Western Scientific Paradigm Research Articles

Science and indigenous knowledge: the significance of the mātauranga Māori debate

ABSTRACT The debate over the status of mātauranga Māori – the practices and ideas of the first inhabitants of the islands that became known under British colonial rule as New Zealand – has a significance reaching far beyond its shores. The Māori peoples are amongst many indigenous groups globally who found their cultures deprecated by outsiders assuming the role of a governing power. But since the latter part of the twentieth century, arguments for the value of indigenous knowledge have been re-asserted in protest at the perceived dominance of a Western scientific paradigm. Indeed, some defenders of mātauranga Māori want to give it scientific status. Critics reply that mātauranga Māori does not generate genuine knowledge of universals and thus cannot support modern technology. This paper argues that both sides have tended to conflate science with technology, thus treating science as the sovereign standard of all useful knowledge. But not all knowledge must constitute science in order to be worth studying, and science is not wisdom. The paper suggests that recent efforts to give an independent status to indigenous knowledge of the kind that mātauranga Māori represents can be supported by a distinction between ideal types of practical and theoretical knowledge.

State of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the wildlife management profession

AbstractTraditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), described as the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the ecosystem, has always been part of Indigenous communities and their daily lives; however, TEK has progressively been incorporated into the academic and professional field of North American wildlife management and ecology despite its historical domination by Western scientific attitudes, knowledge, and methods. The objective of this note is to provide an overview of such progression from the standpoint of the first author, an Indigenous professional trained in a Western scientific paradigm. More specifically, the paper categorizes the history and the current state of TEK in the wildlife management profession while providing insights for the future of the field.

Prevention of disaster triggered by crowd surge: comparative insights in selected countries and Indonesia

Introduction: Hazards, whether caused by natural or human activities, can potentially lead to disaster. In 2015, the United Nations (UN) at its conference in Sendai, Japan established a framework related to disaster risk reduction to be guided until 2030. However, disaster management related to human-induced hazards has received less attention. The Covid-19 pandemic that has been overcome has made restrictions on human movement begin to loosen. With the increase in travel between regions, countries, and continents, people began to form crowds at events related to religion, entertainment, sports, and other activities. A poorly managed crowd develops into an uncontrolled crowd or riot, and disaster ensues. This paper aims to develop alternative prevention efforts so that similar disasters do not occur in the future. Methods: The method of this paper is a literature review and systematic content analysis of previous scientific articles and research. First, the paper describes disasters at planned events such as music concerts in Texas, United States, and less planned ones such as the Halloween festival in Seoul, South Korea. Then the countermeasures of the two events were compared with the incident in Malang, Indonesia. Finding: The result is that strong cooperation between related parties is needed in organizing events to maintain community safety. The use of technology and tightening regulations can be factors supporting the prevention of this disaster. Increasing the capacity of communities to deal with similar disaster risks is still not widely discussed, so further research is needed. Conclusion: Islamic science is a comprehensive paradigm, similar to Western science, that can serve as a framework for scientists from various fields of knowledge. The Islamic paradigm attempts to critique the concept of universality, which has been one of the values embraced by the Western scientific paradigm. This concept has been one of the reasons why scientific revolutions have occurred slowly.

