Indigenous Knowledge, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology

✍ Scribed by Raymond Pierotti

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 281
• Series: Indigenous Peoples and Politics
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Indigenous ways of understanding and interacting with the natural world are characterized as Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), which derives from emphasizing relationships and connections among species. This book examines TEK and its strengths in relation to Western ecological knowledge and evolutionary philosophy. Pierotti takes a look at the scientific basis of this approach, focusing on different concepts of communities and connections among living entities, the importance of understanding the meaning of relatedness in both spiritual and biological creation, and a careful comparison with evolutionary ecology. The text examines the themes and principles informing this knowledge, and offers a look at the complexities of conducting research from an indigenous perspective.

✦ Table of Contents

Title......Page 6
Copyright......Page 7
Contents......Page 10
Figures......Page 12
Acknowledgments......Page 14
Introduction......Page 18
1 Defining Traditional Ecological Knowledge......Page 24
2 All Things Are Connected: Communities as Both Ecological and Social Entities in Indigenous American Thought......Page 43
3 Predators Not Prey: “Wolves of Creation” Rather Than “Lambs of God”......Page 66
4 Metaphors and Models: Indigenous Knowledge and Evolutionary Ecology......Page 85
5 Cultural and Biological Creation and the Concept of Relatedness......Page 109
6 Applying Principles of TEK Within the Western Scientific Tradition......Page 130
7 Connected to the Land: Nature and Spirit in Native American Novels......Page 152
8 Ecological Indians: European Imaginations and Indigenous Reality......Page 174
9 A Critical Comment on Both Western Science and Indigenous Responses to the Western Scientific Tradition......Page 195
10 Who Speaks for the Buffalo?: Finding the Indigenous in Academia......Page 214
11 Traditional Ecological Knowledge: The Third Alternative......Page 224
References......Page 246
Index......Page 266