scholarly journals From Smokebush to Spinifex: Indigenous traditional knowledge and the commercialisation of plants

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terri Janke
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Plant Material ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Indigenous Australians ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Plant Knowledge ◽  
Australian Plant ◽  
Culturally Based ◽  
Indigenous Plant

Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, have diverse relationships with plants and their seeds. This cultural knowledge has been passed on through the generations, creating a deep history that has produced sophisticated fields of knowledge intimately linked to both diverse cultural geographies and the natural environment across the country. Western scientific, government and private sector commercial institutions have been collecting Australian plant material for over 200 years. Sometimes, such ‘collectors’ obtain the Indigenous knowledge simultaneously with the plant material. On occasions, the culturally-based Indigenous ownership of that knowledge is acknowledged by collectors. However in the majority of instances that has not been the case. Furthermore, different western institutions take different approaches to the collection, management and use of Australian plant material and associated Indigenous plant knowledge. A particular challenge in this arena is the lack of any shared understanding of Indigenous knowledge and intellectual property issues that are involved, and how those might best be addressed. But there is a gathering momentum, from diverse quarters, to face such challenges. This paper aims to contribute to consideration of the issues involved in order to promote more robust inclusion of Indigenous rights, interests and concerns.

Certification marks for Australian native foods: A proposal for Indigenous ownership of intellectual property

2021 ◽  
pp. 1037969X2098271
Author(s):  
David J Jefferson
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Indigenous Australians ◽  
Policy Agenda ◽  
Commercial Products ◽  
Trade Marks ◽  
Native Foods ◽  
Certification Mark

Recently, interest in ‘bush tucker’ foods has surged. Indigenous Australians should be empowered to determine how their knowledge is used when these products are commercialised. To exercise control over the development of the native foods industry, Indigenous Australians could establish a certification regime to ensure that their knowledge is appropriately converted into commercial products. This could be done through the strategic use of intellectual property, specifically through certification trade marks. Creating a certification mark for native foods could represent an important part of a decolonial policy agenda aimed at reimagining the regulation of native biodiversity and cultural knowledge in Australia.

Indigenous Knowledge as Resource to Sustain Self-Employment in Rural Development

2018 ◽  
pp. 142-158
Author(s):  
Ladislaus M. Semali
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Education ◽  
Young People ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Rural Women ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Living Condition ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Community Wellbeing ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
The World

This chapter explores the ways African rural youths and women seek opportunities to innovate and adapt indigenous knowledge as a locally developed resource of community resilience in the attempt to reduce household poverty. The two case groups discussed in this chapter engaged in self-employment enterprises. They drew upon their ecological and cultural knowledge, enabling themselves through shoestring budgets to sustain their livelihood and community wellbeing. The chapter shows that unemployment affects young people and rural women from all occupations and ethnic groups, a situation that puts them in a vulnerable and precarious living condition. The analysis showed that for most of youth found on the Tanzania's streets and urban municipalities, a secondary education has not proven useful in practical knowledge, skills, values or attitudes necessary to enter the world of work or to become self-employed.

Learning From Place

2020 ◽  
pp. 264-286
Author(s):  
Kevin O'Connor ◽  
Gladys Sterenberg ◽  
Norman Vaughan
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Community Partners ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge Systems ◽  
Teacher Education Pedagogy

This chapter investigates how teacher candidates' experiences in STEAM field studies with community partners can inform work in teacher education within an integrated practicum based on curriculum of place. The overall goal of the inquiry is to better understand and articulate the particular ways in which people value place-based knowledge. Through relationships with Indigenous communities, the team of educators has a deeply held conviction that sustained deliberations on the connections between Indigenous knowledge systems and place-based thinking can provide significant opportunities for reframing education. Learning from place emphasizes a relationship with the land, something deeply respected in Indigenous communities and something absent from much of place-based education. The research explores this tension as we come to a deeper and shared understanding of co-responsibility within Treaty 7 relationships. The project seeks to close this gap by considering varying perspectives of place as it informs STEAM teacher education pedagogy.

