This paper explores a colonial controversy: the imposition of state rules to limit salmon fishing in a Scandinavian subarctic river. These rules reflect biological fish population models intended to preserve salmon populations, but this river has also been fished for centuries by indigenous Sámi people who have their own different practices and knowledges of the river and salmon. In theory, the Norwegian state recognizes traditional ecological knowledge and includes this in its biological assessments, but in practice this does not (...) happen, so Sámi fishing practices and the realities that they enact are disappearing. This paper explores how to conceptualize colonial differences in knowing. Drawing on recent anthropology, it asks how “settler” and “nomadic” enact worlds and their realities, suggesting that, unlike the latter, the former create a single reality intolerant of alternatives. The focus is thus on a “politics of how” and the ways in which colonial realities and knowledges might intersect less destructively. (shrink)

A century ago historian of science George Sarton argued that “science is our greatest treasure, but it needs to be humanized or it will do more harm than good”. The systematic cultivation of an “historical spirit,” a philosophical appreciation of the dynamic nature of scientific inquiry, and a recognition that science is irreducibly a “collective enterprise” was, on Sarton’s account, crucial to the humanizing mission he advocated. These elements of Sarton’s program are more relevant than ever as (...) philosophers of science articulate research programs that take seriously the contextual factors, situated interests, and historical contingencies that shape the sciences we study. I trace the trajectory of a long-term philosophical engagement with archaeology that illustrates a succession of ways in which social, cultural, and political values configure inquiry, culminating in a program of collaborative research that raises the question of what role philosophers can usefully play when the challenges of humanizing scientific practice have centrally to do with navigating entrenched asymmetries of power. (shrink)

Early-modern natural history has frequently been interpreted as a handmaid of natural philosophy. Mary Poovey, for example, has argued that seventeenth-century nuggets of information only became ‘m...

This article sets out to explore the way in which Western science and technology was received in the Mbeere Mission of central Kenya since August 1912 when a medical missionary, Dr T.W.W. Crawford, visited the area. In his dalliance with ecclesiastical matters, Crawford, a highly trained Canadian medical doctor, was sent by the Church Missionary Society (CMS) at Kigari-Embu, in 1910, to pioneer the Anglican mission in the vast area that included Mbeereland, where Mbeere Mission is situated. Contending with (...) the African indigenous knowledge in medicine, environmental conservation, agriculture and other forms of indigenous science, the introduction of Western science and technology, 1912 to 1952, the article argues, did not erase the former; rather, it complimented it. Pockets of general resistance were evident, though Mbeereland, unlike its neighbouring Mutira Mission of 1912, did not offer elaborate opposition to the Western science and technology, partly because the locals could have learnt about it from their neighbours who had experienced it much earlier. Through a historico-narrative design, the research article endeavours to primarily review the coming of Western medicine in Mbeereland: Did it conflict with the African medicine? Methodologically, the data have been collected via archival sources, oral interviews and by reviewing applicable literature.Contribution: The input of this research article to the HTS Journal’s vision and scope is seen by appreciating its focus on the interface between African indigenous knowledge and the European science and technology. Although the main focus is. (shrink)

Are social sciences that are indigenous to the West necessarily universal for other cultures? This collection of South Asian scholarship draws on the experiences of the region to discuss this question in depth.

The Peoples of the Arctic and Arctic health and sustainability are highly interconnected and essentially one and the same. An appropriate path to a sustainable Arctic involves a shift away from individual learning and achieving toward community leadership and the betterment of society. This article draws upon mindset theory from Western psychology and Indigenous relational accountability to propose and outline a model for achieving sustainability in the Arctic. The geographic focus is the North American Arctic. The principles of the (...) argument and the foundations of the model may apply across the Circumpolar North. The paper is a call to action for social scientists and policy makers in the Arctic to implement an Indigenous-led and self-determined social science. Empowering and supporting Indigenous leaders and scholars to direct and conduct autonomous social science research would inherently produce well-being and sustainability for Indigenous communities and regions. The arguments are supported by an inductive analysis of peer-reviewed literature, and the model is organized and illustrated using a schematic of concentric circles. The foundational elements of the model include: Indigenous sovereignty, Indigenous ontology, Indigenous models of sustainability, and Indigenous scholarship. Environmental scientists, resource managers, and policy makers are directed to better understand, accept, and support Indigenous science as a comprehensive and valid knowledge system; change how they use key terminology in research; rethink research roles; and amend processes and timelines for research development and funding. To achieve the desired outcomes for community well-being and Arctic sustainability, Arctic social scientists should seriously consider centering Indigenous science, especially in Indigenous communities. (shrink)

The absence of a national soilclassification system for Nigeria hinderssuccessful agrotechnology transfer inparticular, and agricultural development ingeneral. A discussion of the role of indigenousknowledge in agricultural development showsthat indigenous knowledge of the soil can beintegrated with modern soil science to developa soil classification system for the country.Much as local knowledge is invaluable foradvancing scientific knowledge and vice versa,caution is given against overestimating therole of indigenous knowledge in developmentalactivities. It is important to encourage theproper integration of all knowledge (...) systems increating new paradigms for sustainabledevelopment in Nigeria. (shrink)

