KONSEP ILMU PENGETAHUAN LOKAL DALAM LEKSIKON PENANDA WAKTU DAN MUSIM SUKU DAYAK MERATUS [The Indigenous Knowledge Science Lexicon Marking the Time and Season of the Meratus Dayak Tribe]

This study aims to describe the indigenous science in the lexicon of time and season markers by the Meratus Dayak tribe. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative ethnolinguistic approach. The data in this study are lexicon markers of time and season spoken by the Meratus Dayak tribe who reside in the Balangan Regency, namely Meratus Balangan Dayak, especially traditional leader and balian. Meanwhile the data collection techniques used were participant observation, listening techniques, and record techniques. Data analysis includes: (1) transcribing data obtained through the results of records and records; (2) identifying time and season marker data; (3) classifying data according to lingual form and lexicon function; and (4) analyze and conclude. Based on the results of the analysis it was found that the concept of local science in the lexicon markers of time and season can be classified into two: (1) based on the lingual form and (2) based on the function of the lexicon. The concept of local science is based in the lingual form: first, the lexicon marking the time and season of tangible words which a total of 30 lexicons. Second, lexicons marking the time and season in the form of phrases that include noun caterogical phrases, verb categorized phrases, and numeralia categorized phrases with a total of 21 lexicons. Then, the concept of local science based on the function of the lexicon, among others: (1) the function of the daily time lexicon is as much as 19 lexicon and (2) the time and season lexicon functions with a larger unit of 20 lexicon. Penelitian ini bertujuan mendeskripsikan konsep ilmu pengetahuan lokal dalam leksikon penanda waktu dan musim oleh suku Dayak Meratus. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah deskriptif kualitatif dengan pendekatan etnolinguistik. Data dalam penelitian ini berupa leksikon penanda waktu dan musim yang dituturkan oleh suku Dayak Meratus yang bertempat tinggal di wilayah Kabupaten Balangan, yakni Dayak Meratus Balangan, terutama tokoh adat dan balian. Adapun, teknik pengumpulan data yang digunakan adalah observasi partisipan, teknik simak, dan teknik rekam. Analisis data meliputi: (1) mentranskripsikan data yang diperoleh melalui hasil catatan dan rekaman; (2) mengidentifikasi data penanda waktu dan musim; (3) mengklasifikasikan data sesuai dengan bentuk lingual dan fungsi leksikon; dan (4) menganalisis dan menyimpulkan. Berdasarkan hasil analisis ditemukan bahwa konsep ilmu pengetahuan lokal dalam leksikon penanda waktu dan musim dapat diklasifikasikan menjadi dua: (1) berdasarkan bentuk lingual dan (2) berdasarkan fungsi leksikon. Konsep ilmu pengetahuan lokal berdasarkan bentuk lingual: pertama, leksikon penanda waktu dan musim berwujud kata yang meliputi nomina, verba, dan numeralia dengan jumlah keseluruhan 30 leksikon. Kedua, leksikon penanda waktu dan musim berwujud frasa yang meliputi frasa berkategori nomina, frasa berkategori verba, dan frasa berkategori numeralia dengan jumlah keseluruhan 21 leksikon. Kemudian, konsep ilmu pengetahuan lokal berdasarkan fungsi leksikon, antara lain: (1) fungsi leksikon penanda waktu harian sebanyak 19 leksikon dan (2) fungsi leksikon penanda waktu dan musim dengan satuan yang lebih besar sebanyak 20 leksikon.

Exploring Indigenous Science to Identify Contents and Contexts for Science Learning in Order to Promote Education for Sustainable Development

Indigenous science is comprised of the science-related knowledge and associated practices of indigenous cultures. Indigenous science provides rich contexts that can contribute to understanding the relationship of sociocultural life and environmental ethics in certain communities. It can also lead to better reflection upon Western modern views of science. Based on a qualitative analysis of indigenous science in the Baduy community (Indonesia), we describe how indigenous science can provide relevant contexts for students to learn scientific concepts, as well as help them to recognise the value of promoting sustainability. We present potential topics encompassing the sociocultural context of Baduy science that can be associated with sustainability issues. Topics were identified from six themes (agriculture, medicine, natural dyes, household chemicals, renewable energy, and astronomy). Potential implications of these topics to science learning are also presented. We view contextualization of science teaching and learning by indigenous science as a promising source to enhance students’ perception of the relevance of science learning. It can also promote education for sustainable development.