Designing a Framework of Ethnomedicinal Plant Knowledge Integration Using OSS

2022 ◽  
pp. 518-531
Author(s):  
Piyali Das
Keyword(s):  
Herbal Medicine ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Integration ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Information Retrieval System ◽  
Specific Knowledge ◽  
Plant Knowledge ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Domain Specific Knowledge ◽  
Harvesting Techniques

Indigenous knowledge refers to the knowledge, innovations, and practices of indigenous communities. Ethnic groups are repository knowledge of herbal medicine. Many indigenous people use several plants for medicinal preparations, and these medicines are known as ethnomedicine. It has developed from experience gained over centuries. Species of ethnomedicinal plants are threatened in most of nations due to overexploitation, habitat loss, destructive harvesting techniques, unsustainable trade, and deforestation. Documented indigenous knowledge on ethnomedicine forms part of the documentary heritage of the nation. The chapter will provide a framework for design an information retrieval system for ethnomedicine or knowledge on medicinal plants that are used to manage human ailments. The framework will be prepared, established on the open source software (OSS), and is appropriate not only for documentation but also beneficial for retrieving domain-specific knowledge. The model provides a framework for resource integration digitally using Greenstone Digital Library (GSDL) software.

Cross-cultural indigenous training: The South African experience

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 605-621
Author(s):  
Zana Marovic
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
South African ◽  
Traditional Healers ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
The South ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Western Psychology ◽  
Indigenous Paradigm

In this paper, the author explores the relevance of indigenous training from a cross-cultural perspective. We start by examining the broader context of traditional Western psychology and its relevance in a multicultural society. A brief description of the indigenous paradigm is followed by a discussion of differences between Western and indigenous psychology, and a proposal of cultural eclecticism as a potential frame for their integration. Next, we discuss the South African context in relation to comparative-cultural aspects of medical and psychological services.  The author’s clinical experience informs her increased awareness of culturally inadequate service at the state hospital, developing curiosity about African indigenous healing, and subsequent encounters and collaboration with African traditional healers. Ultimately, the author develops culturally sensitive training that explores cultural biases and generates cross-cultural knowledge and competence.  In conclusion, the author advocates that in the area of globalisation and multicultural societies, psychological training and clinical practice, should include dialogue and facilitate collaboration between Western and indigenous knowledge, hopefully leading to a more holistic and culturally inclusive service to a population of different backgrounds. Such collaboration and integration of Western and indigenous knowledge may be a source of professional stimulation as well as a benefit to health-care consumers.

Linguistic expressions as cultural units

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-145
Author(s):  
Elke Diedrichsen
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Sources ◽  
Communicative Interaction ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Culturally Based ◽  
Linguistic Conventions ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract The paper argues in favor of including cultural aspects in the description of communicative interaction. According to Eco (1976), a linguistic sign is a cultural unit. In order to use it properly, a speaker relies on communicative experience with this unit within a culture (Wittgenstein 1960; Feilke 1996, 1998; Everett 2012). We expand the notion of ‘cultural unit’ by including internet memes found in social media (Shifman 2013, 2014; Diedrichsen 2013a, 2013b, 2019a, 2019b). The term builds on Richard Dawkins’ 1976 definition of a ‘meme’ as a unit that is the cultural equivalent of a biological gene. The paper proposes three knowledge sources for the production and comprehension of these units. The first is semiotic knowledge, the second is common ground knowledge (Clark 1996), and the third knowledge source involves culturally shared cognitive conceptualizations on which word meanings and other linguistic conventions are founded (Sharifian 2003, 2011, 2015, 2017). These three knowledge sources are established through daily interactions and learning processes within a culture (Kecskés and Zhang 2009). The paper characterizes the application of these three knowledge sources for a variety of sign uses. We will also show that a cultural view on pragmatics, as suggested by Sharifian (2017), serves to describe speech acts by identifying their culturally based source. The paper therefore demonstrates that the inclusion of cultural knowledge enables a perspective on communication that goes beyond the analysis of spoken and written words within communities of speakers, as it includes emerging means of communicative interaction in the digital age.

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