Natural Resources: Trad Ecological Knowledges

Advanced special topics in natural resource planning beyond the scope of existing formal courses.

Minimum Junior standing Special Topics courses cannot carry CC designations. Open to Degree and PACE students.

This course introduces students to diverse spheres and dynamics of traditional ecological knowledges (TEKs). Besides concepts, theories, diverse methodologies, and approaches situated in ethnographic contexts, some emphasis is allocated to emotions in order to offer a more holistic comprehension of the real-world applications, sensibilities, and justice issues related to TEKs. Our priorities are to review, describe, comprehend, feel, sense, and reflect critically on interwoven topics from lectures, videos, readings, and podcasts. Worldwide examples of TEK systems will allow students to envision the variety of approaches applied to appraise and understand TEKs, including the different ways of knowing (emotions, intuitions, dreams, feelings, rationality, memories, perceptions, taxonomies, histories, anecdotes, associations, among others) and how they are transmitted, preserved, or changed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs).

At the end of the semester, students will be able to: 1. Recognize and understand key concepts, notions, dynamics, approaches, and some ethnographic literature associated with TEKs, resource management, and sustainability. 2. Acknowledge the contiguity of TEKs in our daily lives and the potential of integrating different knowledges—Indigenous, Local, and Scientific—for a variety of purposes. 3. Understand/feel the similarities, differences, and compatibilities of traditional and scientific knowledge systems, including the potential to integrate them to achieve more fruitful products. 4. Value the importance of TEKs in shaping human-environment interactions on both diachronic and synchronic scales worldwide. 5. Grasp the inherently diverse, complex, and place-based nature of TEK systems, requiring inter- and transdisciplinary methodologies and approaches to describe, understand, and explain them. 6. Appreciate different ways of knowing/feeling and knowledge bases in diachronic and synchronic spheres, including how perceptions, emotions, intuitions, memories, dreams, values, feelings, and uses of our current and past environments have been influenced by traditional backgrounds. 7. Realize that every person inherits and is part of one or more ecological knowledge traditions.