Confronting the contradictions between Western and Indigenous science: a critical perspective on Two-Eyed Seeing

In the mid-2000s, the term Two-Eyed Seeing was introduced by Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall to suggest the complementarity of Western and Indigenous sciences. The concept has since been adopted and applied in a diverse range of research. This article examines the latent tension in Two-Eyed Seeing between a desire to foster dialogue—in order, ideally, to generate a trans-cultural “third space” of understanding—and the denial or suppression of major contradictions between predominantly wholistic Indigenous and predominantly reductionist Eurocentric worldviews. Examples are considered of both fruitful Two-Eyed Seeing collaborations and areas where antithetical approaches cannot be combined, for reasons that a more critical application of the Two-Eyed Seeing concept could help make clear. Conversely, revisioned in this way, Two-Eyed Seeing can deepen appreciation of those areas of Western science, such as the delicate empiricism of Goethean science, authentically resonant with Indigenous approaches.

Macquarie–Yaegl Partnership: Community Capability Strengthening Through Western and Indigenous Science

The rich customary knowledge possessed by Indigenous people from around the world has provided intellectually stimulating academic research opportunities and has been a successful avenue for healthcare and drug discovery as well as commercial native foods, flavours, fragrances, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, and agricultural products. When conducted with benefit sharing and reciprocity as core agenda, such research can provide community capability strengthening and immense rewards for both the Indigenous people and the academic research team involved, as well as benefiting potentially many others. This account shares my experiences as a natural products and medicinal chemistry academic, of working with Australian Aboriginal Elders, most notably from Yaegl Country of northern New South Wales, on investigating their bush medicines. Together we have facilitated the recognition and preservation of Yaegl Country customary knowledge and through initiation of a science leadership program, the National Indigenous Science Education Program, we have promoted educational attainment and STEM engagement in Australian Aboriginal youth. While this account is authored as my own personal statement of the Macquarie–Yaegl partnership, I am indebted to the Yaegl Aboriginal Elders and other Australian Aboriginal people I have worked with, and my university, school and community collaborators, my research team and student volunteers, who have all enabled the outcomes described in this account to be realised, and have made the experience so rewarding. I am also thankful to the Royal Australian Chemical Institute for the recognition of the value of this work through the award of a 2019 Royal Australian Chemical Institute Citation.

Towards Being Wounded by Thought: Indigenous Metaphysics Is (Still) Waiting in the Wings of Science Education

The purpose of this concluding chapter is to summarize and synthesize of the book, highlighting the ways in which Indigenous science is (yet-)to-come within science education. Following a short musing on conclusions, (fore)closure, and the importance of being wounded by thought, each chapter is revisited to (re)articulate the significance of their contributions with the triple(d) understanding of to-come explored within the book in mind: (a) Indigenous science, in the context of science education, has not yet (wholly) arrived; (b) where and how science education might be (re)opened towards hospitably receiving Indigenous science; and (c) the types of deconstructive practices that support this work. The chapter, and in turn the book, ends with an affirmative message that the potentiality of Indigenous ways-of-living-with-Nature in science education remains, even if not fully actualized; thus, an invitation to continue labouring the space of responsiveness towards Indigenous science.

Unsettling Metaphysics in Science Education

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the relation between Western modern science and Indigenous ways-of-knowing-in-being as it manifests within spaces of science education: as simultaneously co-constitutive and othering. In turn, unsettling science education is presented as a double(d) approach to address the ways in which settler colonial logics linger and lurk within sedimented and stratified knowledge-practices. As a more nascent approach to the question of Indigenous science within science education, this is expanded upon by drawing from decolonizing and post-colonial approaches. Further, drawing across the two, deconstruction is highlighted as a (meta-)methodological approach to bear witness to the ways in which settler coloniality often manifests as absent presences and to (re)open the space of response within science education towards Indigenous ways-of-knowing-in-being.