My agenda is to ground psychological science in culture by using complex rather than overly simple models of culture and using indigenous categories as criteria of a translation test to determine the adequacy of scientific models of culture. I first explore the compatibility between Chinese indigenous categories and complex models of culture, by casting in the theoretical framework of symmetry and symmetry breaking a series of translations performed on Fiske's relational models theory. Next, I show how the (...) dimensional approach to culture, prevalent in mainstream psychology, fails the translation test. Ethical implications of this analysis for cross cultural psychology are discussed. (shrink)

Despite emerging attention to Indigenous philosophies both within and outside of feminism, Indigenous logics remain relatively underexplored and underappreciated. By amplifying the voices of recent Indigenous philosophies and literatures, I seek to demonstrate that Indigenous logic is a crucial aspect of Indigenous resurgence as well as political and ethical resistance. Indigenous philosophies provide alternatives to the colonial, masculinist tendencies of classical logic in the form of paraconsistent—many-valued—logics. Specifically, when Indigenous logics embrace the possibility (...) of true contradictions, they highlight aspects of the world rejected and ignored by classical logic and inspire a relational, decolonial imaginary. To demonstrate this, I look to biology, from which Indigenous logics are often explicitly excluded, and consider one problem that would benefit from an Indigenous, paraconsistent analysis: that of the biological individual. This article is an effort to expand the arenas in which allied feminists can responsibly take up and deploy these decolonial logics. (shrink)

This article reformulates Stephan Helmreich´s the ¨microbiomisation of race¨ as the historiality of otherness in the foundations of human microbiome science. Through the lens of my ethnographic fieldwork of a transnational community of microbiome scientists that conducted a landmark human microbiome research on indigenous microbes and its affiliated and first personalised microbiome initiative, the American Gut Project, I follow and trace the key actors, experimental systems and onto-epistemic claims in the emergence of human microbiome science a decade (...) ago. In doing so, I show the links between the reinscription of race, comparative research on the microbial genetic variation of human populations and the remining of bioprospected data for personalised medicine. In these unpredictable research movements, the microbiome of non-Western peoples and territories is much more than a side project or a specific approach within the field: it constitutes the nucleus of its experimental system, opening towards subsequent and cumulative research processes and knowledge production in human microbiome science. The article demonstrates that while human microbiome science is articulated upon the microbial ‘makeup’ of non-wester(nised) communities, societies, and locales, its results and therapeutics are only applicable to medical conditions affecting rich nations (i.e., inflammatory, autoimmune, and metabolic diseases). My reformulation of ¨microbiomisation of race¨ as the condition of possibility of human microbiome science reveals that its individual dimension is sustained by microbial DNA data from human populations through bioprospecting practices and gains meaning through personalised medicine initiatives, informal online networks of pseudoscientific and commodified microbial-related evidence. (shrink)

L'article explore la notion wébérienne de «domination rationnelle» comme outil pour analyser les rapports entre les efforts de gestion des populations indigènes par l'État colonial, et le développement d'une forme spécifique de rationalité scientifique, prenant pour objet ces populations: les savoirs anthropologiques. En s'appuyant sur le cas de l'Afrique coloniale française, on s'efforce de montrer comment les dimensions d'instrumentation (avec la production d'instruments d'identification et de compréhension) et de légitimation sont essentielles dans l'émergence de savoirs sur les sociétés et les (...) cultures indigènes, d'abord au sein des appareils administratifs, mais aussi dans les institutions savantes métropolitaines. L'appui au développement de la science de l'homme se fait dans le cadre de projets de « rationalisation » de la colonisation qui rapprochent des savants et des réformateurs liés à l 'École coloniale, voulant redéfinir la profession d'administrateur colonial comme «spécialiste des indigènes». (shrink)

Transdisciplinary research knits together knowledge from diverse epistemic communities in addressing social-environmental challenges, such as biodiversity loss, climate crises, food insecurity, and public health. This paper reflects on the roles of philosophy of science in transdisciplinary research while focusing on Indigenous and other subaltern forms of knowledge. We offer a critical assessment of demarcationist approaches in philosophy of science and outline a constructive alternative of transdisciplinary philosophy of science. While a demarcationist focus obscures the complex relations (...) between epistemic communities, transdisciplinary philosophy of science provides resources for meeting epistemic and political challenges of collaborative knowledge production. (shrink)

Indigenous cultures of North America confronted a problem of knowledge different from that of canonical European philosophy. The European problem is to identify and overcome obstacles to the perfection of knowledge as science, while the Indigenous problem is to conserve a legacy of practice fused with a territory. Complicating the difference is that one of these traditions violently colonized the other, and with colonization the Indigenous problem changes. The old problem of inter-generational stability cannot be separated (...) from the post-colonial problem of sovereignty in the land where the knowledge makes sense. I differentiate the question of the value of knowledge (Part One), and its content (Part Two). The qualities these epistemologies favor define what I call ceremonial knowledge, that is, knowledge that sustains a ceremonial community. The question of content considers the interdisciplinary research of Indigenous and Traditional Ecological Knowledge, as well as the issue of epistemic decolonization. (shrink)

Human genomics research with indigenous peoples has often been characterised by tension between the ‘western’ science ideologies and indigenous peoples’ cultural beliefs in relation to their human genetic resources and data. This article explores this tension from the lens of the concept of indigenous peoples’ human genomic sovereignty and tests the applicability of the concept in Africa. The article achieves this by first highlighting the tension between ‘western’ science and indigenous peoples through three case (...) studies from Canada, the USA, and South Africa. It then analyses indigenous peoples’ human genomic sovereignty in the USA and Canada and compares it with the notion of indigenous peoples’ sovereignty in Africa. The article concludes by highlighting lessons that indigenous groups in Africa can draw from the USA and Canada in their quest for human genomic sovereignty. (shrink)

