Ecological Knowledge

This review summarizes current discussions of the nature and importance of local ecological knowledge from the fields of development anthropology and natural resource management. The review begins with a summary of attempts to define the differences and similarities between Western science and alternative knowledge systems, in relation to theoretical and normative debates on the role of local/indigenous/traditional knowledge in international development and natural resource management initiatives. This is followed by an exploration of more critical perspectives on knowledge production, leading to the suggestion that an understanding of all knowledge as "situated" and socially-produced may helpfully contribute more complex, non-dichotomous understanding of political relations as mediated by knowledge structures. The closing section attempts to apply these critical insights in briefly assessing recent theoretical models of knowledge co-production, specifically with reference to models for participatory development research and resource management.

Terminologies

Interest in local ecological knowledge is comparatively recent. While current debates on "indigenous knowledge" and "local knowledge" are generally traced to the late 1970s (Howes&Chambers1979; Brokensha&Others1980), a coherent field of discussion on these topics emerged somewhat later through the "farmer first" movement (Chambers&Others1989; Scoones&Thompson1994; Scoones&Thompson2009) and similar works promoting attention to local knowledge in technical assistance or international development projects (World Bank1998; Warren&Others1989; Warren&Others1995; Boven&Morohashi2002). Comparable discussion of traditional and indigenous knowledge issues arose concurrently in relation to indigenous communities in Canada and other developed nations (Inglis1993). Anthropological contributions to debates on the nature of local or indigenous knowledge, as broadly represented in a series of recent volumes edited by Sillitoe, Bicker, and Pottier (Sillitoe&Others2002; Pottier&Others2003; Bicker&Others2004a; Bicker&Others2004b; Sillitoe2007), have placed considerable focus on ethical issues of representation, indigenous rights, and power relations in participatory development and research. The corresponding literature in the field of natural resource management, by contrast, is largely normative and definitional (Davis&Ruddle2010), avoiding the ethical problematization of research methods that dominates anthropological writings. This literature on "traditional ecological knowledge" primarily discusses the value of researching and documenting local ecological knowledge (LEK) with the objective of integrating existing local knowledge of resource conditions into management frameworks, or of supporting co-management initiatives (Berkes2004; Berkes&Others2008; Folke2004; Huntington2000; Olsson&Folke2001).

While the attempt to compare and contrast knowledge systems constitutes a reasonably defined field of interdisciplinary discussion, the variety of perspectives on the nature and importance of ontological difference has resulted in the deployment of a range of competing terms to describe "other" knowledge (Davis&Ruddle2010; Purcell1998), each of which presents distinct advantages and limitations (Heckler2007). The term "Traditional Ecological Knowledge" (TEK), brought into common usage by the IUCN's TEK Working Group (Williams&Others1993), places focus on the customary nature of knowledge associated with small-scale adaptive strategies, often in the context of attempts to validate such ecological knowledge for co-management or related purposes (Berkes2008; Berkes&Others2008; Fernandez-Gimenez2000; Folke2004; Inglis1993; Menzies2006). "Indigenous (Ecological) Knowledge" (IK/IEK) is more frequently associated with discourses combining territorial, cultural, and environmental rights, and has greater currency in development studies and development anthropology (Lauer&Aswani2009; Nakashima2007; Sillitoe1998; Sillitoe&Marzano2009). The term "Local (Ecological) Knowledge" (LK/LEK), by contrast, has been favoured as being more broadly applicable to communities presenting achieved rather than ascribed membership, with reference to contemporary technical knowledge gained experientially by small-scale resource users—who, as in the case of fishers in developed nations, for example, may not necessarily be "indigenous"—instead of by cultural affiliation (Bart2006; German2010; Gilchrist&Mallory2007; Murray&Others2006; Robbins2003). Although the terms LEK and TEK have occasionally been used concurrently to distinguish between recent "hybrid" and older "indigenous" knowledges or ways of knowing (Berkes2008), such distinctions may be considered problematic due to their temporal construction of "authenticity" (Agrawal1995). A converse approach, favoured by some authors, has been to redefine "science" itself as a more inclusive category, through the use of labels such as "local science" (Sillitoe2007) or "indigenous science" (Bodeker2007). Such perspectives focus on the commonalities between laboratory science and local knowledge, pointing to the universality of trial-and-error learning and to the internal coherence of each distinct epistemological system, or more generally to the artificial nature of epistemological difference (Agrawal2002; Ellen&Others2000). In all cases, the binary knowledge categories established by each of these terms must be taken as relative and subject to negotiation (Adams2001; Agrawal1995; Agrawal2002).

