UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Toward productive complicity: Applying ‘traditional ecological knowledge’ in environmental science

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.1177/20530196211057026

Authors

Benedict Esmond Singleton · Maris Boyd Gillette · Anders Burman · Carina Green

Reported year

2021

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:04:47.754128+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:16:04.350753+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences · University of Gothenburg · Örebro University

Reported affiliation countries

SE

Documentary abstract — original language

Culture and tradition have long been the domains of social science, particularly social/cultural anthropology and various forms of heritage studies. However, many environmental scientists whose research addresses environmental management, conservation, and restoration are also interested in traditional ecological knowledge, indigenous and local knowledge, and local environmental knowledge (hereafter TEK), not least because policymakers and international institutions promote the incorporation of TEK in environmental work. In this article, we examine TEK usage in peer-reviewed articles by environmental scientists published in 2020. This snapshot of environmental science scholarship includes both critical discussions of how to incorporate TEK in research and management and efforts to do so for various scholarly and applied purposes. Drawing on anthropological discussions of culture, we identify two related patterns within this literature: a tendency toward essentialism and a tendency to minimize power relationships. We argue that scientists whose work reflects these trends might productively engage with knowledge from the scientific fields that study culture and tradition. We suggest productive complicity as a reflexive mode of partnering, and a set of questions that facilitate natural scientists adopting this approach: What and/or who is this TEK for? Who and what will benefit from this TEK deployment? How is compensation/credit shared? Does this work give back and/or forward to all those involved?

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W4200079467

DOI

10.1177/20530196211057026

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

article

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196211057026
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W4200079467

Documented bibliographic relations

Source-declared references and links; they do not establish legal support or UGLC qualification. Up to 20 outgoing references are displayed.

• openalex:w1541629980 · CITES
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• openalex:w2060431762 · CITES
• openalex:w2067341437 · CITES
• openalex:w2071663527 · CITES
• openalex:w2084530896 · CITES
• openalex:w2099043095 · CITES
• openalex:w2107274132 · CITES
• openalex:w2118628106 · CITES
• openalex:w2122925767 · CITES
• openalex:w2125640645 · CITES
• openalex:w2171933098 · CITES
• openalex:w2186146349 · CITES
• openalex:w2315557293 · CITES
• openalex:w2319420365 · CITES

0 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

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