Abstract
This paper investigates the role of indigenous knowledge in relation to ideas of sustainability focusing on Guatemala. Previous research on environmental engagement and public understanding of science demonstrates the importance of including different perspectives, including traditional forms of knowledges such as for example indigenous knowledges. Environmental governance and management are areas in which indigenous peoples strive towards an acceptance of indigenous knowledge to be placed next to Western scientific knowledge. The struggle concerns the management and control of indigenous territories, but it also concerns the dismantling of a hierarchical understanding of knowledge, which lessens indigenous knowledge about ecosystems and about how to create a good life. Through the revitalization of indigenous knowledge and traditional practices, indigenous communities develop ideas and establishments to find paths towards socioecological balance. This paper studies indigenous groups’ understandings of indigenous knowledge, their struggle to revitalise knowledge and their efforts for it to become validated. It uses decolonial theory in its analysis and raises questions of power structures and hierarchies within academia.
Highlights
Western science has made and continues to make crucial contributions to the production of knowledge in many areas, yet there are other intellectual and epistemic projects in which it does not contribute
Climate change accelerates the loss of indigenous traditional knowledge due to the loss of animals and plants, which makes it even more important to understand the revitalization of indigenous environmental knowledges
Much of what was said during the interviews deals with what indigenous, ancestral, and traditional knowledge entails, how these knowledges are and could be protected as well as transmitted, that these forms of knowledges are a form of science, and how it could complement Western modern science (WMS)
Summary
Western science has made and continues to make crucial contributions to the production of knowledge in many areas, yet there are other intellectual and epistemic projects in which it does not contribute. One paradox is that a lot of knowledge that is important to sustain life on this planet is under threat from Western “science-ridden interventions” [1], p. The extractivist model that companies often practise in indigenous territories is extremely violent against nature and this model is incompatible with sustainability [2]. The above-mentioned paradox makes the active participation of indigenous groups very important in the governance of ecosystems. Climate change accelerates the loss of indigenous traditional knowledge due to the loss of animals and plants, which makes it even more important to understand the revitalization of indigenous environmental knowledges
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