Ontological difference and sacred ecology

Much of the literature on IEK and TEK touches on the seemingly fundamental differences between Western and non-Western worldviews, as observed most pronouncedly in indigenous beliefs seeming to construct the natural world as sacred or spiritually interconnected (Pierotti&Wildcat2000). The pragmatic value of sacred ecological knowledge, ritual, and social structures in maintaining ecological sustainability, as described by some environmental anthropologists (Lansing2007; Rappaport1968; Reichel-Dolmatoff1976), continues to inform discussions highlighting the importance of TEK within natural resource management (Berkes2008; Byers&Others2001; Klubnikin&Others2000; Ramakrishnan&Others1998; Messer&Lambek2001). Methodologically, such functionalist ecological arguments lend support to ethnoscientific research strategies, which posit that documentation of LEK taxonomies can make alternative knowledge systems legible to etic scientific discussion (Rist&Dahdouh-Guebas2006; Sturtevant1964; Sanga&Ortalli2004). The political appeal of sacred ecological approaches can be enhanced their emphasis on validating local cultural heritage—as evidenced, for example, by recent efforts to promote sacred ecological knowledge in Mongolia funded by the World Bank (Urantsatsral&Others2009; Sukhbaatar2002; Amarxu'u'&Byambazhav2006). While useful, sacred ecological knowledge (SEK) approaches also raise problems, however, to the extent that they risk essentializing apparent ontological difference. Where SEK is regarded as functionally but not scientifically valid—that is, external to the domain of demonstrable truth—it may implicitly be ascribed primitivist, "pre-logical" characteristics (Boyer2005; cf. Lévy-Bruhl1923), supporting the conception of indigenous people as "ecologically noble savages" (Dove2006; Escobar1998; Holt2005; Little1999; Nadasdy2005b; Raymond2007). Further, the political dynamic of contemporary knowledge production within the domain of the "sacred" or "traditional" is often underplayed or discounted altogether within the scientific literature (Nadasdy1999).

Disagreement remains over whether indigenous "sacred" ways of knowing are substantially different from Western scientific knowledge (Agrawal1995; Ellen2004)—a line of discussion that recalls earlier anthropological debates on "primitive rationality" (Evans-Pritchard1963; Lowie1936; Malinowski1925; see also Sanders2003; Tambiah1990). Recent anthropological work on animism offers an increasingly nuanced understanding of SEK, drawing on the related concepts of "relationism" or the "dividual" personality (Bird-David&Others1999; Descola1996; Harvey2006; Hornborg2008; Ingold2000a; Latour1993a; see also Strathern1988) and mimesis (Taussig1992; Willerslev2007), in attempts to describe ontological difference in non-reductionist terms. Such works indicate that non-human personhood is not necessarily perceived as absolute, but as relational and contingent on specific activities (Willerslev2007). Animist conceptions of non-human agency may thus involve no concept of sentience as assumed in Tylor's definition (Tylor1916), but rather a more generalized recognition of agency consistent with scientific discussions of emergence—as seen in the recent literature on self-organizing and complex adaptive systems in human ecology (Hartvigsen&Others1998; Lansing2003; Lansing2006; Lansing&Kremer1993; Levin1998; Rammel&Others2007; Gunderson&Holling2002) and in religious studies (Goodenough&Deacon2006). Such agency may, in this case, be rendered comprehensible through anthropomorphic narratives (Cruikshank2005). Some of the currently most influential ecological anthropological interpretations along these lines have been advanced by Ingold (Ingold1986a; Ingold2000b), who draws on actor-network theory in describing the agency of non-human and non-living elements of an environment. This perspective encourages an understanding of human-natural interactions as situated in fluid, relational cultural landscapes, challenging essentialist and anthropocentric conceptions of natural sacred sites—notably sacred groves (Sheridan&Nyamweru2008)—and of indigenous people's relationship with natural phenomena such as fire (Miller&Davidson-Hunt2010).

