‘Two Ways’: Bringing Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Knowledges Together

Abstract

For millennia, Indigenous knowledge practices have been fundamental to sustaining Indigenous livelihoods and remain important in many parts of the world.Increasingly, non-Indigenous scientists are engaging with Indigenous peoples to consider collaborative approaches to natural resource management.Often there are challenges of what Christie (2007) terms legibility, in which some elements of Indigenous knowledge are easily understood, documented and objectified by non-Indigenous scientists with other, less tangible aspects being ignored and marginalised.Berkes (1999: 12) agrees that non-Indigenous scientists 'end to dismiss understandings that do not fit their own; this includes understandings of other [Indigenous] scientists using different paradigms'.State-funded and bureaucratically organised knowledge practices make codified, generalised, quantifiable and transferable knowledges legible, but limit recognition for those components of Indigenous knowledge that are 'singular, non-transferable, tacit and unable to be expressed in words' (Christie, 2007: 86).Much research has focused on the contents of Indigenous knowledge systems, the practical and empirical, and how it can be broken down into 'bite-sized chunks of information that can be slotted into Western paradigms' (Ellen and Harris, 2000: 15), at the expense of a deeper understanding of the epistemology of Indigenous knowledges (Briggs, 2005).Verran (2002) refers to non-Indigenous scientists as 'information hunters' seeking to collect the 'facts' on the respectful assumption that Aboriginal communities are where they can find a reservoir of locally specific knowledge.She cites the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Commission (Australia) mission statement that includes 'collecting of Aboriginal knowledge' as evidence of the determination to seek 'facts'.Furthermore, there is often then an assumption that these 'factual' knowledges must somehow be scientifically testable to be accepted (Briggs, 2005).However, Indigenous knowledge is not simply a collection of facts, but a way of life.Christie (2007: 87) refers to Indigenous knowledges as what makes possible the 'routine practices of everyday life'.He identifies the characteristics of Indigenous knowledge as performative, something you do rather than have; context specific, differing from place to place; owned, protected and accountable as it is governed by laws; collective; responsive; active and constantly renewed and reconfigured.Language is also integral to these practices and gives meaning to all things.Christie (2007) also explains that knowledge is not limited to human agency, with the land and other species revealing and keeping knowledge alive.