Local Ecological Knowledge: A New Evidence Base for Health Research

Abstract

Local and Indigenous community-university relationships in public health, local/traditional ecological knowledge (LEK/TEK), and other community frameworks can build on Funds of Knowledge (existing strengths and resources within our student population) within and outside of the university boundaries. By broadening academic frameworks to include LEK/TEK as a recognized and effective sources of knowledge, we can re-envision the current academic hierarchy through placed-based and contextual partnerships, emphasizing health promotion and disease prevention alongside biomedical treatment, and supporting local action in the context of larger-scale human and planetary health concerns. During the Spring, 2022, we offered a four-part series of workshops to our campus community that consisted of local-global Indigenous perspectives, embracing a co-discovery model drawing deep connections between environment and health resiliency. This was completed through interactive multilingual talks (Spanish and English) featuring participatory demonstrations by activists in Trinidad, Zapotec Indigenous experts based in Oaxaca, and local Indigenous communities in Los Angeles, specifically Fernandeño Tataviam, Gabrieleño-Kizh, and Chumash experts. Our collaborative of Indigenous experts, faculty, and students revealed that rather than being viewed as a biomedical model of diagnosis and treatment, health is more integral to the natural and built environment around us, our lives, and our daily activities. These communities see health and healthcare as dynamic and synthetic, drawing on local expert knowledge, Indigenous practices, and Western medicine. Integrating critical perspectives, especially TribalCrit that acknowledges the racial components of the historical, cultural, institutional, legal, and interpersonal oppression of American Indians, invites communities to collectively contend with past injustices and bring a compendium of evidence consistent with the needs of the planetary health. Through these workshops and collaborations, our students see how environment, food, and health are related. These conversations offer a new paradigm, drawing TEK/LEK, their own Funds of Knowledge, and academic systems that can support new ways of being healthy.