If Indigenous Peoples Stand with the
les sciences, Will Scientists Stand with Us?
Megan Bang, Ananda Marin & Douglas Medin
Abstrait: Indigenous sciences are foundationally based in relationships, reciprocity, and responsibilities.
These sciences constitute systems of knowledge developed through distinct perspectives on and practices of
knowledge creation and decision-making that not only have the right to be pursued on their own terms
but may also be vital in solving critical twenty-first-century challenges. “Science” is often treated as if it
were a single entity, free of cultural influences and value-neutral in principle. Western science is often seen
as instantiating and equivalent to this idealized, yet problematic, view of science. We argue for engage-
ment with multiple perspectives on science in general, and increased engagement with Indigenous sciences
in particular. As scholars focused on human learning and development, we share empirical examples of
how Indigenous sciences, sometimes in partnership with Western science, have led to new discoveries and
insights into human learning and development.
For many years, wildlife biologists who observed
coyotes and badgers hunting in the same area hypoth-
esized that they were competing for game and spec-
ulated that badgers would follow coyotes in hopes of
snatching their prey. After further observation, the bi-
ologists realized that badgers and coyotes often hunt
cooperatively and that this in fact makes them more
réussi. The logics in these studies mirrored rea-
soning patterns within some Indigenous communi-
liens: c'est, Indigenous peoples often focus on and in-
quire about reciprocal relationships between entities.
C'est possible, donc, that different cultural orien-
tations may facilitate different insights into badger
and coyote behavior. To further test this insight and
place these findings in a cultural context, we removed
all the text from a children’s book on coyote/badger
hunting, asked U.S. college students and Indigenous
Panamanian Ngöbe adults to look at the book’s illus-
trations, and listened to what they thought the book
depicted. U.S. college students interpreted the story
© 2018 by the American Academy of Arts & les sciences
est ce que je:10.1162/DAED_a_00498
megan bang is Associate Pro-
fessor at the University of Wash-
ington College of Education.
ananda marin is Assistant Pro –
fessor at the ucla Graduate School
of Education and Information
Études.
douglas medin, a Fellow of
the American Academy since 2002,
is Professor of Psychology at North-
western University.
(Complete author biographies appear
at the end of the essay.)
148
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as competitive, while Ngöbe adults saw it as
cooperative.1 This study shows that cultur-
al orientations influence how we interpret
and explain our observations–both in our
everyday lives and when we build systems
of knowledge.
Indigenous sciences build knowledge
about the world through a distinct set of
orienting values, concepts, and questions.
These include: What is worthy of atten-
tion? What needs explanation? Who is
related? Comment? Why does it matter? Tewa
scholar Gregory Cajete has articulated one
of the most important concepts of Indig-
enous science in this way: “everything is
related, c'est, connected in dynamic, dans-
teractive, and mutually reciprocal relation-
ships.” 2 This foundational premise shapes
Indigenous sciences both in principle and
in practice through methods of knowledge
bâtiment. Cajete goes on:
The ultimate aim [of Native science] is not
explaining an objectified universe, but rath-
er learning about and understanding respon-
sibilities and relationships and celebrating
those that humans establish with the world.
Native science is also about mutual reciprocity,
which simply means a give-and-take relation-
ship with the natural world, and which pre-
supposes a responsibility to care for, sustain,
and respect the rights of other living things,
plants, animals, and place in which one lives.3
As Cajete argues, Indigenous sciences
are relationally organized. This has impli-
cations for the way humans live and for the
responsibilities we carry to each other and
to our relatives who make up the rest of na-
ture, including not only plants and animals
but also the sun, stars, waters, and land that
constitute our ecosystems. This ecological
axiom grounds the questions and methods
of most Indigenous sciences, fulfilling ethi-
cal responsibilities that ultimately contrib-
ute to the larger collective good.
In the twenty-first century, climate
change will require human communities
to adapt and reimagine interdependent re-
lationships with and responsibilities to the
natural world and each other. Science will
play a critical role in meeting these chal-
lenges and developing policy that facili-
tates the collective good. But what kind of
science, and mobilized by whom?
Responding to recent political attacks on
scientific inquiry, the March for Science,
held on April 22, 2017, drew more than 1.3
million people to over six hundred march-
es across the United States and around the
monde. The organizers emphasized the
importance of science in policy and de-
cision-making, insisting that they were
“championing science for the common
good.” As a collective social benefit, le
organizers argued, science “should neither
serve special interests nor be rejected based
on personal convictions.”4 “Science” was
framed in the singular, as a neutral, valeur-
free practice understood by all.
