Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-rnj55 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-08T09:43:04.728Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Changing understandings of local knowledge in island environments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2017

MATTHEW LAUER*
Affiliation:
San Diego State University – Anthropology, 5500 Campanile Dr, San Diego, CA 92182-0001, USA
*
*Correspondence: Dr Matthew Lauer email: mlauer@mail.sdsu.edu

Summary

Island ecosystems have rich marine biodiversity and high levels of terrestrial endemism, but are potentially the most vulnerable to climate change and anthropogenic stressors. To effectively manage environments, scholars and conservation practitioners have increasingly turned their attention to local islander knowledge (LK) and practices. To date, much of the literature treats LK definitionally rather than examining its theoretical underpinnings. This review focuses explicitly on the concept of LK and it describes three discernible phases of research marked by conceptual shifts. Over the 20th century, LK underwent a dramatic reversal from something understood as inferior and deficient to something that is valuable and empirically sound. This shift ushered in widespread acceptance of local islander knowledge as a unique, rich corpus of information that could be tapped by Western science to enhance community-based resource management. Over the last several decades, a third phase of LK research has emerged in which a more dynamic framing has developed, emphasizing LK's hybrid and adaptive dimensions, as well as its constitutive entanglements with other social–ecological processes. This has expanded the scope of inquiry into the strategies islanders employ as they adapt to changing social and environmental milieus, and as they attempt to co-produce knowledge with scientists and conservation practitioners.

Type
Subject Reviews
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agrawal, A. (1995) Dismantling the divide between indigenous and scientific knowledge. Development and Change 26: 413439.Google Scholar
Armitage, D., Marschke, M. & Plummer, R. (2008) Adaptive co-management and the paradox of learning. Global environmental change 18 (1): 8698.Google Scholar
Armitage, D. R. (2003) Traditional agroecological knowledge, adaptive management and the socio-politics of conservation in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Environmental Conservation 30 (01): 7990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aswani, S. (1997) Customary Sea Tenure and Artisanal Fishing in the Roviana and Vonavona Lagoons, Solomon Islands: The Evolutionary Ecology of Marine Resource Utilization, PhD Thesis. University of Hawaii, Department of Anthropology, Honolulu, HI, USA.Google Scholar
Aswani, S. (2002) Assessing the effects of changing demographic and consumption patterns on sea tenure regimes in the Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. Ambio 31 (4): 272284.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Aswani, S. & Hamilton, R. J. (2004) Integrating indigenous ecological knowledge and customary sea tenure with marine and social science for conservation of bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum) in Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. Environmental Conservation 31: 6983.Google Scholar
Aswani, S. & Lauer, M. (2014) Indigenous people's detection of rapid ecological change. Conservation Biology 28 (3): 820828.Google Scholar
Aswani, S., Vaccaro, I., Abernethy, K., Albert, S. & de Pablo, J. F. L. (2015) Can perceptions of environmental and climate change in island communities assist in adaptation planning locally? Environmental management 56 (6): 14871501.Google Scholar
Bambridge, T., ed. (2016) The Rahui: Legal Pluralism in Polynesian Traditional Management of Resources and Territories. Acton, Australia: ANU Press.Google Scholar
Bartlett, C. Y., Pakoa, K. & Manua, C. (2009) Marine reserve phenomenon in the Pacific islands. Marine Policy 33 (4): 673678.Google Scholar
Berdej, S. & Armitage, D. (2016) Bridging for better conservation fit in Indonesia's coastal-marine systems. Frontiers in Marine Science 3: 101.Google Scholar
Berkes, F. (1993) Traditional ecological knowledge in perspective. In: Traditional Ecological Knowledge Concepts and Cases, ed. Inglis, J., pp. 110. Ottawa, ON, Canada: International Program on Traditional Ecological Knowledge: International Development Research Centre.Google Scholar