Resource extraction companies worldwide are involved with Indigenous peoples. Historically these interactions have been antagonistic, yet there is a growing public expectation for improved ethical performance of resource industries to engage with Indigenous peoples. (Crawley and Sinclair, Journal of Business Ethics 45, 361–373 (2003)) proposed an ethical model for human resource practices with Indigenous peoples in Australian mining companies. This paper expands on this work by re-framing the discussion within the context of sustainable development, extending it to (...) Canada, and generalizing to other resource industries. We argue that it is unethical to sacrifice the viability of Indigenous cultures for industrial resource extraction; it is ethical to engage with indigenous peoples in a manner consistent with their wishes and needs as they perceive them. We apply these ideas to a case study in the coastal temperate rainforest of Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia, Canada. In this case a scientific panel comprised of Nuu-Chah-Nulth elders, forest scientists and management professionals, achieved full consensus on developing sustainable forest practice standards by drawing equally on Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge and Western science in the context of one of the most heated and protracted environmental conflicts in Canadian history. The resulting sustainable forest practice standards were later adopted by leading forestry firms operating on the coast. Our analysis of this scientific panels success provides the basis for advancing an ethical approach to sustainable development with Indigenous peoples. This ethical approach is applicable to companies working in natural resource industries where the territories of Indigenous peoples are involved. (shrink)

A decision-tree model of an indigenous forest management system centered around shamu (Cunninghamia lanceolata),an important timber species in China, was constructed from extensive interviews with peasants in two villages in Fujian Province, China. From this model additional interviews were conducted to elicit from these peasants their reasons for selecting among decision alternatives. Those reasons that were of an ecological nature were discussed in detail with the peasants to elicit indigenous interpretations of ecological processes in order to test an (...) hypothesis that a strong analogy exists between traditional indigenous and scientific knowledge of ecological processes.Three cases are presented that test this hypothesis. These three cases concern the effect of intercrops on the growth of shamu,the relative merits of seedlings and root collar sprout cuttings for forest regeneration, and the effects of repeated plantings of shamuon soil chemistry. All three cases provide strong support for the research hypothesis and suggest that, even in the absence of a formalized scientific method, humans exercise mental processes typical of scientific thinking. This phenomenon is called proto-science. (shrink)

Current controversies about knowledge integration reflect conflicting ideas of what it means to “take Indigenous knowledge seriously”. While there is increased interest in integrating Indigenous and Western scientific knowledge in various disciplines such as anthropology and ethnobiology, integration projects are often accused of recognizing Indigenous knowledge only insofar as it is useful for Western scientists. The aim of this article is to use tools from philosophy of science to develop a model of both successful integration and (...) integration failures. On the one hand, I argue that cross-cultural recognition of property clusters leads to an ontological overlap that makes knowledge integration often epistemically productive and socially useful. On the other hand, I argue that knowledge integration is limited by ontological divergence. Adequate models of Indigenous knowledge will therefore have to take integration failures seriously and I argue that integration efforts need to be complemented by a political notion of ontological self-determination. (shrink)

Different cultures show different understandings of consciousness, soul, and spirit. Native indigenous traditions have recently seen a resurgence of interest and are being used in psychotherapy, mental health counselling, and psychiatry. The main aim of this review is to explore and summarize the native indigenous concepts of consciousness, soul, and spirit. Following a systematic review search, the peer-reviewed literature presenting research from 55 different cultural groups across regions of the world was retrieved. Information relating to native concepts of (...) consciousness, soul, and spirit were excerpted from the sources and contrasted. Contrasting these indigenous concepts revealed important implications for understanding consciousness within a cross-cultural perspective and has practical implications for applied approaches utilizing native indigenous traditions. (shrink)

This article asks, what is worth knowing? The concept of objectivity in contemporary philosophy of science is argued to de-value indigenous knowledge-systems and gendered approaches. Community bias is argued to confound rogue research with gendered and indigenous situatedness. This problem is resolved using the innovation of ‘ecosystem services.’ Technoscience is explained as the appropriation of science by capital interests and strong critique from Vandana Shiva in the global South is provided. Finally, because philosophers of science (...) resist discussion of sociopolitical issues, the “very notion of philosophy of science” is argued to be in crisis caused by limited understanding of ‘knowledge’ that has been reduced to post-Enlightenment science, and by neglect of the broader human context within which the sciences work. (shrink)

The ‘ontological turn’ in the social sciences over the last two decades has necessitated a reconsideration of the onto-epistemological nexus in political science. While political theory has traditionally been more focused on epistemological questions, the work of White (2000) and Connolly (2017) amongst others has suggested that ontological perspectives need to be taken more seriously. In particular, such arguments invite greater openness to a broader range of theories of ontology than have traditionally been considered in mainstream political theory. In (...) this article the contribution of Indigenous philosophy is discussed to demonstrate the ways in which it might encourage new methodologies for ontological political thought. In particular, the article points to the importance of understanding ontology and epistemology in relational terms and the political possibilities that emerge when we consider ontologies as simultaneously weak and strong or, in a different idiom, deep and relational. (shrink)