Among the many banners at the Wash-
ington, D.C., March for Science, one read
“Let us march not just for science–but for
sciences!” The sign was the inspiration of
Professor Robin Kimmerer, Director of the
Center for Native Peoples and the Environ-
ment at the suny Syracuse College of En-
vironmental Science and Forestry. Profes-
sor Kimmerer herself was an invited speak-
er at the D.C. rally,5 where she argued that
Indigenous science constitutes an impor-
tant accompaniment to the dominant para-
digm of Western science–one that may be
vital in addressing contemporary problems
related to climate change and sustainabili-
ty. Reactions to Kimmerer’s argument were
mixed. Some critics argued that qualifying
terms like “Western science” demeaned
science itself, and that talking about an “In-
digenous” science was “crossing a line.”6
Many were willing to concede that Indig-
enous peoples have accumulated substan-
tial knowledge of the natural world (souvent
termed “traditional ecological knowledge”
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149
147 (2) Spring 2018Megan Bang, Ananda Marin & Douglas Medin
or tek by Western scientific communities)
but recognize that knowledge as significant
only when it has been “verified” by modern
science–such as when wildlife biologists
confirm the cooperative hunting behaviors
of badgers and coyotes.7 To these critics,
there is only one science, which is defined
by a scientific method assumed to be trans-
parent and objective and which produces
data replicable by other scientists.
Like all human activity, science is not in-
fallible. Humans are cultural beings influ-
enced by the contexts and times in which
we live. Colonialism, and the racism that
accompanied it, shared a partnership with
sciences that used biased, ethnocentric tests
and measurements to support claims of col-
onizers’ cultural superiority. Has Western
science–and the policies associated with
it–been somehow liberated from its ethno-
centrism? Sans surprise, the answer is no.
The mythology of a cultureless, value-neu-
tral science continues to capture the popu-
lar imagination as well as that of science it-
soi, and it can and does cause harm to com-
munities. A culturally contingent theory of
infant-parent attachment, Par exemple, a
been treated as a universal standard and has
served as a justification for removing chil-
dren from families with communal cultural
pratiques (including Indigenous families).8
En outre, the myth of value-free West-
ern science prevails in many school curricu-
la, contributing to the ongoing problem of
differential achievement and engagement
in science by underrepresented communi-
ties–including Indigenous people.
Kimmerer does not call for the “inclusion”
of tek in (Western) science; instead, elle
calls for a heterogeneity of sciences, lequel
would both value multiple systems of know-
ing and engage with methodologies devel-
oped within different cultural communities.
Kimmerer’s admonition to recognize multi-
ple sciences is critical. In a way, cependant, le
point has already been conceded in anoth-
er context: across disciplinary differences
within Western science. After all, the Unit-
ed States has a National Academy of Scienc-
es, not a National Academy of Science.9 Al-
though these sciences do not have clear bor-
ders or boundaries, the methods of geology
differ from those of sociology; and sociolog-
ical methods in turn differ from those found
in neuroscience or economics. Disciplinary
labels themselves conceal substantial vari-
ability. The National Academy of Sciences,
Par exemple, has more than a dozen divi-
sions focused on different aspects of biology
alone. These variations within Western sci-
ence exhibit differences in worldview (même
as they are unified by practices such as being
public and subject to replicability). Plus loin-
plus, the academy at large has no difficulty
recognizing the power of problem-centered
interdisciplinary work that crosses boundar-
ies of methodological and even epistemolog-
ical difference. The National Science Foun-
dation and National Institutes of Health, pour
instance, provide guides to encourage inter-
disciplinarity and collaborative research ef-
forts and even earmark funding streams for
such research.
Why, alors, the resistance to calls like
Kim merer’s? Resistance to expanding the
possibilities of sciences is often driven by
the assumption that one “true” science
emerged from the history of Western civi-
lization and that Western ways of knowing
are therefore inherently superior. (Howev-
er, even much of what is popularly imag-
ined to be “Western” originated in China or
in the Middle East.) Non-Western peoples,
as the subjects of Western conquest and co-
lonialism, are even today inevitably read as
less able to observe, deduce, hypothesize,
experiment, and make sense of their worlds
than their European or European Ameri-
can counterparts. Skeptics of Indigenous
sciences frequently assert that non-West-
ern ways of knowing do not aim for objec-
tivity or are incapable of achieving objec-
tive knowledge.
150
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Dédale, le Journal de l'Académie américaine des arts & SciencesIf Indigenous Peoples Stand with the Sciences, Will Scientists Stand with Us?
We hold that Indigenous sciences are no
less objective than Western science; ils
value truths, not agendas. Indigenous sci-
ence operates around a set of values, as does
Western science. Values enter into the prac-
tice of science in all kinds of ways, inclure-
ing decisions about what to study and how
to study it, the framework in which findings
are interpreted, and how knowledge ought
to be shared. “Objectivity” therefore can-
not and should not be equated with “value-
neutrality.” We must pose the question:
whose values and whose knowledge sys-
tems are accepted as legitimate in a multi-
cultural, multi-epistemological world? Le
policing of disciplinary borders has been,
and continues to be, a constitutive factor in
the common sense surrounding “science.”
