Indigenous knowledge is not an extractable resource
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2021-11
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Academia Letters
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Academia.edu
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Thomas, A. (2021). Indigenous knowledge is not an extractable resource. Academia Letters, https://doi.org/10.20935/al3832.
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Abstract
Indigenous knowledge is increasingly being looked to as containing solutions to contemporary challenges, particularly climate change. Along with growing anxieties about the future of the planet is a parallel “tendency to exalt Indigenous or non-Western others as symbols of inspirational environmental ethics, modelling interspecies, interconnectedness and reciprocity contrary to a Western will-to-destruction” (Neale & Vincent, 2017, 426). Recent calls to harness Indigenous bushfire management techniques in Australia and growing interest in Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in land and resource management globally are examples of this trend and represent important steps forward in improved recognition of Indigenous peoples. However, reaching for Indigenous knowledge when western knowledge and systems fail is to treat it as a gap-filler or additive (Starblanket & Stark, 2018, 170). While recognition is good and conversations around partnering with First peoples to resolve macro-problems are a step in the right direction, Indigenous knowledge cannot be treated as an extractable resource to be managed and used apart from the place, people and culture that generated it.