Indigenous Peoples, Consent and Benefit Sharing is the first in-depth account of the Hoodia bioprospecting case and use of San traditional knowledge, placing it in the global context of indigenous peoples’ rights, consent and benefit-sharing. It is unique as the first interdisciplinary analysis of consent and benefit sharing in which philosophers apply their minds to questions of justice in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), lawyers interrogate the use of intellectual property rights to protect traditional knowledge, environmental scientists (...) analyse implications for national policies, anthropologists grapple with the commodification of knowledge and, uniquely, case experts from Asia, Australia and North America bring their collective expertise and experiences to bear on the San-Hoodia case. -/- While much of the focus is on bioprospecting and natural product development, Indigenous Peoples, Consent and Benefit-Sharing also draws important lessons about informed consent and benefit-sharing from the health sciences and sectors such as mining. Policymakers around the world are under significant pressure to resolve the challenges of implementing the CBD. This book’s analysis and recommendations will help them. -/- ‘It is good to see philosophers engaging with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, and doing so by looking in depth at a real situation in which it has been invoked.’ Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University . (shrink)

The potential for jointly using or integrating Western science and indigenous knowledge, especially in such fields as environmental management, is a hotly debated topic nowadays. However, the difficulties involved in such a task are not always fully understood and co-management experiences achieved only partially the expected outcomes. In this contribution, I show how a sound combination of the two bodies of knowledge would be possible only if there is a way to accommodate different interpretations of reality and knowledge (...) criteria. The issue should then be faced at the epistemological level too, discussing the possibility and implications of a genuine epistemic pluralism. With reference, among others, to Feyerabend’s later writings, here I illustrate some possible insights for addressing the matter that a Western perspectivist stance could provide. (shrink)

Introduction Reza Davari Ardakni, the Iranian contemporary philosopher, distinguishes development from Western modernity; in that it considers modernity as natural and organic changes that Europe has gone through, but sees development as a planned design for implementing modernity in other countries. As a result, the closedness of development concerns only the developing countries, not Western modern ones. Davari emphasizes that the Western modernity has a universality that pertains to a unique reason and a unified world. The only way of thinking (...) in this world is a philosophical thought based on human self-centered reason, and given the pervasiveness of Western civilization. Therefore, Davari does not consider Westernization as mere imitation of Western customs and methods, but rather as a way of existence in the world. Westernization is a subjective view of the world and beings. Westernization is not optional, enabling non-Western people to avoid it. According to the Westernization scenario, the world today is entirely Westernized, and Davari considers Westernization as the inevitable fate of the people of this era, seeing two alternatives for them, both of which ultimately lead to the same destination, which is to embrace development; either they seize the power of science and technology and join the process of global modernization and participate in it, or they become subdued by this process and accept it without participation. Davari regards the first type of Westernization as active and the second type as passive. Problematique Therefore, underdevelopment is not a concept of the ancient world, nor even of a world between the ancient and the modern, or on the threshold of modernization. Underdevelopment is a condition of suspension and timelessness and being exposed to modernization. To escape the paradox of underdevelopment, which is the inevitable historical fate of non-modernized societies, Davari sees no way out other than embracing development. In other words, Westernized societies, which have become confused due to modernization, have no escape route other than turning to development. Therefore, some critics of Davari accuse the theory of Westernization of being a theoretical rupture. M. T. Tabatabaei, by rejecting the theoretical rupture in the theory of Westernization, believes that in the argument of Davari, we are only faced with a shift from a philosophical to an intellectual level. Tabatabaei, by avoiding providing a philosophical response to the critics of the theoretical rupture, believes that the introduction of active Westernization and collaboration in science and technology as a solution to escape from underdevelopment conditions, is only a shift from a philosophical level to an intellectual level and does not involve a rupture. Therefore, it seems that the philosophical issue of how or the possibility of escaping from underdevelopment conditions is still an open non answered problem. In this study, seeking a philosophical answer to this problem, an attempt has been made to summarize Davari's definitions of development, underdevelopment, participation in the world of science, and the role of humanities and social sciences in development, using his writings and speeches. It is proposed that a way to escape from the clesedness of development based on Davari's views, is to make use of analytical method with emphasizing on concepts and theories of the philosophy and metaphysics of science. Argument According to Davari, the social and human sciences that are responsible for development planning in underdeveloped societies must consider the characteristics of underdevelopment in order to facilitate the transition to more favorable conditions. Davari identifies the following conditions for successful development: 1) replacing tradition with science as the organizing and coordinating principle in society, 2) recognizing the universality of philosophy and science of the Western modernity and the impossibility of blindly imitation and adopting it, 3) inevitability of actively engaging and interacting with development, 4) recognizing the internal dynamics of scientific progress and avoiding authoritarian control, and 5) promoting free participation in the scientific paradigms. Therefore, Davari suggests the following steps towards development: 1) recognizing and understanding the problems of society and the local ecosystem, 2) understanding the philosophical and cultural foundations of Western civilization, 3) understanding the historical context and paradigms of science, 4) understanding the philosophical and metaphysical foundations of science, 5) recognizing the intellectual and philosophical capacities of our own community, and 6) reflecting our own philosophical and metaphysical assumptions in the scientific world in a way that is compatible with scientific methods. Given the motivations for change in science at both the global and national levels, including the emergence of heterodox or indigenous sciences, and the inevitable nature of development, Davari points to the possibility of a path between absolute rejecting or accepting the mainstream social and human sciences. However, this path is challenging and contingent upon the aforementioned conditions and steps of transition. Conclusion It is necessary to seek this path within the realm of the philosophy and metaphysics of science, particularly in the origins and foundations of the social and human sciences. Research in the metaphysics and philosophy of the social sciences provides the opportunity for active scientific engagement in the scientific paradigms and a reconsideration of the foundations of science, allowing for different philosophical foundations while are compatible with scientific methods. Successfully finding a path between absolute rejecting or accepting the existing social sciences will lead to an internal transformation within the field of science and, in fact, will advance the boundaries of knowledge. Therefore, it is possible, while adhering to the conditions of transition and actively participating in the world of science and technology, and accepting the unity of modernity and avoiding selectivity and imitation, to search for a way to overcome the closedness of development through a reconsideration of the philosophical and metaphysical foundations of science, while recognizing our own intellectual heritage and critically assessing Western science and technology. (shrink)