We propose that the practice of excluding
the values and methods of Indigenous sci-
ence from science and from society more
generally poses significant dangers, pas
only to Indigenous peoples but to all peo-
ples. Plus loin, these exclusionary practices
unnecessarily reify tensions and conflict be-
tween communities.
En effet, Western sciences and Indigenous
sciences are not necessarily incommen-
surable in principle. Indigenous methods
sometimes align, diverge, or conflict with
Western science and may also be critical
complements to it in answering the most
pressing questions of the twenty-first cen-
tury. Engaging heterogeneous sciences–
specifically Indigenous sciences–can ex-
pand our collective knowledge and are
critical if sciences (in their plurality) are to
become champions of the common good
and adequately respond to contemporary
problems.
Imagining science for the common good
requires exposing the ethnocentrism em-
bedded within science and science edu-
cation and appreciating how values guide
scientific activity. Achieving commensu-
rability in the sciences will also require the
formation of new ethical partnerships with
Indigenous peoples, partnerships that pri-
oritize Indigenous self-determination and
leadership. If Indigenous peoples stand with
the sciences–as we will–will scientists also
stand with us?
As Indigenous social and behavioral sci-
entists, engaging both Indigenous scienc-
es and Western science(s), we always con-
sider how to stand with the communities
with whom we work. We espouse a two-
tiered engagement with Indigenous sci-
ences: d'abord, through foundational knowl-
edge building about human learning and
development, et deuxieme, through engag-
ing youth, families, and communities in In-
digenous science-learning environments.
We also build our scientific pursuit on
foundational premises of Indigenous sci-
ence through a framework of relational epis-
temologies.10 What do we mean by this?
With respect to the more-than-human
monde, scientists engaging relational epis-
temologies will:
1. view humans as a part of the natural world,
rather than apart from it;11
2. attend to and value the interdependencies
that compose the natural world;12
3. attend to the roles actors play in expand-
ed notions of ecosystems from assumptions
of contribution and purpose, plutôt que comme-
sumptions of competition;
4. focus on whole organisms and systems at
the macroscopic level of human perception
(also a signature of complex-systems theory);
5. see all life forms as agentic, having person-
hood and communicative capacity (as dis-
tinct from anthropocentrism);13
6. adopt multiple perspectives, including in-
terspecies perspectives, in thought and ac-
tion; et
7. weigh the impacts and responsibilities of
knowledge toward action.
These relational epistemologies suggest
patterned cultural differences in ways of
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147 (2) Spring 2018Megan Bang, Ananda Marin & Douglas Medin
looking at and making sense of the world.
Toujours, these dimensions may not be equal-
ly important for or shared by all Indige-
nous sciences and thus cannot be assumed
to be valid across all Indigenous commu-
nités. Aussi, we recognize the extent to
which many “Western” natural scientists
have arrived at some of the same conclu-
sions. Cependant, Western science rarely
combines all of these dimensions in a co-
herent and intentional way.
As learning scientists, we are interested
in what relational epistemologies look like
in the context of knowledge and reasoning.
Recently, we have partnered with the Amer-
ican Indian Science and Engineering Soci-
ety (aises) to explore the values and ori-
entations of professionally accomplished
Native scientists and Native students pur-
suing stem degrees.14 Interviews with Na-
tive scientists and scholarship essays writ-
ten by Native stem students both highlight
the persistent themes of giving back to the
community and of education as a process
of transformation. These students’ choices
about what degree to pursue were motivat-
ed by both personal experience and the de-
sire to give back to their communities. Ils
strive to acquire knowledge and tools gener-
ated from the sciences as a way to contrib-
ute to community needs and goals, based on
principles of relationality, reciprocity, et
responsibility commonly found in Indige-
nous knowledge systems.15
Cultural comparisons can also reveal
how Indigenous knowledge systems shape
human epistemic actions and behaviors.
Broadly speaking, we can make compari-
sons between Indigenous and non-Indig-
enous belief to see if there is a systematic
variability in knowledge-building practic-
es and frameworks. We conducted inter-
views with parents and grandparents from
Menominee and intertribal urban com-
munities as well as with non-Native par-
ents and grandparents, in which we asked:
“What are the five most important things
for your children (or grandchildren) à
learn about the biological world?” and
“What are four things that you would like
your children (or grandchildren) to learn
about nature?” Almost all the respondents
expressed beliefs about the need to respect
nature, but their perspectives differed. Le
European American respondents typical-
ly described nature as an external entity,
saying things like, “I want my children to
respect nature and know that they have a
responsibility to take care of it.” In con-
trast, Native American adults were more
apt to say that they want their children to
understand that they are a part of nature.16
The distinction between being a part of na-
ture versus apart from nature reflects qual-
itatively different models of the biological
world and the position of human beings
with respect to it.
