Indigenous engagement – the deliberate engagement with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples in meaningful ways for the purpose of institutional change that is guided by the tenets of reconciliation – is a relatively new and increasingly important area of concern for public institutions such as schools and universities. Often, Indigenous engagement is principally understood as an exercise in the inclusion of Indigenous peoples in mainstream academic endeavours. As our understandings of Indigenous engagement have developed, the notion that this issue is principally of inclusion of Indigenous voice has been tempered by another important area of focus – that of Indigenous knowledge and its place in the various disciplinary areas.

In some areas of academic concern, Indigenous perspectives have a long legacy of representation. For some areas such as history, literature, and social work, Indigenous content has long been an important aspect of program content. Other disciplines, such as many in the sciences, don’t have as much experience incorporating Indigenous content and perspectives into their programming. With many public institutions such as universities and school districts making commitments toward reconciliation, increased attention toward previously underdeveloped areas of study has led to increased focus upon Indigenous knowledge in science. Where we previously strived for inclusion of Indigenous peoples to engage in scientific activities at universities, we are now also exploring and incorporating Indigenous perspectives into the scientific endeavor. As this is a relatively recent development in many faculties and schools of science, there is still much exploration and discussion that is needed.

On Science

It may be said that modern science is fundamentally concerned with producing models of reality through scientific investigation. Otherwise stated, science is an endeavor through which people strive to understand the natural world and its resident phenomena. The products of scientific activity have, through history and the present (and at times imperfectly), helped humanity in terms of industry, health, and security to name a few. There is little doubt that scientific inquiry and initiative has benefited human well-being and will be an essential aspect of some of humanity’s pressing concerns such as climate change and communicable diseases.

For all the benefits that may be attributed to modern science and the scientific method, there is an observation that is occasionally levied against it: Its relative inability to survey some of the fundamental aspects of the human experience such as human values, moral concerns, and other important aspects of consciousness. For instance, though there have been numerous advancements in neuroscience that have helped develop an understanding of how the human brain works, the manner through which humans do such things as a sense of self, such as establish a moral compass and judge the aesthetic qualities of an environment are, ostensibly, areas for which modern science cannot make useful contributions. One of the reasons why, it is imagined, science is incapable of studying issues such as these is due to one of its central features – that of scientific reduction – the deliberate reduction of complex phenomena into its constituent elements to facilitate study of the phenomenon in question. One of the arguments that is sometimes put forth on this issue goes something like this: by breaking down complex phenomena into constituent elements for the purposes of study and improved understanding, the fundamental character of the phenomena in question is obscured or, at worst, rendered impossible to adequately study.

The process of scientific reduction was explored in Thomas Nagel’s essay What is it Like to be a Bat? In this essay, Nagel focused upon the mind-body problem and how consciousness is difficult and perhaps impossible for modern scientists to study and asserts that the methods that are taken for granted in the scientific community have “…led to the acceptance of implausible accounts of the mental largely because they would permit familiar kinds of reduction”. 1 One of the key observations made by Nagel in exploring the difficulty in scientifically investigating consciousness is the ubiquity of consciousness across species as well as the centrality that consciousness occupies in the human condition. Nagel’s exploration of how consciousness is resident in the human condition leads to his fundamental claim: “an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism – something it is like for the organism”.1

Nagel’s contributions on human consciousness are presented here because they reflect an important dimension of the views of Indigenous worldviews; that understanding ourselves, our world, and our relationship with it and each other requires consideration for the unique manifestations of Indigenous knowledge, heritage, and consciousness.

On Indigenous Knowledge and Science

The focus upon Indigenous perspectives in the sciences is important because of the difference in scope that is fundamental to its consideration – where one might employ a sort of methodological reductionism for the sake of study in familiar scientific contexts, those contexts for which Indigenous peoples and perspectives are resident calls for holistic approaches that are open to the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of ourselves and the world in which we are relation.

Frequently referred to as traditional ecological knowledge, Indigenous scientific traditions offer a departure from the anthropocentric approach that is reflected in so much of the Western scientific endeavor. This departure from assuming a hierarchy where humans are situated at the top in a world that is subject to our needs and desires is not due to a difference in scientific orientation per se, but is instead an outworking of the general view that we exist in a non-hierarchical relationship with the world.2 Here we find an emergent understanding in the academy in Canada – that the scientific endeavor might be better served by considering how unique manifestations of Indigenous knowledge, heritage, and consciousness might contribute to a better understanding of ourselves, our world, and our place in it.

In the last few decades, we’ve borne witness to exciting developments where many science educators and researchers are taking seriously the notion that Indigenous knowledge can be an asset to their work.  Scientists with backgrounds in the biological sciences are incorporating Indigenous knowledge into their work on flora and fauna. Many involved in the study of astronomy are incorporating the knowledge and stories of celestial bodies. Many in the field of chemistry are closely surveying the impacts of science and industry on freshwater for its undesirable impact on human and animal life and are relying upon Indigenous knowledge to inform this work.

What appears to have occurred in these fields and others is that, whilst acknowledging that the reconciliatory journey is important, scientists, science educators, and Indigenous community members have confronted how they may be inclusive of Indigenous knowledge into their teaching and research. These may not be easy conversations as they require a willingness to adjust one’s scientific orientations that may be held strongly. However, through the initiative of some in the Canadian scientific community – in partnership with Indigenous peoples and communities – we have begun to understand how science may consider Indigenous knowledge as one avenue toward reconciliation.

References

1. Nagel, T. (2012). Mortal Questions. Cambridge University Press.
2. Aikenhead, G. & Michell, H. (2011). Bridging cultures: Indigenous and scientific ways of knowing nature. Pearson Canada.