Recent contributions dealing with the sacred from a political ecology perspective have looked at how indigenous people actively negotiate representations of LEK and cosmologies as a form of "knowledge politics"—as opposed to simply implementing TEK in the context of inherited resource-use strategies (Escobar1998; Dove2006; Novellino2003a; Tsing2005; West2005; Obadia2008; Tiedje2008; Bird-David&Naveh2008; Runk2009; Blaser2009). Environmentalist and indigenist discourses can clearly both construct the environment in abstract and universalizing ways (Carrier2004). Yet conceptions of nature are also related to (local) identity politics, as evidenced by the symbolic representation of landscapes as "natural heritage" (Breidenbach&Nyíri2007) or use of the natural environment as a basis for community attachment (Brehm2007). Considerable variations are apparent in the ways that "nature" is conceived across cultures (Selin&Kalland2003), but competing environmentalisms also underline the potential for considerable intra-cultural diversity (Adger&Others2001; Kalland&Persoon1998; Little1999; Mühlhäusler&Peace2006; Nadasdy2005b).

Problematizing nature/culture and TEK/science

Recent anthropological works have further suggested that binary notions such as sacred/profane or nature/culture may be an artifact of Western culture (cf. Lévi-Strauss1966; McLean2009). As Descola and Pálsson provocatively suggest, the anthropological identification of "culture" as an area of study itself may serve to reinforce rather than to challenge dualist structures (Descola&Pálsson1996) . Stringent critiques of the "nature/culture" dualism have also been made from the area of science and technology studies (STS), most notably by Latour and Haraway (Latour1993a; Haraway1987; see also Fischer2007). Haraway's concept of "situated knowledges" (Haraway1988) and other standpoint theorists' critiques of science (Harding2008; Smith1990; Wylie&Others1989) offer further valuable insights into the partial—yet potentially othering—nature of scientific knowledge (see also Franklin1995). While acknowledging the inadequacy of scientific/indigenous binary conceptions, proponents of IK have noted, however, that ignoring distinctions between such forms of knowledge can serve to reinforce the privileged position of science (Sillitoe2002).

Attempts to combine scientific and local ecological knowledge, despite their best intentions, may still privilege the technical and scientific. Adoption of GPS or GIS in collaborative resource mapping projects, for instance, can cause LEK derived from direct interactions with a landscape to be replaced—rather than simply complemented—by Cartesian understandings (Aporta&Higgs2005; see also Campbell2002; Robbins2003). In more general terms, efforts to "integrate" LEK into scientific management, through validation or calibration against controlled experiments (Bart2006; Huntington2000; Moller&Others2004; Rist&Dahdouh-Guebas2006; Roba&Oba2009), can maintain power differences between indigenous communities and the state or development organizations by granting higher epistemological status to scientific knowledge, while problematically distilling LEK from its social context (Nadasdy1999). As Sillitoe has recently argued, IK and science may be fundamentally incompatible where local concepts of "validity" privilege subjective accounts (Sillitoe2010). Further, the abstraction and generalization, or "scientization", of LEK generates profound validity concerns for representation of LEK whose meaning is ordinarily embedded in social relations (Agrawal1995; Agrawal2002). Ecological knowledge "co-production" strategies, avoiding the problematic conflation of in situ and ex situ (i.e., scientifically documented) LEK, may help to overcome these problems (Holm2003; see also "methodological applications" below). Yet as indicated by Ingold's concept of "dwelling" (Ingold2000b; Ingold2010), LEK, unlike technical scientific understandings, must be considered as embodied knowledge; related observations by ethnographers concerned with sensorial perception and ways of knowing (e.g., Geurts2002) provoke questions as to whether documentation strategies can ever adequately translate IEK. Some cognitive anthropologists have pointed out, on a similar note, that behaviour is often guided by knowledge in the form of "cultural models" or schemas that are not readily verbalized (Borchgrevink2002; D'Andrade&Strauss1992). Such findings are challenged, however, by competing approaches suggesting that behaviour is more likely to be guided by cognitive models derived from direct and communicative experience than by shared rules and norms (Atran&Others2005).

