Biological and Cultural Ecologies, Indigenous Knowledge, and IR 4.0

Abstract

Today we, all of us, are witnessing the environmental crisis that is impacting the seas, the rivers, the forests, the mountains, even the soils of Indonesia. In the context of contemporary, international concern about global ecology, Island Southeast Asia stands out as one of the most highly threatened regions of the world. This environmental crisis has proceeded with and must be linked with the rapid loss of the region’s heritage languages. Biological ecology and cultural ecology are interconnected. Indeed, two decades ago, Nettle (1999) demonstrated that those areas of the world with the highest biological diversity are also the same areas with the highest language diversity. “Any study of endangered flora and fauna in this region should go hand in hand in hand with the study of endangered languages and dialects” (Collins 2019b). These interlinked crises underscore the critical relevance of this meeting today bringing together scholars in the fields of natural and social sciences. What transdisciplinary projects can we identify and agree to undertake that address these parallel and interconnected crises? We must address the fact that “Language endangerment is significantly comparable to—and related to—endangerment of biological species in the natural world” (Krauss 1992:4). Certainly, in the nineteenth century the scientific articulation of modern linguistics was linked to the parallel development of the biological sciences; consequently, the contemporary study of endangered languages must be linked to the contemporary, international concern about global ecology. Along with the biological heritage of Island Southeast Asia, is its language heritage.