This remarkable book is about everything from echidnas to evolution, cosmology to cooking, sex and science and spirits to Schrodinger's cat. Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from an Indigenous perspective. He asks how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently? Sand Talk provides a template for living. It's about how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It's about how (...) we learn and how we remember. It's about talking to everybody and listening carefully. It's about finding different ways to look at things. Most of all it's about Indigenous thinking, and how it can save the world. (shrink)

This study investigates the increased commercialization of African indigenous vegetables (AIV)—former subsistence crops such as African nightshade, cowpea leaves and amaranth species grown mainly by women—from a feminist economics perspective. The study aims to answer the following research question: How does AIV commercialization affect the gendered division of labor, women’s participation in agricultural labor, their decision-making power, and their access to resources? We analyze commercialization’s effects on gender relations in labor and decision-making power and also highlight women’s agency. Based (...) on a mixed method design and analyzing household-level panel data and qualitative focus groups from Kenya, we observe an economic empowerment of women that we relate to women’s individual and collective strategies as well as their retention of control over AIV selling and profits. Yet, while we see economic empowerment of women through commercialization—how they broaden their scope of action and are empowered by generating revenue—that does not contribute to a redistribution of labor or land rights, which are key for gender equality, instead it increases women’s labor burden. (shrink)

Indigenous understandings of consciousness represent an important inspiration for scientific discussions about the nature of consciousness. Despite the fact that Indigenous concepts are not outputs of a research driven by rigorous, scientific methods, they are of high significance, because they have been formed by hundreds of years of specific routes of cultural evolution. The evolution of Indigenous cultures proceeded in their native habitat. The meanings that emerged in this process represent adaptive solutions that were optimal in the (...) given environmental and social milieu. We argue that it would not be appropriate to handle these meanings as something that science considers to be wrong, or outdated relics of the human past. In contrast, Indigenous concepts and their meanings may be considered to be an important heritage of native human populations, but moreover, they are also an interesting material for analyses and inspiration for recent scientific debates. Furthermore, it is also necessary to mention another reason why the exploration of Indigenous concepts has been so topical recently. Thus far, much psychological theoretical development has been published in English as a result of research conducted in Western countries. The dominance of English and the superiority of research conducted by researchers from Western countries may be considered as a kind of barrier toward other ways of knowing. We argue that the traditional cultural knowledge coming from Indigenous societies may offer an interesting source of new thought for science. The weakening of the strong dependence of science on well-established academic circles dominated by Western theoretical perspectives may be beneficial for stimulating its further development (Sidik, 2022). Therefore, this special symposium of the Journal of Consciousness Studies aims to open the doors for other ways of knowing, For the knowing that emerged in native Indigenous cultures. We argue that the rich cultural heritage of these societies may stimulate the emergence of new analytical perspectives for scientific theorising about the nature of consciousness. For all these reasons, the Indigenous concepts of consciousness captured our interest, and we decided to start investigating them. In 2020 and 2021, we retrieved and analysed pieces of information from past ethnographical field evidence gathered in various Indigenous cultures. After removal of data about the cultures showing a high acceptance of influences from external religious traditions (e.g. Christianity, Islam or Buddhism), a comparative analysis of data from 55 Indigenous groups was conducted and published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies (Trnka and Lorencova, 2022). This primary project revealed many interesting results, but more importantly, it also showed many unexplored avenues that called for further exploration. This special symposium of the Journal of Consciousness Studies is a continuation and new development of research on the Indigenous understanding of consciousness. Past ethnographical evidence involved some valuable pieces of knowledge about Indigenous concepts of consciousness, but the relevant information was often fragmentary or even totally missing in some cases. Moreover, many authors of past ethnographic records applied a strong etic approach that clouded the understanding of native Indigenous thoughts. Therefore, the main goal of the recent symposium was to broaden the overall information basis for the analysis of Indigenous concepts of consciousness or closely related phenomena. In other words, the symposium aimed to bring more detailed knowledge of Indigenous concepts of consciousness, mind and body and their relations in various groups of Indigenous people. In 2022, we contacted potential contributors and were pleased by their positive reactions, which reflected the topicality of this research focus. The authors were asked to draft their papers with a special focus on (a) a cultural Indigenous understanding of the concept of consciousness, (b) a cultural Indigenous understanding of the mind-body differentiation (or consciousness-body differentiation) and (c) cultural metaphors and cultural