Midterm Flashcards
Ethnoecology
Study of interactions between people and the ecosystem they inhabit
Study of cultural ecological knowledge and of interactions between human societies and their environments
Etic approach
Study of peoples classification/ knowledge of their natural world measured against scientific classify
Perceptions of behaviour or belief by an observer from outside a culture
Emic approach
Representation of local understandings and perspectives within their own context
Perceptions of behaviour or belief from a person within a culture
Etic vs emic
Etic is overemphasized in western science grounded in idea of neutral
Move towards an emic approach
Knowledge of communities should be in the hands of the community
Folk taxonomies/ ethnoscience
How people understand and categorize the world around them
Only in context of local knowledge systems
Ethnosphere
Accumulated knowledge, practice, experience and understanding comprising cultural systems
Coevolved with the biosphere (accumulation of biological and ecological complexity) to build resilience
Traditional ecological knowledge
Place-based knowledge of environment
Orally transmitted
Within cultural context
Usually long time frame
Traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom
Evolving over many centuries
TEK is 100s of generations old
Collective, cumulative, adaptive knowledge
Levels of traditional knowledge and management systems
Local knowledge of land animals
Land and reproduce management systems
Social institutions
World view
Transmission of TEKW
Feasts and celebrations
Language
Traditional teachings
Inherited responsibilities
Science vs TEK
Science~
Universal application
Global is scope
Generalizing theories
TEK
Local knowledge grounded in many generations of observations and experiences
Local knowledge and ecosystems known in superior detail and coherence
They are complementary systems
Ethnoecology and ethnobotany
Fields the focus on TEK the knowledge that relates to the plants and ecosystems of peoples home environments
Lines of evidence in ethnoecology
Palaeobotany/palaeoecology Archaepbotany/ palaeoethnobotany Language Historical and ethnographic traditions Participatory research
Palaeobotany/palaeoecology
What landscapes used to look like in the past
Environments of early humans
Climates, ancient vegetation, landscapes
Latter Pleistocene to late Holocene
Archaepbotany/ palaeoethnobotany
ID, dating, and analyzing plant remains in context of known human use and occupation
Barriers: preservation, find evidence, few remaining sites
Material culture
90-95% is organic
Participatory research
Do interviews
Say we are working with community but hard to do in short time and low funded
Research in communities the emphasizes community participation, uses TEK
Applications of TEK
A way people understand environment that is more preside and detailed
Resource management
Protected areas
Biodiversity conservation
Governments duty to consult
Legally required to consult but resource companies get to do this which leads to rushed work that does not include community
Ecologists learning with indigenous peoples
Get a deeper understanding of the natural world
For example can help mitigate effects of climate change
Skolt Sami people of Finland saw local decline of Atlantic salmon and got scientists to help restore them
development-stability-crisis-adaptation
Crisis are important because they lead to change. Management teaches us lessons of more sustainable practises. Resource crisis potentially important for renewal of management institutions
Traditional management practises
Practice of knowledge is how cultural and social systems adapt to ecosystems.
Management made a note a degree of control over life
Managed landscapes
Entirely cared for landscapes, interconnected
Low intensity tending practises such as pruning to more intensive forms such as controlled burns. Specific species/resources require specific management practices. Learn through adaptation
Adaptive management
Ecosystems adapt and are nonlinear which leads to uncertainty. Cause does not always equal affect. So our management needs to be adaptive
Knowledge practice belief complex
- World view ~ spiritual beliefs cultural values and ethics, understanding what it means to be in the world
- Institutions and social mechanisms ~ Ritual and ceremony, stories in place names, authority structures, knowledge transmission
- Practises ~ monitoring, protection, resource rotation
Camus
Source of carbs, replanting small roots, weeding death Camas, arrating, who has access to the site, burials around the edges
Bio cultural diversity
Diversity of life in all its manifestations, biological, culture, and linguistic, which are interrelated within a complex social ecological adaptive system.
Based on the link between biological and cultural diversity
Link between cultural and biological diversity?
High amount of languages show high amount of plant diversity. Areas that have high diversity tend to have a very diverse climate and rough terrain, people stayed there for a long time and developed practises and knowledge. Cultures facilitate diversification. Stable conditions
Potato
From Andean Mountain range terraces that have slightly different potatoes based on elevation. Ended up with over 5000 potato variations
What does cultural diversity equal cultural complexity
No, talking about the differences between groups of neighbouring people.