The above arguments notwithstanding, maintaining a distinction between "objective" scientific and "subjective" local ecological knowledge can be misleading. As Latour and others have demonstrated, ostensibly objective scientific knowledge inevitably results from social processes; the objectivized construct of "nature" as facts-to-be-discovered masks the subjectivity and uncertainty of knowledge-creation (Latour1987; Latour1993a; Jasanoff2004). On a more general level, the potentially arbitrary boundaries of the "knowable" are put into evidence by Foucault's notion of epistemes (Foucault1989) and by Kuhn's theory of scientific paradigms (Kuhn1996). Feyerabend's radical critique of the scientific method (Feyerabend1988) is also useful in pointing to the legitimacy of non-systematic ways of generating knowledge—a suggestion that resonates with attempts to reconsider IK as situated practices rather than as coherent systems (Hobart1993). In effect, as local knowledge and practices are typically part of much larger, non-local networks, it may be more appropriate to represent different forms of knowledge as contingently situated along a continuum rather than as distinctly "local" or "global" (Murray&Others2006; Sillitoe2002).

Partial ecological knowledge

One of the major pragmatic issues arising from these discussions is the inability of any actor to possess full knowledge of a given phenomenon—leading, as postmodern theorists have argued, to totalizing understandings that risk being perceived as more complete than they really are, but also to the constitution of subjective understandings shaped by what is not known (Dilley2010). While post-development critiques have focused on the negative aspects of ignorance in terms of development discourses' construction of the "ignorant subject" (Hobart1993), some authors have noted that concealment can also be a significant strategy of manipulation or resistance used from below (Mathews2008; Novellino2003; Scott1992), or of controlling access to resources (Maurstad2002).

From a resource management perspective, the partial nature of any knowledge of complex human-ecological systems invites two distinct strategies—the reduction of complexity into manageable or "legible" units (Scott1999), and the management of expert knowledge (Bocking2004)—both of which involve political choices regarding whose knowledge is to be privileged, and how. The political dimensions of LEK research are evident in debates among ecologists over whether indigenous conservation is effective (Alcorn1993; cf. Menzies&Butler2006; Redford&Sanderson2000; Redford&Stearman1993; Smith&Wishnie2000), which to some extent reflect the situated priorities of scientists and resource users: competing measures of ecosystem health, for example, can result from biologists' and resource users' respective concerns for biological diversity and biological productivity (Bollig&Schulte1999). Yet while such differences limit the potential for arriving at common truths, a strong relativist stance toward LEK can also be dangerous. Local attributions of environmental change (e.g., Crate2008; Marin2010) may be partial or even inaccurate, while differences in environmental risk perception have likewise been shown to reflect gender or socioeconomic biases, or simply variable perceptions of the environment itself (Baird&Others2009; Quinn&Others2003; Smith&Others2000; Smith&Others2001). More importantly, ecologically unsustainable practices often can be seen to result from the "invisibility" of actual resource use in complex market systems (Wallerstein1999; Wallerstein2007), again a consequence of knowledge partiality.

Methodological applications and future directions

Discussions of LEK/TEK/IEK present obvious significance to environmental anthropological research, touching on ethical concerns with the nature of the ethnographic text as authoritatively-positioned scholarly/scientific representation (Marcus1998; Fox1991). Major methodological handbooks for IK/LK research issued by development or other organizations often advocate a participatory development or conservation approach (Brascoupé&Mann2001; Grenier1998; Hansen&VanFleet2003; Langill1999; Langill&Landon1998; Mathias1996; Miraglia1998; Johnson1992), but typically describe an extractive strategy of documenting LEK for instrumental purposes. TEK/IEK documentation strategies undertaken by specialized scientists may additionally privilege the knowledge and positions of elites through proposed strategies of collaboration with local "expert" informants (Choy2005; Davis&Wagner2003).