beliefs related to consciousness, mind and body. Many of contributors were native members of Indigenous cultures that made the descriptions of Indigenous concepts more accurate and reliable. This enabled many truly emic, in-depth insights into the Indigenous concepts of consciousness and related phenomena to be gained. As a result, this issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies introduces eight papers, each focused on a different geographical region/Indigenous groups: Nahua and Maya (Mexico), Guna (Panama), Mapuche (Chile), Maori (New Zealand), Telingit (Altai), Mongolian groups, Igbo (Nigeria) and Asabano (New Guinea). These papers are followed by one more general paper discussing magical consciousness on the case of an Aboriginal wise man (Australia). The symposium closes with our concluding editorial essay, which generalises the findings and introduces three theoretical models of understandings of consciousness inspired by the analysis of Indigenous concepts of consciousness. Aside from the importance for basic research, the exploration of Indigenous concepts of consciousness is also very important for informing practitioners from many applied spheres. Many current methods for treating addictions, traumatic life events, professional burnout and other mental health problems use features of Indigenous healing practices. A proper understanding of meanings related to mind, body and consciousness are quite important for Western psychotherapists to adapt the Indigenous practices to particular Western cultural milieus. Furthermore, a proper understanding of meanings related to mind, body, and consciousness is also important for treating ethnic, linguistic and culturally diverse populations (APA, 1990). For therapists, psychologists and physicians, understanding the meanings of these concepts may promote their own better care of their clients from various Indigenous ethnic groups. Last but not least, Indigenous concepts, meanings and languages are closely related to the continuation of the heritage of Indigenous people (United Nations, 2016). The world’s Indigenous languages have recently been under threat of disappearing; many Indigenous languages are endangered globally, and the rate of loss is high (United Nations, 2016). Importantly, recent research has also shown that the retention of Indigenous languages may be protective for the psychological and physical health of their speakers. All these areas represent fields for potential use of the findings presented in this symposium of the Journal of Consciousness Studies. As a concluding note, the editors of this symposium hope that this collection of papers will inspire academic scholars while also providing important information for practitioners from various spheres. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Elizabeth Anderson’s application of the epistemological idiom of mētis to the debate over the equal status of indigenous knowledge and scientific knowledge in the academic curriculum. Against the denial of this equal status by critics of indigenous knowledge or science, Anderson defends what one might term a conciliatory view, the view, roughly, that indigenous knowledge meets the criteria of scientific knowledge presupposed by the critics of the equal status of indigenous knowledge (...) and scientific knowledge in the academic curriculum, and it is continuous with agroecological form of mainstream scientific inquiry. I argue that the conciliatory view does not rest substantively on mētis as an epistemological idiom since the view is based on the direct conceptual relation between the notion of indigenous knowledge and the notion of scientific knowledge or inquiry. More importantly, the view amounts to appealing to the critics of the equal status of indigenous knowledge on the terms of those critics and leaves unchallenged those very core assumptions that ground their denial of the equal status of indigenous knowledge in the first place. Building on her fruitful analysis of mētis, I attempt a sketch of an alternative view that vindicates the equal status of indigenous knowledge and scientific knowledge in the academic curriculum, but which avoids those drawbacks. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to discuss the relation between indigenous and scientific kinds on the basis of contemporary ethnobiological research. I argue that ethnobiological accounts of taxonomic convergence-divergence patters challenge common philosophical models of the relation between folk concepts and natural kinds. Furthermore, I outline a positive model of taxonomic convergence-divergence patterns that is based on Slater's [2014] notion of “stable property clusters” and Franklin-Hall's [2014] discussion of natural kinds as “categorical bottlenecks.” Finally, I argue that this (...) model is not only helpful for understanding the relation between indigenous and scientific kinds but also makes substantial contributions to contemporary debates about natural kinds.to contemporary debates about natural kinds. (shrink)

Increasingly, it is accepted wisdom for agricultural scientists to get feedback from indigenous peoples—peasants—about new improved seeds and biotechnologies before their official release from the experiment station. What is not yet accepted wisdom is the importance of cognitive science to research on farmer decision making, especially of the type “Why don't they adopt.” In this paper, the impact of the cognitive revolution on models of farmer decision making is described, and decision making models before and after the cognitive (...) revolution are contrasted. An example of a decision model after the cognitive revolution is given by the Malawi farmer's decision whether to use chemical fertilizers or organic fertilizers or both. Results of testing the model show that in Malawi, smallholders' lack of capital and credit are more important factors constraining use of chemical fertilizers than are indigenous beliefs in organic fertilizers or fears of a future dependency on chemicals. (shrink)