Rationalising the Political: The Concept of Interest in Postmodern Public Law

References to public interest are abundant in legal scholarship, jurisprudence, and legislation. However, the meaning of interest still remains rather a common sense idea without legible standards or criteria. The article offers to conceptualize it in a broader socio-historical context, as this concept cannot be treated in isolation from the evolution of the Western scientific paradigm that aspires to rationalize the world, to rationally explain and construct a cognitive map of both social and natural environments. To explore the history of “interest” in law means to grasp and reconstruct the phases of the fundamental revolution that legal thought has undergone since the mid-XVIII century. The article offers a bird-eye view of how the concept of interest gained currency and infiltrated law. This evolutionary perspective could explain certain coherence and similarity of various meanings proposed for the concept of interest in case law and scholarship. The article argues that interest becomes socially recognizable and viable when it is perceived and interpreted as such. It acquires validity in legal argumentation if it fits into the cultural schemata of legal framing. The article purports to deconstruct interest as a category. It argues that three key assumptions underpin the concept: (1) interests are social constructs; (2) interests are generated by argumentation (to qualify as interest an existing or perceived good, purpose, motive, aspiration, or claim requires argumentation that triggers “frames of interest” - cognitive representations and constructs); (3) interests are vehicles whereby normative ideas of justice, society, and the world, generated and validated by other normative orders, are adapted, legitimized and incorporated into law. The article discusses the practical implications of these assumptions. In a judicial proceeding, public interest analysis should explore the central organizing idea of a public interest argumentation against three analytical components: (1) substantive (refers to the interest analysis); (2) quantitative (refers to the “society”/ “public” analysis); and (3) qualitative (refers to analysis focusing on whether the argumentation triggers cognitive representations and constructs that reference moral principles). Finally, the reconceptualization of interest as a social construct can shed new light on legal argumentation and the so-called “five I-s of legal reasoning”: intuitiveness, incidentality, indeterminacy, ideology, and irrationality. Though indeed often intuition-driven, interest as a social construct that fits into legal framing is not incidental, indeterminate, or irrational. Incrementing and unfolding via interaction and competition with discourses and legal frames, interests bring in certainty, predictability, and determinacy to open-ended concepts of law.

Ethics Toward Nature in View of Seyyed's Ecosophy Hossein Nasr

This research aims to discuss the environmental crisis that occurs almost all over the world. This research uses a library research approach that contains descriptions of theories, findings and research materials obtained from reference materials to make the basis of research. The results of this study show that the cause of global environmental damage is due to the influence of the reductionist and exploitative western scientific paradigm. Descartes' philosophy that separates the spirit from the body and Newton's mechanistic physics that considers every organism can be known by separating it into small parts like a machine make science dry of spiritual things. Humans are an integral unit and cannot be separated from this nature, awareness of the position of humans in nature as caliphs who must maintain and preserve nature is the main key in handling this natural damage. Nasr provides a solution with Scientia Sacra, which is sacred knowledge that involves revelation which is the heart of knowledge and it is the center of this environment that includes and determines tradition.

Plant‐derived medicinal entomochemicals: an integrated approach to biodiscovery in Australia

AbstractDespite an ancient and well‐established use of insects in traditional medicine, our understanding of their bioactive compounds (entomochemicals) lags far behind that of medicinal plants (phytochemicals). In this review, we focus particularly on insect–plant interactions, to examine the possible dependence of the medicinal properties of insects on phytochemicals that they bioaccumulate or chemically modify. We suggest that a cross‐disciplinary approach including ethnobiology, insect ecology and phytochemistry can provide new opportunities in bioprospecting. Such opportunities lie not only in identifying medicinal entomochemicals that are based on phytochemical accumulation or modification but also on using insects as bioindicators of what plants may contain novel phytochemicals that have not yet been studied. Firstly, evidence is drawn from the international literature on the medicinal use of insects, many of which have pharmacological properties now well established in the Western scientific paradigm. Secondly, we highlight the value of a cross‐disciplinary approach to bioprospecting in an Australian context, where records of traditional Aboriginal use of medicinal insects are scant. Particularly, we explore the Aboriginal use of Lepidoptera as a case study, including witchetty grubs, hawkmoths and processionary caterpillars. We conclude that opportunities remain to connect traditional, ecological and chemical knowledge for biodiscovery, in collaboration with Indigenous communities. Ultimately, the success of any such endeavour is dependent on the successful conservation management of insect biodiversity into the future.

The relevance of connecting sustainable agricultural development with African philosophy

Our global food system is complex and philosophers can – or should – pose critical questions about it. One question that deserves particular attention is Western interference in agricultural development in Africa. To today, the Western scientific paradigm forms the basis for mainstream agricultural research and development – with a firm belief in technological solutions and economic progress. It is concerning that African philosophy is a largely unknown field among agricultural scientists and practitioners. The aim of this philosophical essay is therefore to explore the relevance of connecting sustainable agricultural development with African philosophy. The article explores Eurocentric thinking in agricultural research and development and why such thinking can be problematic. In a search for ways to respond to Eurocentrism, I follow Kimmerle, who engaged in intercultural dialogues between African and Western philosophies. Mutually respectful and transformative dialogues can lead to mutual understanding and a more equal relation between Africa and the West, in the sense that this relation becomes more open to African philosophies and less Eurocentric.

