Indigenous Knowledge
- LAST MODIFIED: 12 January 2023
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0376
- LAST MODIFIED: 12 January 2023
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0376
Introduction
What is Indigenous knowledge? While the term is rather problematic—as much knowledge, including European or Western knowledge, could be dubbed Indigenous—this article uses the concept for non-European that is Native American or African (and African diasporic) knowledge in the Atlantic world. Notwithstanding, this labeling is also problematic, as knowledge is often more transcultural or hybrid than we would think. In the last two decades Indigenous knowledge in the Atlantic World has received much scholarly attention from scholars of anthropology, archaeology, history of science, history of knowledge, and environmental history, as well as from many other subdisciplines of cultural and social history. Natural sciences are today also interested in Indigenous knowledge; as much as their early modern predecessors, they use Indigenous knowledge about such topics as climate, environments, ecology, botany, zoology, and minerals as resources in areas such as medicine and pharmaceutics, foodstuffs, and new forms of agriculture and ecology. Early modern knowledge about the Atlantic world—as it came to be institutionalized from the 15th century in the European republic of letters, its academies, royal societies, correspondence networks, universities, collections of objects, maps, natural histories, encyclopedias, travel narratives, and dictionaries—was the result of colonial European powers striving to make sense, conquer, and exploit the Americas. In this, they not only relied on European sources but also depended on American Indigenous populations, African or Arabic enslaved people, Atlantic creoles, pirates, Maroons, and other groups hitherto underrepresented in the master narratives of European expansion, the rise of the sciences, and the production of universal knowledge. These groups left traces in maps, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and travel narratives and produced their own forms and practices of knowledge formation and exchange. The “extraction” of this knowledge came by way of contact, in borderlands and middle grounds, by conquest, colonization, enslavement, and other violent and nonviolent forms of encounter. The intellectual construction of the New World and the rise of modern sciences, as a major foundation of European empire building, had a transcultural and global dimension. All of this often hides the multiple Indigenous American traditions in the production, formation, performance, and codification of knowledge and the categories through which they structure life, societies, political systems, and environments at large. Against this background, this article looks into the conditions and modes of knowledge exchange that have dominated the Atlantic world, focusing on epistemes and problems of translation, on issues of knowledge and empire. Through European categories, it will then assess Indigenous knowledge, with regard to Ecology and Environments, Climate and climate change, land and landscapes, gardening and agriculture, Botany and Zoology, and Medicine and Pharmaceutics, as well as the collecting and exhibiting of such knowledge.
General introductions
While there are no general introductions to Indigenous knowledge, scholars have challenged colonial paradigms with regard to knowledge production in the early modern Atlantic world (and beyond). Goody 2006 problematizes Eurocentric and occidentalist approaches to knowledge, while Greenblatt 1991 has created a master narrative on the appropriation of knowledge in the New World. Native American scholar Clara Sue Kidwell (Kidwell 2019) introduces us to Indigenous American ways of knowing, as does Gordon Brotherston in Brotherston 1992. Proctor and Schiebinger 2008 provides interesting insights into agnotology, while Turnbull 2000 challenges the divisions between traditional, local, and scientific knowledge.
Brotherston, Gordon. Book of The Fourth World: Reading the Native Americas through Their Literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
This is an excellent overview of Native American knowledge and cosmologies as can be traced in Indigenous texts. It shows the great traditions of intellectual life, philosophy, and historiography of native peoples in the Americas.
Goody, Jack. The Theft of History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
While this is not a general introduction to Indigenous knowledge, the book draws our attention to the Eurocentric and occidentalist bias in our assessment of knowledge today— how much we neglect, omit, or willingly ignore the contributions of non-European and non-Western people to what we call universal knowledge.
Greenblatt, Stephen. Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226306575.001.0001
This masterpiece tells the story of how Europeans appropriated land and knowledge in the New World to build their overseas empires, which possessions and media they then used to present us with the marvels of unknown worlds, as if the latter had not existed prior to the arrival of Europeans.
Kidwell, Clara Sue. Native American Knowledge Systems. Staines-upon-Thames, UK: Balestier, 2019.
From a Meso- and North American perspective, Kidwell confronts us with Native American epistemes, or systems of knowledge, that demonstrate a variety of ways of seeing, ordering, and interpreting the world.
Proctor, Robert N., and Londa Schiebinger, eds. Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008.
What is knowledge? Why do we not know what we do not know? Have we never known or has knowledge been forgotten or become invisible? In this collection of essays, the authors analyze politics of ignorance or forgetting as a powerful instrument through which, for example, Indigenous knowledge came to be effaced from so-called universal knowledge systems.
Turnbull, David. Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers: Comparative Studies in the Sociology of Scientific and Indigenous Knowledge. London: Routledge, 2000.
Turnbull critically assesses our Western understanding of how knowledge is produced. Through his case studies, he shows that knowledge production in all instances, Western sciences included, is messy and local and less rational and coherent than modernity often suggests. He thus contributes convincingly to challenging the divide between European and Western and Indigenous knowledge and knowledge production.
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Article
- Abolition of Slavery
- Abolitionism and Africa
- Africa and the Atlantic World
- African American Religions
- African Religion and Culture
- African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World
- Age of Atlantic Revolutions, The
- Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies
- America, Pre-Contact
- American Revolution, The
- Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery
- Argentina
- Army, British
- Arsenals
- Art and Artists
- Atlantic Biographies
- Atlantic Creoles
- Atlantic History and Hemispheric History
- Atlantic Migration
- Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
- Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- Bacon's Rebellion
- Baltic Sea
- Baptists
- Barbados in the Atlantic World
- Barbary States
- Benguela
- Berbice in the Atlantic World
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Brazil
- Brazil and Africa
- Britain and Empire, 1685-1730
- British Atlantic Architectures
- British Atlantic World
- Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World
- Cabato, Giovanni (John Cabot)
- Cannibalism
- Capitalism
- Captain John Smith
- Captivity
- Captivity in Africa
- Captivity in North America
- Caribbean, The
- Cartier, Jacques
- Castas
- Catholicism
- Cattle in the Atlantic World
- Central American Independence
- Central Europe and the Atlantic World
- Charleston
- Chartered Companies, British and Dutch
- Cherokee
- Childhood
- Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World
- Chocolate
- Church and Slavery
- Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America
- Citizenship in the Atlantic World
- Class and Social Structure
- Climate
- Clothing
- Coastal/Coastwide Trade
- Cod in the Atlantic World
- Coffee
- Colonial Governance in Spanish America
- Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World
- Colonialism and Postcolonialism
- Colonization, Ideologies of
- Colonization of English America
- Communications in the Atlantic World
- Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas
- Confraternities
- Constitutions
- Continental America
- Cook, Captain James
- Cotton
- Credit and Debt
- Creek Indians in the Atlantic World, The
- Creolization
- Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World
- Crowds in the Atlantic World
- Cuba
- Currency
- Death in the Atlantic World
- Demography of the Atlantic World
- Diaspora, Jewish
- Diaspora, The Acadian
- Disease in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Slave Trades in the Americas
- Dreams and Dreaming
- Dutch Atlantic World
- Dutch Brazil
- Dutch Caribbean and Guianas, The
- Early Modern France
- Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Economy of British America, The
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elites
- Emancipation
- Emotions
- Empire and State Formation
- Enlightenment, The
- Environment and the Natural World
- Ethnicity
- Europe and Africa
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Northern
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Western
- European, Javanese and African and Indentured Servitude in...
- Evangelicalism and Conversion
- Female Slave Owners
- Feminism
- First Contact and Early Colonization of Brazil
- Fiscality
- Fiscal-Military State
- Food
- Forts, Fortresses, and Fortifications
- France and Empire
- France and its Empire in the Indian Ocean
- France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789
- Free People of Color
- Free Ports in the Atlantic World
- French Army and the Atlantic World, The
- French Atlantic World
- French Emancipation
- French Revolution, The
- Gardens
- Gender in Iberian America
- Gender in North America
- Gender in the Atlantic World
- Gender in the Caribbean
- George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax
- Georgia in the Atlantic World
- Germans in the Atlantic World
- Giovanni da Verrazzano, Explorer
- Glasgow
- Glorious Revolution
- Godparents and Godparenting
- Great Awakening
- Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World
- Guianas, The
- Haitian Revolution, The
- Hanoverian Britain
- Havana in the Atlantic World
- Hinterlands of the Atlantic World
- Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World
- Honor
- Huguenots
- Hunger and Food Shortages
- Iberian Atlantic World, 1600-1800
- Iberian Empires, 1600-1800
- Iberian Inquisitions
- Idea of Atlantic History, The
- Impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean, The
- Indentured Servitude
- Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian
- India, The Atlantic Ocean and
- Indigenous Knowledge
- Indigo in the Atlantic World
- Insurance
- Internal Slave Migrations in the Americas
- Interracial Marriage in the Atlantic World
- Ireland and the Atlantic World
- Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
- Islam and the Atlantic World
- Itinerant Traders, Peddlers, and Hawkers
- Jamaica in the Atlantic World
- Jefferson, Thomas
- Jesuits
- Jews and Blacks
- Labor Systems
- Land and Propert in the Atlantic World
- Language, State, and Empire
- Languages, Caribbean Creole
- Latin American Independence
- Law and Slavery
- Legal Culture
- Leisure in the British Atlantic World
- Letters and Letter Writing
- Lima
- Literature and Culture
- Literature of the British Caribbean
- Literature, Slavery and Colonization
- Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833
- Louverture, Toussaint
- Loyalism
- Lutherans
- Mahogany
- Manumission
- Maps in the Atlantic World
- Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Markets in the Atlantic World
- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic
- Medicine in the Atlantic World
- Mennonites
- Mental Disorder in the Atlantic World
- Mercantilism
- Merchants in the Atlantic World
- Merchants' Networks
- Mestizos
- Mexico
- Migrations and Diasporas
- Minas Gerais
- Miners
- Mining, Gold, and Silver
- Missionaries
- Missionaries, Native American
- Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy
- Monroe, James
- Moravians
- Morris, Gouverneur
- Music and Music Making
- Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World
- Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History
- Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism
- Native American Histories in North America
- Native American Networks
- Native American Religions
- Native Americans and Africans
- Native Americans and the American Revolution
- Native Americans and the Atlantic World
- Native Americans in Cities
- Native Americans in Europe
- Native North American Women
- Native Peoples of Brazil
- Natural History
- Networks for Migrations and Mobility
- Networks of Science and Scientists
- New England in the Atlantic World
- New France and Louisiana
- New York City
- News
- Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
- Nineteenth-Century France
- North Africa and the Atlantic World
- Northern New Spain
- Novel in the Age of Revolution, The
- Oceanic History
- Oceans
- Pacific, The
- Paine, Thomas
- Papacy and the Atlantic World
- Paris
- People of African Descent in Early Modern Europe
- Peru
- Pets and Domesticated Animals in the Atlantic World
- Philadelphia
- Philanthropy
- Piracy
- Plantations in the Atlantic World
- Plants
- Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic...
- Polygamy and Bigamy
- Port Cities, British
- Port Cities, British American
- Port Cities, French
- Port Cities, French American
- Port Cities, Iberian
- Ports, African
- Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions
- Portugal, Early Modern
- Portuguese Atlantic World
- Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic
- Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Voyages
- Pregnancy and Reproduction
- Print Culture in the British Atlantic
- Proprietary Colonies
- Protestantism
- Puritanism
- Quakers
- Quebec and the Atlantic World, 1760–1867
- Quilombos
- Race and Racism
- Race, The Idea of
- Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism
- Red Atlantic
- Refugees, Saint-Domingue
- Religion
- Religion and Colonization
- Religion in the British Civil Wars
- Religious Border-Crossing
- Religious Networks
- Representations of Slavery
- Republicanism
- Rice in the Atlantic World
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rum
- Rumor
- Russia and North America
- Sailors
- Saint Domingue
- Saint-Louis, Senegal
- Salvador da Bahia
- Scandinavian Chartered Companies
- Science, History of
- Scotland and the Atlantic World
- Sea Creatures in the Atlantic World
- Second-Hand Trade
- Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763
- Seven Years' War, The
- Seville
- Sex and Sexuality in the Atlantic World
- Shakers
- Shakespeare and the Atlantic World
- Ships and Shipping
- Signares
- Silk
- Slave Codes
- Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic
- Slave Owners In The British Atlantic
- Slave Rebellions
- Slave Resistance in the Atlantic World
- Slave Trade and Natural Science, The
- Slave Trade, The Atlantic
- Slavery and Empire
- Slavery and Fear
- Slavery and Gender
- Slavery and the Family
- Slavery, Atlantic
- Slavery, Health, and Medicine
- Slavery in Africa
- Slavery in Brazil
- Slavery in British America
- Slavery in British and American Literature
- Slavery in Danish America
- Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies
- Slavery in New England
- Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of
- Slavery in the Cape Colony, South Africa
- Slavery in the French Atlantic World
- Slavery, Native American
- Slavery, Public Memory and Heritage of
- Slavery, The Origins of
- Slavery, Urban
- Smuggling
- São Paulo
- Sociability in the British Atlantic
- Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts...
- Soldiers
- South Atlantic
- South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos South Atlantic Creole A...
- South Carolina
- Sovereignty and the Law
- Spain, Early Modern
- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- Spanish American Port Cities
- Spanish Colonization to 1650
- Subjecthood in the Atlantic World
- Sugar in the Atlantic World
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- The French Lesser Antilles
- The Fur Trade
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
- Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685
- Universities
- USA and Empire in the 19th Century
- Venezuela and the Atlantic World
- Violence
- Visual Art and Representation
- War and Trade
- War of 1812
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Warfare
- Warfare in Spanish America
- Warfare in 17th-Century North America
- Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World
- Weavers
- West Indian Economic Decline
- Whitefield, George
- Whiteness in the Atlantic World
- Wine
- Witchcraft in the Atlantic World
- Women and the Law
- Women Prophets