Languages in BC
Close to 60 different dialects, 30 distinct languages. Most of these languages are endangered
Importance of language
Losing a language means you lose a way to understand the world. Language represents diversity which allows us to be more flexible to change
Agro biodiversity
Unlikely to survive outside of traditional agricultural practices. Diversity is maintained by local indigenous knowledge practice belief complexes
Global Agrobiodiversity loss
A girl biodiversity is a subset of biodiversity that is connected with agricultural systems. Estimates we have lost approximately 75% of crop plant genetic diversity some say up to 93%. Loss is huge because it makes us less able to adapt. Example the potato in Ireland only had one kind of potato which got a disease and caused a famine
The rights of indigenous peoples
Nice in theory but is legally non-binding so there still no access to land
Politics of recognition
Legal approaches to regaining land based rights can only go so far risk replicating colonial models usually doesn’t work. Resurgence if confronted with violence and guns
Acts of resurgence
- Self determination will not be freely offered by the state must be assertive and acted upon
- Rates are state constructions and do not reflect inherent indigenous responsibilities to their homeland and can be withdrawn at any time
- The rights discourse fractures the communities culture that is tied to the land
Indigenous resurgence
Is about reconnecting with homelands, cultural practices, and communities
Being in a place and caring for this place, reclaiming territories and relationships, restoring land management practises
Indigenous sustainability
Holding one’s responsibilities to the land and natural world and giving back more than you take. It’s about more than simply residing on the land
Indigenous self-determination
It’s both individual and community driven process. Involves reclaiming practises so they can survive and be transmitted to future generations. Includes evolving indigenous livelihoods, food security, community governance, relationships to homeland, and ceremonial life
Camus and community resurgence
Starchy bulb that has been a staple food and trade item for generations.
Conservation efforts focus on Gary oak ecosystems rather than indigenous food systems
Cultural revitalization starts with protecting the land, reinstating traditional roles, and practising every day acts of resurgence. Pitcooks
Grasslands
Most at risk ecosystems, important for carbon storage, used mostly for farming, movement and restoration and caretaking
Low intensity fire
are in the long term beneficial to maintaining a healthy forest
Clears underbrush, thins out young trees, reduce fuel on the fourth floor
This is TEK burning
High intensity fires
Burn everything industry forest ecosystems
Ash causes water do not go into the soil which causes erosion
Result of over 100+ years of fire suppression, climate change, and invasive species
Paradigm of 0 fire
All fires were seen as a threat to biodiversity conservation and natural resource management. Mainly due to properties
Why burn
Reduce competition, discourages pest and weed growth, controlling for succession, clear the land, enriching the soil with nutrients, balancing pH levels, certain trees near fire to burn, easier to hunt, blackened ground encourages spring growth, synchronization of fruiting
Downsides of fire
Severe fire can result in net loss of nitrogen in soil system, black in earth can overly warm soil, health risks from smoke, erosion and runoff, lots of stored carpet, displacement of species
Indigenous fire management is a Linked social ecological system
Fire practises very tied into traditional culture deeply tied in with their landscape and management practises
Maintain social and ecological integrity through community cohesion, social bonding, youth initiation, and inter-generational knowledge transfer
Example of Fire management as a link social ecological system
Kraho of Brazil determine the leaders or knowledge barriers for fire, the leaders meet at the centre of the village to discuss the fire burning regime
Settlers view a fire

There was a lot of opposition to fire, Saul land as a perfect Eden, grant offered employment to those who did not burn, starting to bring these fires back but still push back
Tumbo Island
fire in 2016 for restoring fire management
The Amazon
Today pervasive anti-fire discourse targeting indigenous peoples in the Amazon. There is a notion that indigenous burning activities are destructive. People want to bring fire management back to the Amazon
Ecological keystone species
Impact on community or ecosystem is large and disproportionately large relative to abundance
Apex predator that keeps herbivores in check
Cultural keystone species
Shape in a major way the cultural indenting of a people
Roles in diet, materials, medicine, and spiritual practises
Useful to have a quantifiable way for restoration
Cultural relationships vary with
Environmental factors: climate, natural disturbance, fluctuations i population
Socio-cultural factors: economic systems, social organizations, access to resources
Social ecological systems
Social and ecological systems have Co-evolved
Indicators for how important species is for a culture where if gone the impact would be very large
Naming, uses, narratives, ceremonies, memory of use, level of unique position
Cultural landscape
Culture is marked on the land. Landscapes that are created by people. Relationship between people and the land. Government has Emphasis on human built structures.