Framing Indigenous Knowledge in Digital Context

For more than three decades, designers have been increasingly involved in various design activities through a large number of participatory design projects in indigenous communities. To understand the indigenous information taxonomies, the designers need active participation and engagement of the local community in the design process. Designers are in the continuous quest for methods and tools that can work as “all-in-one solutions.” However, every project is unique, and it is necessary to decide which design approach, method and tool to use in a specific context. This article covers the experiences of the community-driven design process in the development of indigenous knowledge management systems in a rural site of Borneo. The authors' endeavors lead them to question the validity of techniques and interpretations of interactions originating from a Western scientific paradigm and pursue the creation of an indigenous HCI paradigm to frame design methods. It hoped that the experience will help designers to understand the importance of local communities' active engagement in the design process.

Kōhatu Mauri: An Exercise in Practice across Cultures

The 2017 redevelopment of Otago Museum’s Discovery World into Tūhura, a bi-cultural science centre that reflected an indigenous Kāi Tahu understanding of the universe alongside a western scientific paradigm, was a bold move into new territory for museum staff, who had to become familiar with not only new forms of knowledge, but also to work comfortably with Kāi Tahu tikanga (values-based practice) and cultural beliefs. An integral component of the creation of a space reflective of a Māori worldview is the placement of a Kōhatu Mauri - a small boulder or rock loaded with symbolism that encapsulates the mauri, or 'lifeforce' of a space. In order to enhance its value as a receptacle for the mauri of such a space, a Kōhatu Mauri must be touched, thus increasing the actual mauri it contains. If a Kōhatu Mauri is treated as a typical museum object, isolated and untouched, the result is culturally akin to death and is symbolic of a lack of life and perceived value of its wider space. To fit with Kāi Tahu notions of value, a Kōhatu Mauri is usually selected according to aesthetic, historic, and whakapapa (genealogy) values. It must be firmly rooted in its cultural context, regardless of the space it inhabits. When the need for a Kōhatu Mauri for Tūhura was identified, short timeframes and recognition of the need to select a boulder that captured the above cultural values resulted in the selection of a sarsen stone that had recently been acquired for the geological collections of the Otago Museum. The transition of the sarsen stone into a Kōhatu Mauri highlighted an anomaly in how collection items are valued. When objects that hold a special cultural value for a community come into a museum environment, they tend to lose that value by being removed from their cultural context. This paper will explore how the opposite happened in the case of the sarsen stone transitioning into a Kōhatu Mauri. The contradictions and confusion around understanding multiple layers of meaning and value in a collection item resulted in the Kōhatu Mauri ultimately losing its museum value while in the process of regaining its cultural value.

Ayurveda and Communicable Diseases

Indian medical heritage flows in two distinctive but mutually complimenting streams. The oral tradition being followed by millions of housewives and thousands of local health practitioners is the practical aspect of codified streams such as Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani. These oral traditions are head based and take care of the basic health needs of the people using immediately available local resources. Majority of these are plant based remedies, supplemented by animal and mineral products. Many of the practices followed by these local streams can be understood and evaluated by the codified stream such as Ayurveda. These streams are not static, historical scrutiny of their evolution shows the enriching phenomena at all times. Thus we have more than 7000 species of higher and lower plants and hundreds of minerals and animal product used in local health tradition to manage hundreds of disease conditions. A pertinent question that arises here is that in which basis these systems got enriched. Is it just trial error method over a point of time which gave rise to this rich tradition, is it an intuitive knowledge born out of close association with nature. One of the reasons for this attitude can be, that one is always made to believe that the science means that which can be explained by western models of logic and epistemology. The world view being developed and adopted by the dominant western scientific paradigm never fits in to the world view being followed and practiced by the indigenous traditions. This is well accepted by us due to the last 200 yrs of political and cultural domination by western and other alien forces.