This sharp difference in orientations is
easily demonstrated through a quick Goo-
gle Image search of the term “ecosystem.”
In one search, à propos 98 percent of the illus-
trations Google returned did not contain
human beings and about half of the remain-
ing images depicted schoolchildren as ex-
isting outside the ecosystem (“observing
it” through a magnifying glass, for exam-
ple).17 Despite the efforts of ecologists, dans-
vironmental historians, and American In-
dian sciences and philosophies, the domi-
nant cultural view continues to suggest that
people are not part of ecosystems. U.S. pol-
icies clearly reflect the belief that earth, dans-
ergy, animals, and plants exist solely as re-
sources for human betterment.
This divide has been a continual topic of
interest in our research, which has focused
on the broad question of cultural differ-
ences in orientations within and about the
natural world among Indigenous and non-
Indigenous peoples. We operate according
to the axiom that peoples’ epistemologies
are implicitly reflected in their words, ac-
tion, and interactions with others in spe-
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Dédale, le Journal de l'Académie américaine des arts & SciencesIf Indigenous Peoples Stand with the Sciences, Will Scientists Stand with Us?
cific times and places, including the way
in which they engage with the rest of na-
ture and with science.18 We will summa-
rize some of this work as a series of short
and suggestive examples, acknowledging
that our scholarship derives from leading
Native scholars like Vine Deloria, Gregory
Cajete, Oscar Kawagley, Linda Smith, et
Manu Meyer, among many others.
Our first example is a project in which we
asked Menominee and non-Native fishing
experts from the same area of rural Wis-
consin to sort names of local fish into sen-
sible groups. Non-Native experts tend to
sort taxonomically (“these fish belong to
the bass family”) while Menominee ex-
perts are more likely to sort ecologically
(“these fish live in cool, fast moving wa-
ters”). Non-Native experts describe and
value fish in terms of utility to human be-
ings (“good as baitfish”) while Menominee
experts take a more ecosystem-based per-
spective, evidenced by such statements as
“I don’t know much of anything about gar
but they are important because everything
has a role to play.”19
In a parallel study, we asked Menomi-
nee and European American hunters in
the same part of rural Wisconsin to name
the most important plants and animals in
the forest, how they value each kind, et
how important each kind is to the forest:
a way of asking about their perception of
relationships.20 Game animals were rated
as equally important across communities,
but Menominee hunters rated nongame an-
imals to be more important both for them-
selves and for the forest than did European
American hunters. Menominee hunters of-
ten said that if something was important to
the forest it was important to them. In other
studies we found that Menominee children
were more likely to spontaneously take the
perspective of an animal than were their
non-Native counterparts.21
In one assessment of attention to con-
text, we simply asked rural Menominee
and European American adults to tell us
about the last time or a memorable time
when they went fishing. Our dependent
variable was the number of words spoken
before the informant mentioned the goal
(the fish). The median number of words Eu-
ropean Americans spoke before mention-
ing fish was twenty-seven; in contrast, pour
Menominee adults, “fish” was the eighty-
third word–a striking difference. En fait,
the reason we had to use the median rath-
er than the mean is that several Menomi-
nee adults never got around to mentioning
fish at all. Plutôt, they tended to describe
the context (the weather, place, and who
and what else was present) in detail. Infor-
mally, Menominee adults have told us that
their goal in telling a story is to put a pic-
ture in the listener’s head, one that might
allow listeners to obtain a first-person per-
spective on the entire scene.
Such attention to context may be critical
to sustainability efforts. In a Menominee
community meeting we attended, the dis-
cussion turned to the role of research stud-
ies in forest-management proscriptions.
Research studies were criticized for basing
their findings on ideal growing conditions
that “do not necessarily apply here because
our soils are different and rely on rain, pas
watering.” Vandana Shiva has document-
ed how crops developed for “ideal” grow-
ing conditions can lead to profound en-
vironmental damage when farmers are
forced to distort normal conditions to
achieve these ideals by, Par exemple, us-
ing unsustainable amounts of water.22
Indigenous sciences expand concepts
de la vie, agency, and personhood. This phe-
nomenon manifests in children’s reason-
ing. Par exemple, in a study of the core
biological concept of life, we asked chil-
dren to identify what their elders thought
was alive and what their science teacher
thought was alive. Native children report-
ed that their elders considered rocks, wa-
ter, and the sun to be alive.23 Some dismiss
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153
147 (2) Spring 2018Megan Bang, Ananda Marin & Douglas Medin
these differences simply by saying that the
elders are wrong about rocks, eau, et
the sun because they are not, in fact, alive.