Recent participatory research approaches in conservation and resource management (Johnson2010b; Jolly&Krupnik2002; Fortmann2008) offer some promise for long-term, collaborative knowledge projects through institutional arrangements, building on the concept of "adaptive learning" integral to the emerging model of "Adaptive Co-Management" (ACM) (Armitage&Others2008; see also under "governance" below; Berkes&Turner2006). Some of the most promising developments in the area of ecological knowledge co-production look to social constructivist learning theories in presenting—albeit still on a fairly general level—models for participatory and non-extractive research and learning (Davidson-Hunt2006; Davidson-Hunt&O'Flaherty2007; Diduck&Others2005; Keen&Others2005; Measham2009; Muro&Jeffrey2008; Parson&Clark1995; Reed&Others2006). Such developments bear a notable similarity of purpose to some recent methodological contributions to the field of cultural anthropology, which have aimed to introduce more collaborative ethnographic practices (Choy&Others2009; Hemment2007; Lassiter2005) or participatory, dialogic forms of commentary on publicly-accessible ethnographic documents (Fabian2002; Fabian2008; cf. Sanjek1990). Future research on LEK may also benefit from engagement with the concept of "Communities of Practice" (COP), groups formed through the sharing technical knowledge of shared practices (Lave&Wenger1991; see also Marchand2010; Wenger2007; Wenger&Others2002; Wilson2006); the COP approach usefully identifies conditions for learning on an institutional scale, while recognizing the potential for heterogeneity within distinct "knowledge communities" such as scientists or resource users (Armitage&Others2008; Blair2009; Muro&Jeffrey2008). Additional linkages may be made with the literature on "citizen science", which calls for greater interaction between scientific experts and other communities, including public participation in the creation of scientific knowledge (Bocking2004; Irwin1995; see also Nowotny&Others2001; Jasanoff2004; Leach&Others2005).

As an analytical approach, Vayda's method of "progressive contextualization" in human ecology (Vayda1983), while nominally directed at understanding human actions or natural events and their consequences, may additionally be of particular use in studying IEK as situated ecological knowledges associated with specific processes and actions (Vayda&Others2004). This technique presents the key advantage of viewing human ecological systems as non-bounded—unlike the reified "culture", "community", or "ecosystem" of structural functionalism, political ecology, or systems ecology (Vayda&Others1991; Vayda&Walters1999)—but progressively knowable through the networked chains of interactions extending from one or several vantage points.

Anthropology of LEK as epistemological critique

The literature discussed in this review often critiques, but remains largely embedded in, Western scientific processes of knowledge production. The terminological diversity encountered in attempts to contrast these processes to "indigenous", "traditional", or "local" categories of knowledge reflects the different contexts of engagement with specific points of difference and exclusion: the privileging of outside over local technical knowledge in development projects; the lack of accommodation for indigenous communities' resource-use traditions in natural resource management and conservation policies; or the exclusion of local resource users' ecological knowledge from resource management and policy. These exclusions all derive, to some extent, from representations of science as universal, reliable, valid, and free of individual or cultural bias. Local knowledge, by contrast, can at times be perceived as subjective, parochial, or simply too difficult to validate; practices in which local knowledge is embedded have meanwhile been judged "irrational", as with manifestations of non-scientific ontologies, or "underdeveloped", in the case of technologies that are poorly integrated into an industrial economy. Essentialist discursive strategies of constructing LEK/TEK/IEK in opposition to Western science thus aim to assert the validity of specific forms of knowledge, by insisting on the primacy of the indigenous over the colonial, the stronger record of ecological sustainability of traditional over modern resource use, or the more granular adaptive capacity of the local over the universal. The conflation of the scientific and the political in LEK research may be perceived as a threat to objectivity, but as the present discussion has attempted to demonstrate, all knowledge is political. In this context environmental anthropology and political ecology offer a strong potential for both cultural and epistemological critique.

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