The Medicine Tree: Unsettling palaeoecological perceptions of past environments and human activity

In this paper, we consider palaeoecological approaches to past landscapes and reflect upon how these are relevant to archaeological themes concerning concepts of environmental change and the role of past and present human communities in these processes. In particular, we highlight the importance of local context in the perception and understanding of landscape. Utilising a case study from Nepal, we look to ‘unsettle’ a conventional palaeoecological interpretation of a pollen record, originally constructed on western ecological principles, and instead draw on an interpretative perspective rooted in local Buddhist ecological knowledge, or a ‘folk taxonomy’, known as ‘The Medicine Tree’. We discuss how the interpretations of patterns and processes of vegetation change from a pollen record are not necessarily absolute. In particular, we outline how the palaeoecological frame of enquiry and reference is rooted in an essentially Eurocentric, Western scientific paradigm, which, in turn, shapes how we perceive and conceive of past landscapes and the role of ‘anthropogenic impact’ on vegetation. The aim of this is not to suggest that scientific approaches to the ‘reconstruction’ of past landscapes are necessarily invalid, but to illustrate how ‘empirical’ scientific methods and interpretations in archaeological science are contingent upon specific social and cultural frames of reference. We discuss the broader relevance of this, such as how we interpret past human activity and perception of landscape change, the ways in which we might look to mobilise research in the context of contemporary problems, issues concerning ‘degraded landscapes’ and how we incorporate local and archaeological perspectives with palaeoecology within an interconnected and iterative process.

Mind as a dimension & compassion as a relationship issue

In the following paper it is argued that within a mistaken materialistic western scientific paradigm, mind is incorrectly reduced to brain. Such bad science means that compassion, along with many other phenomena relating to the domain of mind, tends to be measured in a depersonalised and objectified way. This objectification of compassion renders it almost impossible to design care services that will promote and sustain empathic connections between caregivers and recipients of care. This is simply because of a failure to recognise that compassion is a dynamic and interactional product of relationship within a live human context. A more psychologically-minded framework is proposed that honours mind as a dimension of the universe alongside time and space. Within this framework it becomes much easier to recognise and honour the universal psychological needs of the human condition. Within this approach the language of poetry and art is shown to be more relevant to compassion than the language of traditional western science. It also follows from this that it is of the utmost importance to recognise the powerful relational impact on carers of the caring role. If we want true care to be provided, we must also take care of the minds of those whom we expect to give care and attention to others.

Indian Psychology-A Foreign Territory to Mental Health Researchers in India and Worldwide: Reasons and Solutions

This paper critically analyzes the differences between the basic research methodologies followed by western academic psychology and Indian Psychology. The rigid western scientific paradigm characterized by methods of deduction, induction and generalization often fails to recognize hidden avenues for research in Indian psychology. The paper addresses the need for evolving a novel method of research that can be adopted by scholars interested in Indian psychology. KenWilber's Integral approach which gives adequate representation to the theories and findings of Indian psychology is very much revolutionary in terms of its holistic approach towards mental health. His concept of ‘holons’ challenges the very basis of constructs upon which empirical findings of psychopathology rests. Scientific world which is still under the clutch of rigid traditional fact finding methods is still far away from exploiting these treasures of wisdom. The study which mainly relied on books on Indian psychology and 33 articles from electronic media on Indian psychology investigates into impediments that discourage researchers of new generation to plunge into the treasure house of Indian psychology. It gives a glimpse into the methods used in ancient Indian culture to understand the concepts like mind and consciousness. Revelations of discussion concludes that ever widening gulf between academic psychology and indigenous psychology is solely due to lack of adequate awareness about the possibilities of later.

