What relationship between scientific and traditional systems of
knowledge? Some introductory remarks
Douglas Nakashima
Coastal Regions and Small Islands Unit, UNESCO, Paris, France
Science has become a powerful intellectual institution with a far-reaching and
profound influence on our daily lives, our relationship with the environment, our
system of values, our world-view. Notwithstanding its prominence in mainstream
society, science remains but one knowledge system among many. ‘Other knowledge
systems’ embedded in a panoply of cultures and sustaining a broad spectrum of ways
of life constitute a rich and diverse intellectual heritage that has begun to attract
increasing attention worldwide.
Local knowledge, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), indigenous knowledge
(IK), folk knowledge – various names for these ‘other systems’ have been applied,
each with their strengths and weaknesses. ‘Traditional’ underscores knowledge
accumulation and transmission through past generations, but obscures the capacity for
transformation and adaptation. ‘Indigenous’ reinforces links with indigenous peoples,
many of whom harbour particularly strong knowledge systems, but excludes the
extensive local knowledge accumulated by peoples with whom the term ‘indigenous’
sits uncomfortably, such as farmers in Africa, herders in Europe or fishers in the
North Atlantic.
Whatever name is applied, the fact remains that knowledge systems such as these
have guided, and continue to guide, human societies around the globe in their
innumerable interactions with the natural world: gathering, hunting, agriculture and
husbandry; struggles against disease and injury; innovation of technology and
techniques; naming and explanation of natural phenomena; maintenance of equilibria
between society and milieu; adaptation to environmental change; and so on and so
forth. They represent the dynamic products of an extended history of fine-grained
interplay between distinct cultures and specific local environments. This explains
their diverse structures and content, their complexity, versatility and pragmatism, and
their distinct, internal logic anchored in specific world-views.
What relationship between scientific and ‘other’ knowledge systems? For many
biophysical scientists and also the food and drug industry, the first response is to
prospect traditional knowledge sets for information useful to science. The potential
benefits of this enterprise are multiple: indigenous crop varieties with desirable
characteristics; new active agents from traditional medicinal plants; local management
techniques co-adapted to local ecosystems. But grave concerns have arisen about the
misappropriation of traditional intellectual property, often for economic profit, and a
disregard for equitable benefits-sharing with knowledge-holders.
Other scientists promote the integration of scientific and indigenous knowledge, for
example in the domain of renewable resource co-management, purportedly blending
the best of two world-views. Are such arrangements of mutual benefit? Given
inherent imbalances of power in favour of science, how often does scientific
cooperation transform into the co-optation of the indigenous system?
These science-centred approaches pose other, more fundamental threats to indigenous
knowledge. Indigenous systems possess a cultural logic of their own. When screened
on the sole basis of value to science, knowledge judged useful is selected and the
remains are discarded as ‘superstition and belief’. Such a process dismembers,
debases and destabilizes knowledge systems, jeopardizing their continued existence.
By ‘mining’ these systems for short-term intellectual gain, we undermine their very
social and cultural foundations and menace the traditional societies that harbour them.