai-Smith-Andersen-Larkin/p/book/9780367642891
And note that the Science editorial seems to be an extension (perversion) of the ideas in the Routledge Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies. The blurb for the Handbook and the table of contents don’t mention “science” once. Understanding Indigenous ontology, epistemology, ethics — all of that could be interesting (IMHO at least). But I don’t see anything in the description of the Handbook that suggests that it’s saying these world views constitute science. (Maybe the Handbook does that. I don’t know. But doesn’t need to do it to cover the other topics it covers.)
“In the end, all these programs are extensions of DEI initiatives. They are ways not to enrich modern science, but to help people regarded as oppressed. I emphasize again that this is not necessarily bad, or a simple manifestation of performative wokeness, but we have to realize that neither is this a way to enrich modern science. It is social engineering motivated by concern for the oppressed.” – J. Coyne
Political partisanism is part of the essence of (critical) cultural studies in general and of (critical) indigenous studies in particular.
“Cultural studies is an interlocking set of leftist intellectual and political practices. Its central purpose is twofold: (1) to produce detailed, contextualized analyses of the ways that power and social relations are created, structured, and maintained through culture; and (2) to circulate those analyses in public forums suitable to the tasks of pedagogy, provocation, and political intervention.”
(Rodman, Gilbert B. Why Cultural Studies? Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2015. pp. 39-40)
Granted, it’s not as dogmatic or misguided as articles promoting MM in New Zealand, but give North America some time. . .
I suspect that there is a reinforcing circle going on here,
godceiling cat help us.I’ve thought for some time that the principles of the Enlightenment, and its handmaiden science, are effective but hard work. The thrust of Western society (as a generalisation) is towards the ‘easy’ and ‘fulfilling’ because so many more people can play politics/spirituality and make a living at it.
So you could argue that the rebirth of ‘Indigenous Science’ is one more example of the New Romanticism trying to displace the Old Enlightenment.
I remember a relatively young woman who developed one of the more easily treated forms of lung cancer. She chose to use sweetgrass smudging ceremonies and a sweatlodge rather than cisplatin and etoposide. So rather than surviving a couple of years she didn’t make a couple of months, and having burned her bridges she ended up with a very painful unmedicated end as she felt she could not change her mind and lose face. Very distressing for all concerned, even for my colleague whose patient she nominally was. That is what indigenous science gets you.
The editorial would have been more palatable if it had referred to “technology” instead of “science”. But there’s no attempt to make that distinction. It does not use the word “technology” once. It does not speak of “practical knowledge” or “techniques” even once. Instead, it speaks of “worldviews”, “modes of knowledge”, “ways of knowing”, “research agendas”, etc. But the distinction is crucial to a discussion on this broad topic! Doesn’t Science know what science is? Shocking.
“Faced with the profound challenges of a rapidly changing environment, society needs other ways of knowing to illuminate a different way forward.”
And what would these be?
Performative nonsense with no substance.
Let’s get something clear – Native Americans did not “overkill’ bison. That took lots of “whitemen” with large caliber bullets to overkill bison. Native Americans had been hunting bison for centuries and had not “overkilled” them, They killed what they needed and that’s it. And yes, sometimes they used methods which killed more bison than they needed by running them over a cliff, but they still made barely a dent in plains populations. “Whitemen” killed almost entirely for buffalo hides which went into clothing for “whitepeople.” The classic picture of overkill is of a huge pile of bison skulls – perhaps 20 feet high. By about 1880 the “whitemen” had pretty well exhausted bison populations from one end of the Great Plains to the other. Much restocking of bison was done from a relatively small herd from Canada
In trying to get something straight I fear you display your biases. (I’m not sure why “whitemen” needs scare quotes.) I think it is fair to say that the arrival of European settlement, grazing, and transportation patterns in the Western United States brought about the near-extinction of bison, which would be considered large, dangerous, pest animals in need of thorough culling. Before cattle ranching started, both the Hudson’s Bay Company and the U.S. Army needed prodigious quantities of bison meat as well as hides. These demands — everyone’s gotta eat, you know — competed with aboriginal subsistence hunting.
The oft-told story — we were taught it in public school — about gratuitous shooting of bison (from trains) for sport or to starve out the American Indians has proved difficult to track down, perhaps because shooting them to keep them off the railroad tracks and away from the ranches may well have served other, darker interests. Bovine tuberculosis, brucellosis, and anthrax contracted from domestic cattle remain a challenge in National Park herds to this day (the last now controlled by vaccination.) Understanding and recording these diseases awaited the discoveries of Louis Pasteur, by which time the herds were mostly gone. If I was a betting man, I would bet on epidemics of introduced infectious cow diseases being a more efficient exterminator of bison than human shooting, much as was the case for the aboriginal people themselves.
I think you are overly indulgent of the buffalo jumps. Indeed these communal hunts went on for hundreds of years without exterminating the herds but it can’t be denied that this was the go-to (not “sometimes”) means of killing bison before the horse and the rifle arrived in the West. It was deliberately and unavoidably wasteful as we see it today but it is a simple matter to develop a religious/spiritual justification such as the Earth Mother offering up Her bounty for us to use as best we can. We return to Her bosom (and to the scavenger animals who are also Her children) in gratitude the hundreds or thousands of dead and crippled animals which we cannot eat or preserve. Large piles of bones from many years of hunts were found at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Alberta and replicas are depicted at the historic site. It presumably was sustainable, not that anyone would have any way of knowing, for the population at the time. Sustainability has a way of evaporating, though, once a population gets bigger. The necessary waste at a buffalo jump is a luxury a small population can afford.
In the absence of records or any pre-Contact notion of counting, one can’t say how often a roaming herd would appear near a cliff to be stampeded over it. But jumps were developed all over the Canadian and American West. There is nothing morally wrong or even wasteful as we understand it with hunting this way. But it is wrong to pretend it was deliberately part of taking only what they needed. The point of being a nomad is so that when game (and later, fur animals) becomes depleted locally, you can up stakes and move on to new hunting grounds, driving off any hunters currently exploiting them.
Finally, the famous 1892 archival photo of piles of bison skulls is not quite what it is often claimed to be. The pile is a trainload of bones collected from all over the Plains that had been bleaching in the sun for many years, there being no pre-Contact use for them, and unloaded at a Michigan fertilizer plant. It in no way represents a single year’s harvest of extermination. There are other photos of bones stacked at Canadian rail depots awaiting transport east. By the time the railway reached western Canada, the bison were gone. But there were still lots of bones.
https://brighterworld.mcmaster.ca/articles/historical-photo-of-mountain-of-bison-skulls-documents-animals-on-the-brink-of-extinction/