Berkes, F., Reid, W. V., Wilbanks, T. J. & Capistrano, D. (2006) Conclusions: bridging scales and knowledge systems. In: Bridging Scales and Knowledge Systems: Concepts and Applications in Ecosystem Assessment, eds. Reid, W. V., Berkes, F. & Wilbanks, T. J., pp. 315331. Washington, DC, USA: Island Press.Google Scholar
Brockington, D., Duffy, R. & Igoe, J. (2008) Nature Unbound: Conservation, Capitalism and the Future of Protected Areas. London, UK: Earthscan.Google Scholar
Brosius, J. P. (2006) What counts as local knowledge in global environmental assessments and conventions? In: Bridging Scales and Knowledge Systems: Concepts and Applications in Ecosystem Assessment, eds. Reid, W. V., Berkes, F., Wilbanks, T. & Capistran, D., pp. 129144. Washington, DC, USA: Island Press.Google Scholar
Carr, L. M. & Heyman, W. D. (2012) “It's about seeing what's actually out there”: quantifying fishers’ ecological knowledge and biases in a small-scale commercial fishery as a path toward co-management. Ocean & Coastal Management 69: 118132.Google Scholar
Cinner, J., Marnane, M. J., McClanahan, T. R. & Almany, G. R. (2006) Periodic closures as adaptive coral reef management in the Indo-Pacific. Ecology and Society 11 (1): 31.Google Scholar
Cinner, J. E. & Aswani, S. (2007) Integrating customary management into marine conservation. Biological Conservation 140 (3–4): 201216.Google Scholar
Cohen, P. J. & Foale, S. J. (2013) Sustaining small-scale fisheries with periodically harvested marine reserves. Marine Policy 37: 278287.Google Scholar
Cohen, P. J. & Steenbergen, D. J. (2015) Social dimensions of local fisheries co-management in the Coral Triangle. Environmental Conservation 42 (3): 278288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conklin, H. C. (1954) The Relation of Hanunóo Culture to the Plant World. New Haven, CT, USA: Yale University.Google Scholar
Connell, J. (2013) Islands at Risk? Environments, Economies and Contemporary Change. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.Google Scholar
Cooke, B. & Kothari, U. (2001) Participation: The New Tyranny? London, UK: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Davidson-Hunt, I. J. & O'Flaherty, M. R. (2007) Researchers, indigenous peoples, and place-based learning communities. Society & Natural Resources 20 (4): 291305.Google Scholar
Davis, A. & Ruddle, K. (2010) Constructing confidence: rational skepticism and systematic enquiry in local ecological knowledge research. Ecological Applications 20 (3): 880894.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Díaz, S., Demissew, S., Carabias, J., Joly, C., Lonsdale, M., Ash, N., Larigauderie, A., Adhikari, J. R., Arico, S. & Báldi, A. (2015) The IPBES conceptual framework – connecting nature and people. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 14: 116.Google Scholar
Dressler, W., Büscher, B., Schoon, M., Brockington, D. A. N., Hayes, T., Kull, C. A., McCarthy, J. & Shrestha, K. (2010) From hope to crisis and back again? A critical history of the global CBNRM narrative. Environmental Conservation 37 (1): 515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dressler, W. H. (2006) Co-opting conservation: migrant resource control and access to national park management in the Philippine uplands. Development and Change 37 (2): 401426.Google Scholar
Drew, J. A. (2005) Use of traditional ecological knowledge in marine conservation. Conservation Biology 19 (4): 12861293.Google Scholar
Ellen, R., Lycett, S. J. & Johns, S. E., eds. (2013) Understanding Cultural Transmission in Anthropology: A Critical Synthesis. New York, NY, USA: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Evans, L., Cherrett, N. & Pemsl, D. (2011) Assessing the impact of fisheries co-management interventions in developing countries: a meta-analysis. Journal of Environmental Management 92 (8): 19381949.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foale, S., Cohen, P., Januchowski-Hartley, S., Wenger, A. & Macintyre, M. (2011) Tenure and taboos: origins and implications for fisheries in the Pacific. Fish and Fisheries 12 (4): 357369.Google Scholar
Furusawa, T. (2009) Changing ethnobotanical knowledge of the Roviana people, Solomon Islands: quantitative approaches to its correlation with modernization. Human Ecology 37 (2): 147159.Google Scholar
García-Quijano, C. G. (2009) Managing complexity: ecological knowledge and success in Puerto Rican small-scale fisheries. Human Organization 68 (1): 117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gauld, R. (2000) Maintaining centralized control in community-based forestry: policy construction in the Philippines. Development and Change 31 (1): 229254.Google Scholar
Golden, A. S., Naisilsisili, W., Ligairi, I. & Drew, J. A. (2014) Combining natural history collections with fisher knowledge for community-based conservation in Fiji. PLoS One 9 (5): e98036.Google Scholar