Originally published in Mexico in 1970, _Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América _is the first book by the Argentine philosopher Rodolfo Kusch to be translated into English. At its core is a binary created by colonization and the devaluation of indigenous practices and cosmologies: an opposition between the technologies and rationalities of European modernity and the popular mode of thinking, which is deeply tied to Indian ways of knowing and being. Arguing that this binary cuts through América, Kusch seeks (...) to identify and recover the indigenous and popular way of thinking, which he contends is dismissed or misunderstood by many urban Argentines, including leftist intellectuals. _Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América_ is a record of Kusch's attempt to immerse himself in the indigenous ways of knowing and being. At first glance, his methodology resembles ethnography. He speaks with and observes indigenous people and mestizos in Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. He questions them about their agricultural practices and economic decisions; he observes rituals; he asks women in the market the meaning of indigenous talismans; he interviews shamans; he describes the spatial arrangement and the contents of shrines, altars, and temples; and he reproduces diagrams of archaeological sites, which he then interprets at length. Yet he does not present a "them" to a putative "us." Instead, he offers an inroad to a way of thinking and being that does not follow the logic or fit into the categories of Western social science and philosophy. In his introduction, Walter D. Mignolo discusses Kusch's work and its relation to that of other twentieth-century intellectuals, Argentine history, and contemporary scholarship on the subaltern and decoloniality. (shrink)

This essay examines the persistent engagement with cosmopolitan inclusivity through the endorsement of indigenous sacredness in works of ethnographic fiction. I focus on Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home, James Cameron’s Avatar, and Taiwanese writer Ming-yi Wu’s science fiction The Man with the Compound Eyes, three iconic environmental representations of indigenous knowledge. These texts illustrate how indigenous thinking has very often been transformed from place-bound, locally-embedded cultural traditions to an embodiment of Euro-American eco-spirituality that overturns (...) both national boundaries and the humannature divide at the turn of the twenty-first century. In settler environmental narratives, the insistence on the ethnographic mode strengthens the desire for authenticity and intimacy. (shrink)

Indigenous Sustainable Wisdom: First Nation Know-How for Global Flourishing’s contributors describe ways of being that reflect a worldview that has guided humanity for 99% of human history; they describe the practical traditional wisdom stemming from Nature-based relational cultures that were or are guided by this worldview. Such cultures did not cause the kinds of anti-Nature and de-humanizing or inequitable policies and practices that now pervade our world. Far from romanticizing Indigenous histories, Indigenous Sustainable Wisdom offers facts about (...) how human beings, with our potential for good and evil behaviors, can live in relative harmony again. Contributions cover views from anthropology, psychology, sociology, leadership, native science, native history, native art. (shrink)

The new science of genomics endeavors to chart the genomes of individuals around the world, with the dual goals of understanding the role genetic factors play in human health and solving problems of disease and disability. From the perspective of indigenous peoples and developing countries, the promises and perils of genomic science appear against a backdrop of global health disparity and political vulnerability. These conditions pose a dilemma for many communities when attempting to decide about participating in (...) genomic research or any other biomedical research. Genomic research offers the possibility of improved technologies for managing the acute and chronic diseases that plague their members. Yet, the history of biomedical research among people in indigenous and developing nations offers salient examples of unethical practice, misuse of data and failed promises. This dilemma creates risks for communities who decide either to participate or not to participate in genomic science research. (shrink)

This article explores the role of conventions in the normalization of cocoa production in Ecuadorian Amazonia. Convention theory provides key theoretical tools for understanding coordination among agents. However, conventions must be understood as cultural constructions with a strong Eurocentric background that must be substantially modified in originally non-European contexts. A creative application of convention theory can partially overcome bifurcation among Western and non-Western rationalities. First, it shows that Western values and forms of coordination are heterogeneous, conflictive and opposing. Second, it (...) provides key insight for understanding the transformation of subaltern subjectivities generated from non-Western rationalities that are closely associated with subjugated knowledges. Third, in applying the concept of compromise, it allows one to understand cognitive hybridization and coordination among indigenous and Western agents and thus the complexities of processes of resistance, subversion and empowerment carried by indigenous communities. This article is focused on how cocoa production in Ecuadorian Amazonia serves as an example of the confluence and coordination of indigenous (using the concept of “Good Living” or Sumak Kawsay) and Western conventions. The assertion of Sumak Kawsay is understood as a relevant transformation of Ecuadorian post-colonial relations. It is shown that relevant industrial upgrading processes are justified by, among others, Sumak Kawsay repertoires. Additionally, dialogue on knowledge and compromise among conventions, and especially concerning Sumak Kawsay and the market, have been key facets shaping the development of a differentiated quality strand that has promoted relevant changes in the subaltern positioning of indigenous farmers in the cocoa commodity chain. (shrink)

A history of colonization inflicts psychological, physical, and structural disadvantages that endure across generations. For an increasing number of Indigenous Australians, environmental epigenetics offers an important explanatory framework that links the social past with the biological present, providing a culturally relevant way of understanding the various intergenerational effects of historical trauma. In this paper, we critically examine the strategic uptake of environmental epigenetics by Indigenous researchers and policy advocates. We focus on the relationship between epigenetic processes and (...) class='Hi'>Indigenous views of Country and health—views that locate health not in individual bodies but within relational contexts of Indigenous ontologies that embody interconnected environments of kin/animals/matter/bodies across time and space. This drawing together of Indigenous experience and epigenetic knowledge has strengthened calls for action including state-supported calls for financial reparations. We examine the consequences of this reimagining of disease responsibility in the context of “strategic biological essentialism,” a distinct form of biopolitics that, in this case, incorporates environmental determinism. We conclude that the shaping of the right to protection from biosocial injury is potentially empowering but also has the capacity to conceal forms of governance through claimants’ identification as “damaged,” thus furthering State justification of biopolitical intervention in Indigenous lives. (shrink)

