Check out this video I made about my Community-led PhD Research with the Shuar and Inishanunka.org for Queen's University Gradflix Showcase around the importance of decolonizing the production of knowledge and the importance of Indigenous science for planetary health!
’"Decolonizing the Western Centric view of the cosmos and moving toward holistic perspectives is essential to the future of life on this planet"’ (Grosfoguel, 2019, p. 206). It cannot be a coincidence that our planet's remaining flourishing ecosystems and biological hotspots have been exempt from Western colonial expansion. Indigenous Shuar communities have resisted colonial encroachment until recent decades and have been practicing their ancestral science in their territory since time immemorial. It is a fact that Indigenous peoples represent only 5 percent of the world’s population (United Nations, 2009, p. 84), yet they effectively steward the planet's remaining natural ecosystems: ‘managing 80 percent its biodiversity and 40 percent of all ecologically intact landscapes’ (Jerez, 2021, p. 1). The Cordillera de Transkutukú is 1/31 of these biological hotspots and it is the rainforest the Shuar calls home (Palacio Orejuela & Rodriguez Espinosa, 2021). I contend that this didn’t happen by accident. This biodiversity is a product of sacred Shuar science that worked to cultivate abundance and relationships with the more-than-human world in their territory for the last 40,000 years (Hammer, et al., 2013).
References:
Grosfoguel, R (2019).Conclusion. In Knowledges Born in the Struggle: Constructing the Epistemologies of the Global South. De Sousa Santos, B., & Meneses, M (Eds.). Routledge. https://lnkd.in/gCKebSZZ
Hammer, C., Jintiach, J. C., Tsakimp, R. (2013). Practical developments in law science and policy: efforts to protect the traditional group knowledge and practices of the Shuar, an indigenous people of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Policy Sciences, 46(2), 125-141. https://lnkd.in/gfkwZpug
Jerez, M. M. (2021). Challenges and Opportunities for Indigenous Peoples’ Sustainability.
https://lnkd.in/gZ2sg5Mz
Palacio Orejuela, I., Rodriguez Espinosa, F. (2021). Economic valuation of environmental goods and services of the Protector Forest Kutukú – Shaimi, SE Ecuador. International Journal of Energy, 27, 117-132. https://lnkd.in/gs88CS8Q
United Nations. (2009). State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. https://lnkd.in/gXwAejdW