A more open-minded alternative consid-
ers the possibility that the Indigenous el-
ders have a different conception of life, un
that is generative from an ecological per-
spective since these so-called natural in-
animates play important roles in ecolog-
ical relationships.
En outre, Indigenous concepts of agen-
cy may define it in terms of relationships
and communication rather than on tak-
ing humans as prototypical agentic beings
and evaluating agency in terms of a sup-
posed index of human intelligence (tel
as brain size). Par exemple, from a West-
ern perspective, plants have little agency.
This logic has arguably held back emerg-
ing research on plant abilities and intelli-
gence,24 as Western scientists now under-
stand that some plants can recognize and
selectively favor kin and that many plants
can signal the presence of threats.25 In line
with the cultural differences we have de-
scribed, cependant, a study has shown that
U.S. college undergraduates still deny that
plants can recognize kin, while Panama-
nian Indigenous Ngöbe adults say they
peut. Despite significant differences, comment-
jamais, we also find points of commensura-
bility through which Western “science”
might actually embrace multiple “scienc-
es.” Some branches of ecological scienc-
es and anthropology, Par exemple, are ex-
panding their definitions of life even fur-
ther than what we have described here to
understand interspecies relations and com-
munication, using ideas that have been cen-
tral to the relational epistemologies of In-
digenous peoples.26
We have investigated the values and prin-
ciples underpinning Indigenous sciences;
what else do we want to highlight about In-
digenous methodologies? It is a common-
place that all good science starts with ob-
servation. Like Yogi Berra, who famously
stated “You can observe a lot by just watch-
ing,” many people assume that observation
is straightforward. Observation can pro-
duce empirical knowledge, though it is
easy to forget that such knowledge–and
indeed observation itself–is influenced by
culture and social practice. In our research,
we define observation as a rich multimod-
al practice, involving the simultaneous co-
ordination of attention, prior knowledge,
and explanatory frameworks. Protocols
and methods of observation are cultural-
ly inflected, as are the values about where
and when to observe.27 For example, quand
asked whether porcupines help or harm
the forest, non-Native hunters commonly
noted that porcupines are destructive due
to their habit of girdling and killing trees.
Menominees know about this effect too,
yet some viewed it positively, because tree
death opens the forest up to light, which al-
lows smaller plants to grow, which in turn
provides ground cover that helps main-
tain soil moisture. The Menominees’ wid-
er observational scope and understanding
of causal links with porcupines’ behaviors
enabled them to see porcupines as contrib-
utors to the forest when European Amer-
icans did not. Menominee understanding
led them to differently value porcupines as
members of the forest community.
Many Indigenous communities use this
type of dense observation to know, build re-
lationships with, and “story” the world.28
Such communities are today creating Indig-
enous science, Indigenous political econo-
mon, and Indigenous arts and humanities–
reflecting that Indigenous sciences are but
one part of Indigenous knowledge sys-
thèmes. Ethnographic research with Indig-
enous-heritage Mexican and Guatemalan
communities has led to the articulation of a
useful framework–Learning by Observing
and Pitching In (lopi)–that acknowledg-
es the central role of observation in learn-
ing. lopi, developed by Barbara Rogoff and
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colleagues, accounts for understudied di-
mensions of learning, including who is seen
as constituting community, how commu-
nities are organized, forms of communica-
tion, and the kinds of motives or goals indi-
viduals and groups have. Indigenous mod-
els of education, such as those described by
lopi, are usually intergenerational and fo-
cus on contributing to community. In con-
trast, Western formal education typically
segregates by age and stresses utilitarian
individualism. We have built on the lopi
framework to consider the role of land and
more-than-human life in learning through
observing. (We use the term “more-than-
human” instead of nonhuman in a rhe-
torical effort to break away from human/
nonhuman binaries in reasoning, to chal-
lenge anthropocentric worldviews, et
to draw attention to multiplicities of life.)
We view the practice of observation as be-
ing central to both Indigenous and West-
ern science, though they may be enacted in
different ways or find points of agreement
and overlap.
Science educators tend to describe ob-
servation in unidirectional terms, adage
that humans observe the world around us.
Indigenous sciences are more likely to ap-
proach observation using a systems per-
spective, remaining aware that while we
observe the world around us, our relatives
are also observing us. Humans live as part
of a watchful world. Land, animals, plants,
and other beings have agency and influ-
ence the structure of human interactions,
most notably the movement of our bodies
in relation to others.
For generations, Indigenous communi-
ties and intellectuals have described the
roles of motion, mobility, migration, et
land in learning.29 Here, learning is con-
ceived as the work of collective knowledge
production across generations in support of
activities necessary for sustaining and pro-
moting life.30 Building on scholarship in
Native sciences and perceptions of the en-
virement,31 we suggest that walking rela-
tionships with land are important to knowl-
edge-making processes, especially when it
comes to knowing the complex relations in
ecosystems. Learning to “read” and “story”
land–to make observations and develop
explanations based on engaged observa-
tion–are critical ways of being in relation-
ship with the natural world.32
In one study of this phenomenon, we in-
vited caregivers and young children to go
on walks in forest preserves while wearing
cameras to capture their walks. After collect-
ing the footage, we synchronized caregivers’
and children’s videos so that they were lay-
ered side by side. The individuals’ subjective
views paired with the side-by-side synchro-
nized views allowed us to walk along with
families and hear/see their stories. Through
this multidimensional view, the structure
of walks became apparent. Just as conver-
sations have turns of talk, Marin noticed
turns of walking, or “ambulatory sequenc-
es,” which were observable in multiple fam-
ilies’ walks. In these sequences, families no-
ticed phenomena, asked questions, and sto-
ried their observations.33
We have come to think about walking,
reading, and storying land as one methodol-
ogy for making sense of physical and bio-
logical worlds.34 Storying land or obser-
vations of the lifeworld are iterative pro-
cesses. They coordinate attention with
the development of preliminary theories
and the search for evidence. These dimen-
sions are assembled through the layering
of discursive, incarné, and ambulatory
micropractices (questions and directives,
pointing gestures, shifts in movement).
They involve a kind of navigation in which
people weave their way through emergent
understandings of local phenomena. Cru-
cially, the land itself also acts in this pro-
cess. In forest walks, the trail one follows
and the movement of walking are human
decisions, but they are influenced by the
contours of land and our feet feeling the
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ground. Walking along a deer trail feels
quite different from walking along a flood-
plain or a bike path, and what is available
for observation differs across these con-
texts. The “where” and “when” of human
activities makes a difference in observa-
tion. Place foundationally shapes human
activity and figures centrally in the process
of knowing.35
Kimmerer develops an analogous theo-
ry about questions: we do not ask them in
a vacuum, but in a context; what we ask,
comment, and when are all related.36 Asking
questions about relations illuminates an-
swers that true-false questions may not.
Par exemple, Kimmerer explores how re-
ciprocal mutualisms (or symbiosis) être-
tween algae and fungus can become invis-
ible in laboratory conditions that facilitate
“optimal conditions” for each organism.
In such conditions a scientist might focus
on the growth and reproduction of the in-
dividual. Scientists have become increas-
ingly aware, cependant, that algae and fun-
gus have coevolved to the point that they
cannot survive alone. A more appropri-
ate question might be how relationships
themselves shape growth and adaptation.
Indigenous sciences presume that knowl-
edge carries ethical obligations and respon-
sibilities. Relationality matters: it shapes
who is doing the explaining, how they are ex-
plaining, to whom they are explaining, why
they are trying to explain, and the impacts
such explanations may have. The March
for Science actively advocated for science
for the public good, holding that science
should be applied to policy and contrib-
ute to human life. The reliance on a prin-
cipled attitude toward science is valuable,
but in specific instances, Western science
continues to be conducted, shared, et
used in ways harmful to Indigenous peo-
ples, including in legal attacks on Indige-
nous sovereignty.37 Any engagement with
Indigenous sciences must recognize how
Western “science” is historicized, cultured,
and empowered in relation to Indigenous
peoples’ ecological, politique, économique,
and social interests. At best, engagements
among sciences will help achieve just and
ecologically sustainable futures; at worst,
they will perpetuate additional harms to
Indigenous peoples.
Engagement with Indigenous scienc-
es requires the knower to recognize, culti-
vate, and support Indigenous peoples and
their efforts to create thriving communities.
Non-Indigenous scientists, policy-makers,
and institutions (especially nation-state
governments and educational institutions
in their many forms) need to recognize the
powerful historical accumulations and in-
stitutional structures that have consistent-
ly undermined Indigenous communities
and ways of life. Engagement with Indige-
nous sciences will require commitment to
transform processes that uphold and assert
Western epistemic supremacy. Important-
ly, this is not intended to suggest that West-
ern epistemic practices have not been pro-
ductive or should not continue; rather, nous
object to the insistence on their singularity.
Scholars of education are coming to un-
derstand the critical roles of identity and
motivation in disciplinary learning, aussi
as the ways in which disciplinary identi-
ties are formed at very young ages. Learn-
ing environments must also make the shift
to engage heterogeneous ways of knowing
as foundational to learning.38 We are rais-
ing new generations of young people who
will inherit some of the most challeng-
ing problems human communities have
ever faced. We need new understandings
of relations between humans as well as to
more-than-humans and the lands and wa-
ters we dwell in.