Govan, H., Tawake, A., Tabunakawai, K., Jenkins, A., Lasgorceix, A., Schwarz, A. M., Aalbersberg, B., Manele, B., Vieux, C. & Notere, D. (2009) Status and Potential of Locally-managed Marine Areas in the South Pacific: Meeting Nature Conservation and Sustainable Livelihood Targets through Wide-spread Implementation of LMMAs: Study Report. Suva, Fiji: PREP/WWF/WorldFish-Reefbase/CRISP.Google Scholar
Grant, S. & Berkes, F. (2007) Fisher knowledge as expert system: a case from the longline fishery of Grenada, the Eastern Caribbean. Fisheries Research 84 (2): 162170.Google Scholar
Hamilton, R. J., Almany, G. R., Stevens, D., Bode, M., Pita, J., Peterson, N. A. & Choat, J. H. (2016) Hyperstability masks declines in bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum) populations. Coral Reefs 35 (3): 751763.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hviding, E. (1996) Guardians of Marovo Lagoon: Practice, Place, and Politics in Maritime Melanesia. Honolulu, HI, USA: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
IPBES (2013) Report of the Second Session of the Plenary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Bonn, Germany: IPBES.Google Scholar
Iskandar, J. & Ellen, R. (2007) Innovation, ‘hybrid’ knowledge, and the conservation of relict rainforest in upland Banten. In: Modern Crises and Traditional Strategies: Local Ecological Knowledge in Island Southeast Asia, ed. Ellen, R., pp. 133142. Oxford, UK: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Janif, S. Z., Nunn, P. D., Geraghty, P., Aalbersberg, W., Thomas, F. R. & Camailakeba, M. (2016) Value of traditional oral narratives in building climate-change resilience: insights from rural communities in Fiji. Ecology and Society 21 (2): 10.Google Scholar
Johannes, R. E. (1978) Traditional marine conservation methods in Oceania and their demise. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 9 (1): 349364.Google Scholar
Johannes, R. E. (1981) Words of the Lagoon: Fishing and Marine Lore in the Palau District of Micronesia. Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Johannes, R. E. (2002) The renaissance of community-based marine resource management in Oceania. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 33: 317340.Google Scholar
Johannes, R. E., Freeman, M. M. R. & Hamilton, R. J. (2000) Ignore fishers’ knowledge and miss the boat. Fish and Fisheries 1 (3): 257271.Google Scholar
Jupiter, S. D., Cohen, P. J., Weeks, R., Tawake, A. & Govan, H. (2014) Locally-managed marine areas: multiple objectives and diverse strategies. Pacific Conservation Biology 20 (2): 165179.Google Scholar
Keen, M. & Mahanty, S. (2006) Learning in sustainable natural resource management: challenges and opportunities in the Pacific. Society and Natural Resources 19 (6): 497513.Google Scholar
Keppel, G., Morrison, C., Meyer, J.-Y. & Boehmer, H. J. (2014) Isolated and vulnerable: the history and future of Pacific Island terrestrial biodiversity. Pacific Conservation Biology 20 (2): 136145.Google Scholar
Keppel, G., Morrison, C., Watling, D., Tuiwawa, M. V. & Rounds, I. A. (2012) Conservation in tropical Pacific Island countries: why most current approaches are failing. Conservation Letters 5 (4): 256265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuper, A. (2003) The return of the native. Current Anthropology 44 (3): 389403.Google Scholar
Lauer, M. (2012) Oral traditions or situated practices? Understanding how indigenous communities respond to environmental disasters. Human Organization 71 (2): 176187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lauer, M. & Aswani, S. (2009) Indigenous ecological knowledge as situated practices: understanding fishers’ knowledge in the western Solomon Islands. American Anthropologist 111 (3): 317329.Google Scholar
Lauer, M. & Aswani, S. (2010) Indigenous knowledge and long-term ecological change: detection, interpretation, and responses to changing ecological conditions in Pacific Island communities. Environmental Management 45 (5): 985997.Google Scholar
Lauer, M. & Matera, J. (2016) Who detects ecological change after catastrophic events? Indigenous knowledge, social networks, and situated practices. Human Ecology 44 (1): 3346.Google Scholar
Lawson, S. (1996) Tradition versus Democracy in the South Pacific: Fiji, Tonga, and Western Samoa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lazrus, H. (2015) Risk perception and climate adaptation in Tuvalu: a combined cultural theory and traditional knowledge approach. Human organization 74 (1): 5261.Google Scholar
