Reciprocity: An Ethos “More Than Human”

Abstract

Following up on our previous article, “Weaving Indigenous science, protocols and sustainability science” we posited that for Indigenous and Western Sciences to work together there must be reciprocity. For there to be reciprocity, Western science must adhere to the protocols of Indigenous People’s science. The fundamental underpinnings of reciprocity being “reciprocal appropriation,” first described by Kiowa intellectual N. Scott Momaday in the edited volume, Seeing with a Native eye: Essays on Native American religion. Momaday explained reciprocal appropriation as a paradox in which the Indigenous experience is vested in the landscape and in return the landscape invests itself in the Indigenous experience and observation of a living universe. We attempt to further elaborate on this work by first holding up other intellectuals who have contributed to the ongoing discussion of reciprocity to the natural world through a breadth of engagement with substantive strands of the literature. The term reciprocity in the context of this article works to elaborate on and alludes to a practice of meaningful exchanges that signify the continuation of relationships with all of life. The authors describe cases in which Indigenous people have demonstrated what those temporal and spatially oriented relationships can look like, how they can be carried out, and the commitment required. We conclude by offering the phrase Reciprocal Guardianship as a moral ethos in helping to shape a better stewardship of the natural world.