Our Day in Their Shadow: Critical Remembrance, Feminist Science and the Women of the Manhattan Project

Inspired by the publication of a book celebrating the role of the women in the Manhattan Project, this paper seeks to demonstrate that such an effort – to the extent it accepts and endorses the historical, political and scientific legitimacy of the Project – is both misguided and dangerous. An alternative feminist critique is presented: one respecting the views of those scientists (men and women) who refused to participate or who have sought to challenge the reductionist Western scientific paradigm from which the Bomb emerged. Illumination of the repressive and hierarchal structures requisite for the “birth” of the nuclear age is undertaken and views excised by the official narrative – the voices of wives, daughters and victims – are recalled. In constructing this “counter-narrative”, critical stress is laid on the multiple negative legacies of the Project and the positive requirement for humane, sustainable alternatives to the poisonous technologies often spawned by current forms of scientific inquiry.

Reversing the Gaze: Constructing European Race Discourse as Modern Witchcraft Practice

In keeping with the challenge of (African American) historian of religions Charles Long to develop a mode of postcolonial encounter that is a process of mutual hermeneusis, I am proposing in this article to think "race" in terms of "indigenous ritual." At the very least it is an effort to relativize the western scientific paradigm and the universalizing humanities discourses that have nestled close to that paradigm. It is not an attempt to repudiate such an episteme but, rather-to borrow a jazz term-to "swing" it, to put it in antiphonal and improvisational circulation. More specifically, this article will trace a thought experiment, probing the historical emergence of white supremacist practice as a kind of modernist embodiment of "witchcraft discourse," which functions-in the institutional grammar it has left on deposit in contemporary social practice and the "intention to consume" (the substance of others) that it "rationalizes"-very much like the "primitive superstitions" it seeks to name and repudiate in positing its own rationalizing superiority. In such an enterprise, witchcraft, I am arguing, can be "good to think with" as a mode of communicative action, signifying with a kind of "boomerang effect" in the intercultural space of rupture between the West and the rest.

Reversing the Gaze: Constructing European Race Discourse as Modern Witchcraft Practice

In keeping with the challenge of (African American) historian of religions Charles Long to develop a mode of postcolonial encounter that is a process of mutual hermeneusis, I am proposing in this article to think “race” in terms of “indigenous ritual.” At the very least it is an effort to relativize the western scientific paradigm and the universalizing humanities discourses that have nestled close to that paradigm. It is not an attempt to repudiate such an episteme but, rather—to borrow a jazz term—to “swing” it, to put it in antiphonal and improvisational circulation. More specifically, this article will trace a thought experiment, probing the historical emergence of white supremacist practice as a kind of modernist embodiment of “witchcraft discourse,” which functions—in the institutional grammar it has left on deposit in contemporary social practice and the “intention to consume” (the substance of others) that it “rationalizes”—very much like the “primitive superstitions” it seeks to name and repudiate in positing its own rationalizing superiority. In such an enterprise, witchcraft, I am arguing, can be “good to think with” as a mode of communicative action, signifying with a kind of “boomerang effect” in the intercultural space of rupture between the West and the rest.

The formulation of a health research agenda by and for indigenous peoples: contesting the Western scientific paradigm.

The paper addresses concerns related to the impact of Western science and technology upon indigenous communities in the face of current heightened globalization trends. Elements of the Western scientific paradigm that are antagonistic to indigenous ways of life and can result in detrimental cultural disruption are identified. In examining the Andean health paradigm, conceptual elements inherent to indigenous forms of knowledge generation are uncovered. The paper offers recommendations for the formulation of a research agenda and health promotion strategies aimed at maximizing the benefits of cultural interaction while minimizing potential damage to indigenous peoples.

The Formulation of a Health Research Agenda by and for Indigenous Peoples: Contesting the Western Scientific Paradigm

The paper addresses concerns related to the impact of Western science and technology upon indigenous communities in the face of current heightened globalization trends. Elements of the Western scientific paradigm that are antagonistic to indigenous ways of life and can result in detrimental cultural disruption are identified. In examining the Andean health paradigm, conceptual elements inherent to indigenous forms of knowledge generation are uncovered. The paper offers recommendations for the formulation of a research agenda and health promotion strategies aimed at maximizing the benefits of cultural interaction while minimizing potential damage to indigenous peoples.