NAU Joins Biden Administration Effort To Validate Indigenous Knowledge As Scientific
By Corinne Murdock |
Northern Arizona University (NAU) will play a key role in an effort to validate indigenous knowledge as scientific knowledge using millions in federal funding.
Ora Marek-Martinez, NAU’s associate vice president of the Office for Native American Initiatives and assistant professor of anthropology, will be part of the University of Massachussetts’ newly-established Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science (CBIKS). Marek-Martinez will serve as the CBIKS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) & Ethics Co-Lead for the center’s Southwest Hub.
Biden’s National Science Foundation (NSF) gave $30 million to CBIKS, a grant lasting five years. CBIKS may qualify for additional federal funding come 2028.
CBIKS researchers will focus initially on collaborating with indigenous Nanwalek Alaskans to study their traditional methods of salmon population preservation, indigenous Hawaiians to study their agricultural and food waste practices, and indigenous Australians to study environmental signs of climate change. Sonya Atalay, CBIKS Director and UMass Amherst Provost Professor of Anthropology, said that current scientific approaches were limited.
“CBIKS is about recognizing that Indigenous knowledge systems carry tremendous information and value, and it’s shortsighted to think that current research practices founded on Western knowledge systems are the only or ‘right’ approach,” said Atalay.
In one of CBIK’s initial postings, Atalay gave credence to the belief that rocks are alive, per indigenous knowledge.
Atalay criticized Michigan archaeologists for “disregard[ing] Native understanding of the rock as an animate being.” The rock in question bears Native American petroglyphs.
The rock wasn’t available for comment.
In order to obtain more indigenous knowledge beyond the consciousness of rocks, CPIKS will interact with 57 indigenous communities through its eight regional hubs across the country and in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.
The initiative is part of a larger effort by the Biden administration to prioritize “indigenous knowledge” into “research, policies, and decision making,” as noted in a memo from the Office of Science and Technology Policy issued last November. The office, newly assigned cabinet-level status by the Biden administration, further declared indigenous knowledge to be “an aspect of the best available science” and directed its inclusion in “Highly Influential Scientific Assessments.” Those assessments directly shape costly federal policies.
The Biden administration wasn’t the first to attempt to assign parity to indigenous knowledge in scientific inquiry: as Washington Free Beacon reported, Canadian researchers reported adverse results after their country incorporated indigenous knowledge into policymaking, ranging from counterproductive at best to dangerous at worst.
“[T]he acceptance of spiritual beliefs as ‘knowledge’ by governments was dangerous because it could be used to justify any activity, including actions that were environmentally destructive,” stated a 2006 academic assessment.
One apparent outcome of catering to indigenous knowledge occurred when Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) deputy director M. Kaleo Manuel, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner, delayed the release of water to combat the Maui fires because he insisted that officials obtain permission from a local taro farm. Taro is integral to Native Hawaiian agriculture and tradition.
Washington Free Beacon also reported some of the early fruits of the Biden administration’s indigenous knowledge labors: reinterpreting time as cyclical rather than sequential, entertaining proposals to pay tribal elders to assist in federal rulemaking, scrapping peer review processes, acknowledging alleged interdimensional relations between animals and humans,
NAU’s involvement in the Biden initiative aligns with the university’s policy of prioritizing Native American individuals in admissions and employment.
In February, NAU established a program providing free tuition regardless of income to Native Americans while requiring a financial threshold for students of all other races. They also pledged $10 million to “indigenous,” or prioritize indigenous people, in their curriculum. The equitable treatment of Native Americans resulted in a boost to the university’s enrollment.
The Office for Native American Initiatives, which Marek-Martinez helps lead, played an integral role in these equity efforts.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