Lebel, L., Anderies, J. M., Campbell, B., Folke, C., Hatfield-Dodds, S., Hughes, T. P., Wilson, J. & 2006. (2006) Governance and the capacity to manage resilience in regional social–ecological systems. Ecology and Society 11 (1): 19.Google Scholar
Lebot, V. & Simeoni, P. (2015) Community food security: resilience and vulnerability in Vanuatu. Human Ecology 43 (6): 827842.Google Scholar
Leopold, M., Beckensteiner, J., Kaltavara, J., Raubani, J. & Caillon, S. (2013) Community-based management of near-shore fisheries in Vanuatu: what works? Marine Policy 42: 167176.Google Scholar
Levine, A. & Sauafea-Le'au, F. (2013) Traditional knowledge, use, and management of living marine resources in American Samoa: documenting changes over time through interviews with elder fishers. Pacific Science 67 (3): 395407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lévy-Bruhl, L. (1985 [1910]) How Natives Think. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Li, T. M. (2000) Articulating indigenous identity in Indonesia: resource politics and the tribal slot. Comparative Studies in Society and History 42 (1): 149179.Google Scholar
Majnep, I. S. & Bulmer, R. N. H. (1977) Birds of My Kalam Country. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press.Google Scholar
Malinowski, B. C. (1918) Fishing in the Trobriand Islands. Man 18: 8792.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarter, J. & Gavin, M. C. (2014a) In situ maintenance of traditional ecological knowledge on Malekula Island, Vanuatu. Society & Natural Resources 27 (11): 11151129.Google Scholar
McCarter, J. & Gavin, M. C. (2014b) Local perceptions of changes in traditional ecological knowledge: a case study from Malekula Island, Vanuatu. Ambio 43 (3): 288296.Google Scholar
McCarter, J. & Gavin, M. C. (2015) Assessing variation and diversity of ethnomedical knowledge: a case study from Malekula Island, Vanuatu. Economic Botany 69 (3): 251261.Google Scholar
McClanahan, T. R. & Cinner, J. E. (2012) Adapting to a Changing Environment: Confronting the Consequences of Climate Change. New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McCubbin, S., Smit, B. & Pearce, T. (2015) Where does climate fit? Vulnerability to climate change in the context of multiple stressors in Funafuti, Tuvalu. Global Environmental Change 30: 4355.Google Scholar
McMillen, H., Ticktin, T. & Springer, H. K. (2017) The future is behind us: traditional ecological knowledge and resilience over time on Hawai'i Island. Regional Environmental Change 17 (2): 579592.Google Scholar
McMillen, H. L., Ticktin, T., Friedlander, A., Jupiter, S. D., Thaman, R., Campbell, J., Veitayaki, J., Giambelluca, T., Nihmei, S. & Rupeni, E. (2014) Small islands, valuable insights: systems of customary resource use and resilience to climate change in the Pacific. Ecology and Society 19 (4): 44.Google Scholar
Moller, H., O'Blyver, P., Bragg, C., Newman, J., Clucas, R., Fletcher, D., Kitson, J., McKechnie, S., Scott, D. & Body, Rakiura Titi Islands Administering (2009) Guidelines for cross-cultural participatory action research partnerships: a case study of a customary seabird harvest in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Zoology 36 (3): 211241.Google Scholar
Nadasdy, P. (1999) The politics of TEK: power and the “integration” of knowledge. Arctic Anthropology 36 (1–2): 118.Google Scholar
Pickering, A. (1995) The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science. Chicago, IL, USA: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pollard, E. J. M., Thaman, R., Brodie, G. & Morrison, C. (2015) Threatened biodiversity and traditional ecological knowledge: associated beliefs, customs, and uses of herpetofauna among the ‘Are'Are on Malaita Island, Solomon Islands. Ethnobiology Letters 6 (1): 99110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quimby, B. (2015) Emerging customs: small-scale fishing practices in Aceh, Indonesia. Applied Geography 59: 125130.Google Scholar
Rathwell, K., Armitage, D. & Berkes, F. (2015) Bridging knowledge systems to enhance governance of environmental commons: a typology of settings. International Journal of the Commons 9 (2): 851880.Google Scholar
Raymond, C. M., Fazey, I., Reed, M. S., Stringer, L. C., Robinson, G. M. & Evely, A. C. (2010) Integrating local and scientific knowledge for environmental management. Journal of Environmental Management 91 (8): 17661777.Google Scholar
Reyers, B., Nel, J. L., O'Farrell, P. J., Sitas, N. & Nel, D. C. (2015) Navigating complexity through knowledge coproduction: mainstreaming ecosystem services into disaster risk reduction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112 (24): 73627368.Google Scholar
