Ten years ago, most of the academics working in the area of indigenous knowledge represented anthropology, development sociology, and geography. Today … important contributions are also being made in the fields of ecology, soil science, veterinary medicine, forestry, human health, aquatic science, management,botany, zoology, agronomy, agricultural economics, rural sociology, mathematics, …. fisheries, range management, information science, wildlife management, and water resource management” (Agarwal, 1995 citing Warren et al., 1993)
Almost 20 years later, weaving and braiding have become the two most popular metaphors (4 or 5 recent citations) for interdisciplinary teams of scientists to describe their attempts to incorporate ways of knowing, doing, and thinking from outside of their own situated social practice (3 key citations) of what is known as Western science. Why not add macramé to the mix with its use of hemp rope and wooden beads?
Regardless, the fact remains that Science – with a big S – has turned to age old crafts for their choice of metaphors to describe contemporary goals of finding ways to build bridges across entire knowledge systems, much less the often incommensurable forms of knowledge that may exist even within the ideological bounds of any particular knowledge system. This goes beyond cognitive justice, which simply asks that you recognize the existence of a plurality of knowledge systems, and respect the vast variety of the world’s ways of knowing, doing, making, and creating.
Cognitive justice is a critique on the dominant paradigm of modern science and promotes the recognition of alternative paradigms or alternative sciences by facilitating and enabling dialogue between, often incommensurable, knowledges. (wikipedia)
What does incommensurable mean?
“not able to be judged by the same standards; having no common standard of measurement” (Oxford Language)
Why are scientists using incommensurable metaphors for their efforts to work with local, traditional, and Indigenous knowledge?
“incommensurable generally refers to things that are unlike and incompatible, sharing no common ground, or to things that are very disproportionate, often to the point of defying comparison.” (Merriam-Webster)
Clearly, the craftwork of weaving, braiding, or the making of macrame is incommensurable with climate science and environmental change and the heating of the planet.
Why turn to the very antithesis of scientific knowledge for metaphors to describe what needs to be done for securing the future our shared planetary home?
That, imo, is the real question.
It is the recognition of incommensurability that leads to the use of metaphors, because apples and oranges cannot be stewed together, although you could try an experiment. What we need is a fruit salad that balances flavours and textures, in harmonious combinations that blend together in the mouth.
Yes, I’m playing around with metaphors as well, inspired by Yunkaporta’s thinking tool: the dreaming mind (Sand Talk, 2019).
In the case of attempting to weave and braid at the intangible and abstract level, one must find a way to practical actions that reflect the process and the activity, in order to complete the feedback loop. Meteorological data cannot be tangibly woven, though artists have attempted to represent the changing patterns of the climate and the weather through their own artworks. Only then can Yunkaporta’s thinking tools manifest their intentions in tangible form. Given that those are among the few tools available to non-Indigenous knowledge workers to approach Indigenous ways of knowing, they are a better place to start than by picking up threads and ropes. Otoh, thanks to Aboriginal English via Tyson Yunkaporta, we do have access to yarns as a common metaphor with which to braid and weave.
This stringing together of practical actions and closing of feedback loops is in line with Nakata’s Cultural Interface: that liminal space where we dance forever in between, often incommensurable, cultures – our domestic ones, those of our family of origin, those of our educational systems, and those of the places and locations we live and reside in. For a moment. In between.