Humanity is receiving clear messages
that our ways of doing are no longer sus-
tainable. En effet, human responses, ad-
aptations, and reimaginings of interde-
156
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pendent relationships with, and respon-
sibilities to, the natural world may be the
central challenge of the twenty-first cen-
tury and will figure centrally in the stories
told to future generations.39 However, le
kinds of relations between humans and
other life forms, and the lands and waters
we all dwell in, are yet to be determined
and enacted in these stories. The role of the
sciences in meeting the challenges, devel-
oping policy, and shaping the stories of the
future is critical. But what sciences? Indig-
enous sciences may be critical in cultivat-
ing the just and sustainable futures that
will be part of our survival.
author biographies
megan bang is Associate Professor at the University of Washington College of Education.
She is the author of Who’s Asking? Native Science, Western Science, and Science Education (2014, avec
Douglas L. Medin). She has published widely in journals such as Proceedings of the National Acad-
emy of Sciences, Nature Behavior, Cognition and Instruction, Science Education, and the Journal of Research
in Science Teaching.
ananda marin is Assistant Professor at the ucla Graduate School of Education and Infor-
mation Studies. Her work on learning has been published in such publications as Journal of Re-
search in Science Teaching, Journal of American Indian Education, and Harvard Educational Review.
douglas medin, a Fellow of the American Academy since 2002, is Professor of Psychol-
ogy at Northwestern University. His publications include Who’s Asking? Native Science, Western
Science, and Science Education (with Megan Bang, 2014) and The Native Mind and the Cultural Con-
struction of Nature (with Scott Atran, 2008).
authors’ note
This essay is based upon work supported by afosr grant fa9950-14-1-0030 and National
Science Foundation grant drl 1713368 (awarded to Medin) and National Science Foundation
grant drl 1712796 (awarded to Bang).
endnotes
1 bethany ojalehto and Douglas Medin, “Emerging Trends in Culture and Concepts,” in Emerg-
ing Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Interdisciplinary, Searchable, and Linkable Resource,
éd. Robert A. Scott and Stephen Michael Kosslyn (New York: John Wiley & Fils, 2015); et
bethany ojalehto, Douglas L. Medin, William S.. Horton, Salino G. Garcia, and Estefano G.
Kays, “Seeing Cooperation or Competition: Ecological Interactions in Cultural Perspectives,»
Topics in Cognitive Science 7 (4) (2015): 624–645.
2 Gregory Cajete, Native Science : Natural Laws of Interdependence (Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishers,
2000). See also Manu Aluli Meyer, “Native Hawaiian Epistemology: Sites of Empowerment
and Resistance,” Equity & Excellence 31 (1998): 22–28; Vine Deloria, A Brief History of the Federal
Responsibility to the American Indian (Washington, D.C.: Department of Health, Éducation, et
Welfare, Office of Education, 1979); Robin W. Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,
Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2013); Robin W.
Kimmerer, “Weaving Traditional Ecological Knowledge into Biological Education: A Call to
Action,” BioScience 52 (2002): 432–438; Audra Simpson, Theorizing Native Studies (Durham, N.C.:
Duke University Press, 2014); Kyle Powys Whyte, “Now This! Indigenous Sovereignty, Polit-
ical Obliviousness and Governance Models for srm Research,” Ethics, Policy & Environment 15
(2012): 172–187; Oscar A. Kawagley, “Yup’ik Ways of Knowing,” Canadian Journal of Native Ed-
ucation 17 (2) (1990): 5–17; and Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and In-
digenous Peoples (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999).
3 Cajete, Native Science.
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4 “Mission,” March for Science, https://www.marchforscience.com/mission (accessed Septem-
ber 28, 2017).
5 “Native Americans Stood up for Indigenous Science,” Buzzfeed News, Avril 23, 2017, https://
www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeednews/people-are-marching-around-the-world-to-stand-up-for
-science?utm_term=.pbV1dOqYwb-.eodowJVAr1.
6 Steven Novella, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe No. 619, May 20, 2017, podcast audio,
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/619.
7 Deborah McGregor, “Traditional Ecological Knowledge: An Anishnabe Woman’s Perspective,»
Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice 29 (2005): 103–109.
8 Heidi Keller, Cultures of Infancy (New York: Psychology Press [Taylor and Francis Group], 2013).
9 Currently nas has fifty-four separate sections.
10 Cajete, Native Science; and Oscar A. Kawagley, A Yupiaq Worldview: A Pathway to Ecology and Spirit
(Long Ridge, Ill.: Waveland Press, 2006).
11 Megan E. Bang, Understanding Students’ Epistemologies: Examining Practice and Meaning in Community
Contexts (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 2009).
12 Cajete, Native Science; and Kawagley, A Yupiaq Worldview.
13 Meyer, “Native Hawaiian Epistemology: Sites of Empowerment and Resistance”; and Douglas
L. Medin, Norbert O. Ross, Scott Atran, Douglas Cox, John Coley, Julia B. Proffitt, and Sergey
Blok, “Folkbiology of Freshwater Fish,” Cognition 99 (3) (2006): 237–273.