Robinson, J., Cinner, J. E. & Graham, N. A. J. (2014) The influence of fisher knowledge on the susceptibility of reef fish aggregations to fishing. PLoS One 9 (3): e91296.Google Scholar
Ruddle, K. (1998) The context of policy design for existing community-based fisheries management systems in the Pacific Islands. Ocean & Coastal Management 40 (2–3): 105126.Google Scholar
Ruddle, K. (2008) Introduction to the collected works of R.E. Johannes, publications on marine traditional knowledge and management. SPC Traditional Marine Resource Management and Knowledge Information Bulletin 23: 1324.Google Scholar
Ruddle, K. & Akimichi, T., eds. (1984) Introduction in Maritime Institutions in the Western Pacific. Osaka, Japan: National Museum of Ethnoglogy (Senri Ethnological Studies).Google Scholar
Rudiak-Gould, P. (2013) Climate Change and Tradition in a Small Island State: The Rising Tide. New York, NY, USA: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rumbach, A. & Foley, D. (2014) Indigenous institutions and their role in disaster risk reduction and resilience: evidence from the 2009 tsunami in American Samoa. Ecology and Society 19 (1): 9.Google Scholar
Schuttenberg, H. Z. & Guth, H. K. (2015) Seeking our shared wisdom: a framework for understanding knowledge coproduction and coproductive capacities. Ecology and Society 20 (1): 11.Google Scholar
Scoones, I. (1999) New ecology and the social sciences: what prospects for a fruitful engagement? Annual Review of Anthropology 28: 479507.Google Scholar
Silvertown, J. (2009) A new dawn for citizen science. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 24 (9): 467471.Google Scholar
South, G. R., Goulet, D., Tuqiri, S. & Church, M., eds. (1994) Traditional Marine Tenure and Sustainable Management of Marine Resources in Asia and the Pacific. Suva, Fiji: International Ocean Institute – South Pacific.Google Scholar
Spalding, M. D. & Brown, B. E. (2015) Warm-water coral reefs and climate change. Science 350 (6262): 769771.Google Scholar
Sujarwo, W., Arinasa, I. B. K., Salomone, F., Caneva, G. & Fattorini, S. (2014) Cultural erosion of Balinese indigenous knowledge of food and nutraceutical plants. Economic Botany 68 (4): 426437.Google Scholar
Tengö, M., Brondizio, E. S., Elmqvist, T., Malmer, P. & Spierenburg, M. (2014) Connecting diverse knowledge systems for enhanced ecosystem governance: the multiple evidence base approach. Ambio 43 (5): 579591.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thaman, R., Lyver, P., Mpande, R., Perez, E., Cariño, J. & Takeuchi, K. (2013) The Contribution of Indigenous and Local Knowledge Systems to IPBES: Building Synergies with Science. IPBES Expert Meeting Report, UNESCO/UNU. Paris, France: UNESCO.Google Scholar
Thaman, R. R. (2005) Trees outside forests as a foundation for sustainable development in the small island developing states of the Pacific Ocean. International Forestry Review 4 (4): 268276.Google Scholar
Thorburn, C. (2001) The house that poison built: customary marine property rights and the live food fish trade in the Kei Islands, southeast Maluku. Development and Change 32 (1): 151180.Google Scholar
Turnbull, D. (2000) Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers: Comparative Studies in the Sociology of Scientific and Indigenous Knowledge. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Harwood Academic.Google Scholar
Turnbull, D. (2009) Futures for indigenous knowledges. Futures 41 (1): 15.Google Scholar
Turner, R. A., Cakacaka, A., Graham, N. A. J., Polunin, N. V. C., Pratchett, M. S., Stead, S. M. & Wilson, S. K. (2007) Declining reliance on marine resources in remote South Pacific societies: ecological versus socio-economic drivers. Coral Reefs 26 (4): 9971008.Google Scholar
Turnhout, E., Bloomfield, B., Hulme, M., Vogel, J. & Wynne, B. (2012) Listen to the voices of experience. Nature 488 (7412): 454455.Google Scholar
Walker, B. L. E. & Robinson, M. A. (2009) Economic development, marine protected areas and gendered access to fishing resources in a Polynesian lagoon. Gender, Place and Culture 16 (4): 467484.Google Scholar
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A. & Snyder, W. (2002) Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Boston, MA, USA: Harvard Business Press.Google Scholar
Zent, S. (2013) The processural perspectives on traditional environmental knowledge: continuity, erosion, transformation, innovation. In: Understanding Cultural Transmission in Anthropology: A Critical Synthesis, eds. Ellen, R., Lycett, S. J. & Johns, S. E., pp. 213265. New York, NY, USA: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar