TEK in Research

Benefits of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)

Numerous federal agencies are interested in engaging with Tribal nations to improve stewardship of U.S. federal lands (parks, forests, wildlife refuges, rangelands, historical monuments, and more); many of these lands are sited where Tribes either lived, hunted, fished, and/or gathered food, or contain specific sites of sacred importance to certain Tribes. Incorporation of TEK in land management, planning, and future restoration is an important aspect of federal land stewardship. TEK informs long-term land use patterns, identifies potential changes in those patterns, migration histories, etc. Public lands management depends upon and benefits from knowledge of the history of land use. Having mutually beneficial relationships with tribes is critical for stewardship of public lands.

References and Further Reading:

Books

• Absolon, Kathleen E. (2011) Kaandossiwin: How We Come to Know. Fernwood Publishers.

• Berkes F. (2012) Sacred Ecology: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Resource Management. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Routledge.

• Cajete, G. (1999). Native science: Natural laws of interdependence. Clear Light Books: Santa Fe, NM.

• Geniusz, W.D. (2009). Our Knowledge is Not Primitive: Decolonizing Botanical Anishinaabe Teachings. Syracuse University Press.

• Hoover, Elizabeth (2017) The River Is in Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community. University of Minnesota Press.

• Kimmerer, Robin Wall (2013) Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions.

• Kukutai, T. and J. Taylor (2016), Indigenous data sovereignty: Toward an agenda. ANU Press.

• LaDuke, W. (1999) All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life. Haymarket Books.

• Marchand, Michael E. and Kristiina A. Vogt, Rodney Cawston, John D Tovey, John McCoy, Nancy Maryboy, Calvin T Mukumoto, and Daniel J Vogt (eds). (2020) The Medicine Wheel: Environmental Decision-making Process of Indigenous Peoples. Michigan State University Press.

• Ross, A., Sherman, R., Snodgrass, J. G., & Delcore, H. D. (2011). Indigenous peoples and the collaborative stewardship of nature: knowledge binds and institutional conflicts. Left Coast Press.

Articles

• Deloria, Philip J. and K. Tsianina Lomawaima, Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy, Mark N. Trahant, Loren Ghiglione, Douglas Medin, Ned Blackhawk (2018) “Unfolding Futures: Indigenous Ways of Knowing for the Twenty-First Century.” Daedalus, 147(2):6-16.

• Gagnon, V.S. (2016) “Ojibwe Gichigami (“Ojibwa’s Great Sea”): An intersecting history of treaty rights, tribal fish harvesting, and toxic risk in Keweenaw Bay, United States.” Water History, 8(4):365-384.

• Journal of Contemporary Water Research & Education, 169: special issue, “Water in the Native World: Indigenous Water Issues.” Free access available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/1936704x/2020/169/1

• Kozich, Andrew, Kathleen Halvorsen and Alex Mayer (2018) “Perspectives on Water Resources among Anishinaabe and Non-Native Residents of the Great Lakes Region.” Journal of Contemporary Water Research & Education, 163:94-108. Retrieved from and available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1936-704X.2018.03272.x

• McGregor, Deborah. (2012). “Traditional Knowledge: Considerations for Protecting Water in Ontario.” International Indigenous Policy Journal, 3(3). DOI: 10.18584/iipj.2012.3.3.1

• Nadasdy, Paul. 1999. “The Politics of TEK: Power and the ‘Integration’ of Knowledge.” Arctic Anthropology. 36 (1-2):1-18.

• Siisip Genuisz, M. Plants have so much to give us, all we have to do is ask.

• Tekahnawiiaks King, Joyce (2007): “The Value of Water and the Meaning of Water Law for the Native Americans Known as the Haudenosaunee.” Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, 16(3): 449-472. Retrieved from and available at: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/216744306.pdf (includes information regarding the Haudenosaunee Position Paper on the Great Lakes (2005), pp. 466-470).

• Vinyeta, Kirsten; Lynn, Kathy (2013). “Exploring the role of traditional ecological knowledge in climate change initiatives.” U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 37 p. Retrieved from and available at: https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr879.pdf

• Wehipeihana, N., Increasing Cultural Competence in Support of Indigenous-Led Evaluation: A Necessary Step Toward Indigenous-Led Evaluation. Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation 2019, 34(2).