Sensory Ecology, Bioeconomy, and the Age of COVID: A Parallax View of Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge

Abstract

Drawing on original ethnobotanical and anthropological research among Indigenous peoples across the Amazon, we examine synergies and dissonances between Indigenous and Western scientific knowledge about the environment, resource use, and sustainability. By focusing on the sensory dimension of Indigenous engagements with the environment—an approach we have described as “sensory ecology” and explored through the method of “phytoethnography”—we promote a symmetrical dialogue between Indigenous and scientific understandings around such phenomena as animal–plant mutualisms, phytochemical toxicity, sustainable forest management in “multinatural” landscapes, and the emergence of new diseases like the novel coronavirus SARS‐CoV‐2 (COVID‐19). Drawing examples from our own and other published works, we explore the possibilities and limitations of a “parallax view” attempting to hold Indigenous and scientific knowledge in focus simultaneously. As the concept of “bioeconomy” emerges as a key alternative for sustainable development of the Amazon, we encourage a critical and urgent engagement between dominant Western conceptions and Indigenous Amazonian knowledge, practices, and cultural values. Cognitive science, which has long contributed to studies of Indigenous categorization and conceptualization of the natural world, continues to play an important role in building bridges of mutual communication and respect between Indigenous and scientific approaches to sustainability and biodiversity conservation.

Sustainability and Semantic Diversity: A View from the Malayan Rainforest

“…In disciplines such as anthropology, philosophy, and history of science, it has long been recognized that overarching abstract concepts and notions expressing the environment—especially the Western notion of nature and its dichotomous relationship with culture —are problematic to apply across different cultural and temporal contexts (Descola, 2014; Lenoble, 1969). More recent research addresses this issue in relation to sustainability and conservation (Ducarme & Couvet 2020; see also Shepard & Daly, 2023, in this issue), and recent comparative studies of nature ‐related semantics across different languages confirm the translational challenges (see especially Droz et al., 2022). This in itself should in fact come as no surprise: semantically highly complex and abstract categories—and nature arguably qualifies as one—are often considered to be the least likely to find universal lexical expression (Gentner & Boroditsky 2001; Wierzbicka, 1992).…”

Conceptual Foundations of Sustainability

“…Many of the papers in this issue explore these and related notions, examining their origins and nature, their prevalence as well as their culture‐dependence, their implications for attitudes and behaviors, their developmental trajectory, and how they are reflected in and reinforced by language. They also argue that accurate conceptualization of this relationship is central to achieving greater sustainability (Grotzer & Solis, 2023; Kashima, Sewell, & Li, 2023; Kim, Betz, Helmuth, & Coley, 2023; Nagatsu, Kaaronen, Salmela, & MacLeod, 2023; Pizza & Kelemen, 2023; Shepard & Daly, 2023).…”

“…The authors of papers in this issue acknowledge the cultural specificity of the conceptualizations discussed, and many discuss evidence for substantially different conceptualizations of human's relationship to (the rest of) nature across cultures, especially in the context of Indigenous peoples (see also, e.g., Bang & Marin, 2015; Kimmerer, 2013; Washinawatok et al., 2017). Shepard and Daly (2023) provide an extensive comparison of Amazonian Indigenous conceptualization and Western science. We return to the consideration of cultural differences in Section 5.…”

“…Purves, Striedl, Kong, and Majid (2023) assess sensory, motor, and affective associations with waterbody terms for speakers of English and German, and Burenhult (2023) analyzes the conceptual content associated with terms for treed landscapes in Jahai, a language spoken by subsistence foragers in the mountain rainforests of the Malay Peninsula. Somewhat more broadly, Shepard and Daly (2023) provide information about conceptualizations of the environment, resource use, and sustainability among Indigenous people of the Amazon basin to contrast these conceptualizations with those of Western science.…”

“…Burenhult (2023), Shepard and Daly (2023), and Purves et al. (2023) all point to the importance of communicating across speakers of different languages and cultures to achieve sustainability.…”