In this paper the nature of the indigenized psychologies is discussed. The ongoing development of indigenized psychologies is an important phenomenon that gives rise to many important and interesting questions, not the least of which concerns the conditions for the development and transfer of traditions of understanding between different social and cultural contexts. The indigenized psychologies are distinguished by being reactions to what is seen as modern mainstream western (US) psychology, by being (more or less) anchored in the identified culture (...) of its countries and by a desire to increase the practical applicability of the discipline in the local cultural context. In order to improve our understanding of the indigenized psychologies, it is important to recognize the historical and cultural context of their origin, such as anti-colonial reactions, and to recognize their great diversity. The diversity is for example evident with respect to how many, and which, aspects of western psychology one thinks should be indigenized. Moreover, some authors tend to stress the value of the indigenized psychology as being anchored in the researcher's culture and other authors emphasize the importance of their practical applicability. The indigenized psychologies are still at an early stage of their development and their progress is to a large extent affected by limitations in material resources and lack of institutionalization of academic culture. The relation of the indigenized psychologies to the concept of science is not clear but is not given much attention in the literature produced by, and on, the indigenized psychologies. (shrink)

Understanding human behaviour, thoughts, and emotional expressions can be challenging in the global context. Due to cultural differences, the study of psychology cannot be de-contextualised. This calls for unearthing of the explanatory systems that exist in Africa to understand and account for behaviour, emotions, and cognition of Africans. This call is addressed through the emergence of African Psychology (AP) or Indigenous Psychology in Africa (IPA) as a legitimate science of human experience. This Element discusses the motivations for AP, (...) centrality of culture, demarcations of AP, and the different strands within AP. It highlights issues related to African philosophy, African cultural anthropology, African philosophy of science, and suitable methodological approaches for AP research. It also discusses some selected theoretical contributions and applications of AP. The Element concludes that AP researchers and practitioners need to pursue interdisciplinarity and avoid meaningless rejection of good ideas from other cultural settings. (shrink)

History can be understood as involving a problematic interplay between the long-term legacy of human evolution, still tempered into the human body today, and the shorter-term heritage of civilization from its beginnings to the present. Each of us lives in a tension between our indigenous bodies and our civilized selves, between the philosophy of the earth and that which I characterize as “the philosophy of escape from the earth.” The standard story of civilization is one of linear upward progress, (...) a story that I contest with an alternative philosophy of history, picturing history instead as a set of concentric circles. I have devised a new philosophy of history with a three-part approach to understanding human development, taking civilization not as a linear advance of progress, but rather as a progress in precision, paradoxically counteracted by a regression in mind: history as a contraction of mind. I describe three stages in the contraction of mind: 1) animate mind as the evolved outlook of foraging life; 2) anthropocentric mind as representing the contracting transformation of consciousness produced by agriculturally-based civilization; 3) mechanico-centric mind as representing a further contraction from human-centered to a machine-centered consciousness, produced by the rise of modern civilization and the mechanical scientific worldview. Hence, this progressive contraction is marked by a turn from original practical and reverential attunement to the living earth in hunting and gathering societies, or animate mind, to a narrower focus of anthropocentric mind beginning with the development of early civilizations, where the human element became central and the wild devalued. And it moves to an even more narrow focus of mechanico-centric mind, expanding out of late medieval Europe and the development of modern science, where the machine became model of the ultimate, the objectivist filter through which the world is to be understood and made to fit. Far from controlling nature, humans have been consuming it in an unsustainable Malthusian-like trajectory whose limits are being reached in our time. (shrink)

Considerable attention has focussed on the potential of indigenous agricultural knowledge for sustainable development. Drawing upon fieldwork on the soil and water management principles of rice farming systems in Senegambia, this paper examines the potential of the traditional system for a sustainable food security strategy. Problems with pumpirrigation are reviewed as well as previous efforts in swamp rice development. It is argued that sustainability depends on more than ecological factors and in particular, requires sensitivity to socio-economic parameters such as (...) the labor demands of the food security strategy, the sexual division of labor, and food pricing policies. (shrink)

In the first half of the twentieth century the attention of American and European researchers was drawn to the area of ‘extreme physiology’, partly because of expeditions to the north and south poles, and to high altitude, but also by global conflicts which were fought for the first time with aircraft, and involved conflict in non-temperate zones, deserts, and at the freezing Eastern front. In an attempt to help white Euro-Americans survive in extreme environments, physiologists, anthropologists, and explorers studied (...) class='Hi'>indigenous people’s bodies, cultures, and technologies. This paper will sketch an outline of the science of white survival in three ‘extreme’ environments: the Antarctic and Arctic; high-altitude; and the Australian desert, with a particular focus on the ways in which indigenous populations were studied, or in some cases ignored, by Western biomedical scientists—despite their crucial and systematic contributions to the success of experiments and expeditions. Particularly focusing on altitude, and on blood in both its symbolic and literal sense, the article shows how assumptions about race, indigeneity, civilisation, and evolution shaped the ways White Westerners understood their own bodies as well as those of the people they encountered in cold, high and hot places on the earth. Despite new discoveries in physiology and evolutionary science, old racialised assumptions were maintained, especially those that figured the temperate body as civilised and the tropical body as primitive; and in at least one case it will be shown that these racialised assumptions significantly altered, if not retarded, the science of respiratory physiology. (shrink)