In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Indigenous Peoples and the Collaborative Stewardship of Nature: Knowledge Binds and Institutional Conflicts
  • Karen Holmberg
Anne Ross, Kathleen Pickering Sherman, Jeffrey Snodgrass, Henry Delcore, and Richard Sherman, Indigenous Peoples and the Collaborative Stewardship of Nature: Knowledge Binds and Institutional Conflicts. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2011. 320 pp.

Nature, culture, and how the two can or should intersect provide a foundational dilemma for the ways in which contemporary people interact with their environments. This volume—edited, but eschewing the traditional format of edited volumes in which a chapter is afforded to each author—ambitiously, yet cautiously, attempts to make sense of potential ways that environment can be best conceived and approached. In particular, the authors seek to explore how the integration of both indigenous and western scientific models of management or stewardship of natural resources and lands can be best accomplished.

The volume stems from a session at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association and the lag time between the original discussions of the topic and the publication are clear at certain points; citations provided for examples of “community archaeology” (41) or the incorporation of indigenous knowledge in natural resource management (95), for example, focus on publications no later than 2002 despite copious literature on the topics in the past decade. Test cases are drawn from the fieldwork conducted by authors in Queensland, Australia; South Dakota, United States; southern Rajasthan, India; and northern Thailand. While these are certainly important case studies to the discussion that ensues in the volume and the authors make no claims of providing a global compendium of case studies, the exclusion of vibrant discussions currently in debate in contexts such as South Africa, Hawaii, and Papua New Guinea seemed a lacuna to this reader. What is provided, however, is well worth a read for anyone currently engaged in [End Page 1043] considerations of how nature and the tensions remaining from colonialism can be viewed or understood.

A word and theme that recurs in the book is “pessimism.” A repeated quote, which hints that genuine cooperation or shared participation has yet to occur between indigenous and western peoples, is used to open both the introduction and conclusion chapters as entry and coda to current natural resource management realities. With that caveat, the authors do firmly state that they “believe they have identified a potential management path” (11). While not over-valorizing indigenous knowledge or pillorying scientific inquiry, the volume overall proceeds to allow for the amorphousness of applying theory to practice given the very real challenges faced in natural resource management.

The authors are generally thoughtful regarding the nuances and shades of gray in both western and indigenous perspectives towards nature; however, I did disagree with the avowal that there is a lack of understanding amongst scientific practitioners that science is its own form of culture or sub-culture (32, 34). While some recent and valid citations are provided to counter this lack of awareness in the cultural construction of science, the absence of Bruno Latour’s (1979) Laboratory Life seemed a glaring omission of an influential and early acknowledgement of scientific constructs. Further, I disagree with the portrayal of western science as the primary justification and method through which the colonial project subjugated indigenous peoples and established control over populations and resources (68). This seems to overlook the importance of religion—in particular, the belief that indigenous people (or slaves) lacked a commensurate soul—as well as the role of political policies based on concepts such as manifest destiny.

Throughout the volume, the word indigenous is capitalized “in order to bestow upon members of these communities the same dignity” (24) as is afforded citizens of modern states given entry into the European Union and its Outreach Five or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, etc. While this gesture is certainly understandable, it also creates a curious globalization of indigeneity and of indigenous communities that are quite disparate from one another. State globalization is listed as a barrier to the incorporation of indigenous knowledge into natural resource management, yet indigenous globalization is implicitly denoted as a positive goal or counterbalance. While this attempt to create parity is easy to understand and sympathize...

pdf

Share