Landscapes have evolved under join influence of natural processes and sustainable human cultural practises which have tended to maintain biodiversity and productivity
Landscape vs Cultural landscape
Physical environment around people
More about the relationship we form with the land, always changing, how we understand our culture
Locale
Spot on the landscape, specific area looking out for him
Ethnoecology and landscapes
Landscape as a perspective, view, and representation. Landscape structures, patterns, and importance of scale. Land management. An ethnoecology all perspective on landscapes
Ethnoecological perspective on landscapes
Take into account all components, have to look at scale usually local, looking at the knowledge of specific groups, trying not to divide all the systems
Landscape as science
Started with regional surveys and watershed studies, archeology and geography looked at sites (space)
Ways to understand landscape is deeply tied to economy
Recently there is recognition that spaces between places are as important as places themselves
Terra Nullius
Taking cultural places and transforming them into empty space. Are used to justify colonialism. The power of place names shows how they could empty a place and bring your own culture and names there for Bree back place names can poke holes in the system
Place vs space or cultural landscape vs ecosystem
Space~ Objective universal abstract quantifiable
Place~ subjective historically emergent experiential qualitative
Sense of place
Meaning and relationships that ground us
Attachment with multiple places are significant part of our individual and group identities
Reflect values and aspirations, social, culture, environmental and economic trends
Places are dynamically cocreated
From animals plants water climate land religious beliefs cultural traditions political trends economic forces human settlement patterns
Residents vs inhabitants
Residents~ carrying little for immediate local beyond its ability to gratify temporary occupant putting down few roots
Inhabitants~ dwells in an intimate organic and mutually nurturing relationship with the place, more invested in the places we are in
Places are dynamic
We are all PlaceMaker. Places are active in social relations, taught the spoken and unspoken rules about places
Place is not an external object we internalize this knowledge and then embody it
Cultural Keystone places
I given site or location with high cultural salience for one or more groups of people which plays or has played an exceptional role in the peoples cultural identity as reflected in day-to-day living, food production, history, resource management, social and ceremonial practises
Indigenous protected and conserved areas (IPCA)
Best example of Co-governance protect territories and not just places
Places as people
Persistent places have deep history they are alive and deeply shaped by people
Māori tribe of whanganui fought for reconition of river as person in New Zealand
Gulf Islands
Every campsite in the Gulf Islands is a village site
Cities and parks
Cities are colonized places but are indigenous places.
Parks are only designed to be passed through not inhabited but they are also homelands
Municipal Colonialism
Cities or centres of power they have large concentration of settler population and resources and lots of resources
Siri seen as delicate living organisms whose health needed to be maintained
City planning
In early 20th century made to access and project the growth of entire urban areas
In Vancouver this was used as justification for acquiring reserve lines
Election was done with a lot of force
Squamish Settlement at Kits Beach
People were evicted by force and all of their house were burned
premiere Richard McBride forced the Squamish people to abandon their property at Kitsilano Point
Settled claim for $92.5 million
Views of Indigenous reserves in cities
Reserves seen as generous gifts that could be reclaimed. Terms like shantytowns. Describing a particular kind a settler place and what they saw as wasteland unless settlers improve it
Xwayxway/ Stanley Park
Village sites that were inhabited for over 3000 years. Were destroyed in 1888 to make way for a road. 1931 was the final eviction notice when it was declared a park. Put up Totem poles which is from a different culture
Lekwugen Territories
Territories broken into family groups many village sites along the water
Settler view of Lekwugen people
James Douglas decided to establish HBC here maps showed an empty landscape. Almost no mention of the people living here. Picked here because thought it would be good for farming but it was not good for European farming
Songhees reserve
Wanted to move the reserve because the city was expanding families given $10,000 for move now in Esquimalt
Imagined wilderness
Additional people written out of the narrative. Parks created which chases people off the land in favour of short term visitors. Militaristic enforcement of new social norms in these places.
Yosemite Palute
Important management such as burns and turn soil. Communities were forcibly removed which has changed the landscape
Gulf Islands National Park
All culturally important, all sites are village sites and burial grounds
Have clam garden restoration
Social script
Places have social meaning and can have different meaning in overlapping places. Up to us to learn the different ways of reading them
