Abstract
Indigenous people whose way of life remains closely connected to their traditional lands are experiencing additional existential threats to culture and language, now exacerbated by climate change. Yet, Traditional Ecological Knowledge is being recognized as a potential contributor in addressing this crisis. Five case vignettes presented in this paper illustrate the depth of resistance, resilience, and adaptation demonstrated by Indigenous people in the face of previous threats to culture and language. ural Alaska, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands, the setting of the vignettes.. Though their locations, history, and customs vary, they share an underlying similarity in the urgency expressed for their Traditional Ecological Knowledge and to use it in adaptive ways that lead to sustainability. An outlier case is included, as it illustrates a different strategy that results in novel and accessible steps to combat climate change.
Highlights
I was introduced to Yap State (FSM) and the Marshall Islands (RMI), located in the western and central Pacific Ocean, through an ethnomathematics-oriented grant, when Sandy Dawson, who was the Principal Investigator, invited me to join the project
In response to events that are leading to existential threats so similar to Alaska’s Indigenous People and to the question, “does one way of life have to die so another can live” (Yupitak Bista, 1974), these vignettes are a witness to drama, tenacity, and herculean efforts by Indigenous People to find a way to navigate the turbulent patterns of modernization by drawing on traditional knowledge and practices
An inspiring individual who is working with the youth on Majuro, Marshall Islands, Kathy was selected from 500 candidates to speak at the United Nations Climate Summit in New York in 2014
Summary
Exploring multifaceted complex systems through case vignettes as a way to frame existential threats to Indigenous languages and cultures represents a radical departure from the ethnographic approach that I employed at the nexus of cultural conflicts in the school. I have expanded upon this theory, as it needs a wider view—a social-cultural-ecological perspective that includes a systems approach linking ecospheres and ethnospheres, and by its complexity requires collaborative relationships with Indigenous nongovernmental and Tribal organizations and their allies (see Cochran et al, 2013; Cochran is a member of the Alaska Native Science Commission—ANSC). This perspective increases the range of interventions from micro to macro, to learning that can occur in school and out of school with Elders and scientists and mathematicians/educators; it seeks to solve problems and breaks the mold by altering human-environment interactions
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