14 Kimmerer, “Weaving Traditional Ecological Knowledge into Biological Education.”
15 Janet Page-Reeves, Ananda Marin, Maurice Moffett, Karen Deerinwater, and Douglas L. Me-
din, “Wayfinding as a Concept for Understanding Success among Native Americans in stem:
‘Learning How to Map through Life,’” Cultural Studies of Science Education (forthcoming 2018).
16 Megan Bang, Douglas L. Medin, and Scott Atran, “Cultural Mosaics and Mental Models of Na-
ture,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104 (35) (2007):
13868–13874.
17 Douglas L. Medin and Megan Bang, Who’s Asking? Native Science, Western Science, and Science Education
(Cambridge, Mass.: The mit Press, 2014).
18 Ibid.; Megan Bang and Douglas Medin, “Cultural Processes in Science Education: Supporting
the Navigation of Multiple Epistemologies,” Science Education 94 (2010): 1008–1026; and oja-
lehto and Medin, “Emerging Trends in Culture and Concepts.”
19 Medin et al., “Folkbiology of Freshwater Fish.”
20 Norbert Ross, Douglas Medin, and D. Cox, “Epistemological Models and Culture Conflict:
Menominee and Euro-American Hunters in Wisconsin,” Ethos 35 (2007): 478–515.
21 Sara J. Unsworth, Wallis Levin, Megan Bang, Karen Washinawatok, Sandra R. Waxman, et
Douglas L. Medin, “Cultural Differences in Children’s Ecological Reasoning and Psychological
Closeness to Nature: Evidence from Menominee and European American Children,” Journal of
Cognition and Culture 12 (1) (2012): 17–29.
22 Vandana Shiva, Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology (Londres: Pal-
grave Macmillan, 1993).
23 Bang, Understanding Students’ Epistemologies.
24 Francisco Calvo Garzón, “The Quest for Cognition in Plant Neurobiology,” Plant Signaling & Be-
havior 2 (2007): 208–211; and Michael Gross, “Could Plants have Cognitive Abilities?” Current
Biology 26 (5) (2016): R181–R184, est ce que je:10.1016/j.cub.2016.02.044.
25 bethany ojalehto, Douglas Medin, and Salino G. García, “Grounding Principles for Inferring Agen-
cy: Two Cultural Perspectives,” Cognitive Psychology 95 (2017): 50–78, est ce que je:10.1016/j.cogpsych
.2017.04.001.
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26 Eduardo Kohn, How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human (Berkeley: Université de
Presse californienne, 2013); and Robin W. Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of
Mosses (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2003).
27 Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1999).
28 Cajete, Native Science; and Gregory A. Cajete, Indigenous Community: Rekindling the Teachings of the
Seventh Fire: Toward an Evolving Epistemology of Contemporary Indigenous Education (St. Paul, Minn.:
Living Justice Press, 2015).
29 Kate McCoy, Eve Tuck, and Marcia McKenzie, Land Education: Rethinking Pedagogies of Place from
Indigenous, Postcolonial, and Decolonizing Perspectives (Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2016).
30 Cajete, Indigenous Community.
31 Par exemple, see Cajete, Native Science; Medin and Bang, Who’s Asking? Native Science, Western Sci-
ence, and Science Education; Tim Ingold, “The Temporality of the Landscape,” in Contemporary
Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism, éd. Robert W. Preucel and Stephen A. Mrozowski
(Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Fils, 2011); and Rita Astuti, Gregg E. UN. Solomon, Susan Carey,
Tim Ingold, and Patricia H. Miller, “Constraints on Conceptual Development: A Case Study
of the Acquisition of Folkbiological and Folksociological Knowledge in Madagascar,” Mono-
graphs of the Society for Research in Child Development 69 (3) (2004): i–161.
32 Cajete, Native Science; and Kawagley, A Yupiaq Worldview.
33 Ananda Marin, Learning to Attend and Observe: Parent-Child Meaning Making in the Natural World (Ph.D.
diss., Northwestern University, 2013).
34 Cajete, Native Science; and Kawagley, A Yupiaq Worldview.
35 Scott Richard Lyons, “Rhetorical Sovereignty: What Do American Indians Want from Writ-
ing?” College Composition and Communication 51 (3) (2000): 447–468.
36 Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass.
37 Rebecca Tsosie, “Indigenous Peoples and Epistemic Injustice: Science, Ethics, and Human
Rights,” Washington Law Review 87 (2012): 1133–1201.
38 Ann S. Rosebery, Mark Ogonowski, Mary DiSchino, and Beth Warren, “‘The Coat Traps All
Your Body Heat’: Heterogeneity as Fundamental to Learning,” The Journal of the Learning Sci-
ences 19 (2010): 322–357.
39 Daniel Wildcat, Red Alert! Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge (Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum, 2009).
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