Australia and the Pacific
David Turnbull and Philip Rehbock
Introduction
Any examination of non-Western knowledge has to start with a re-examination of Western science and technology and their relationship. All too often in the past it has been assumed that the canonical exemplification of rationality, objectivity, universality and truth is Western science and that technology is the proof of the pudding – it works. The effect of such assumptions is to relegate non-Western knowledge to the merely traditional, local, or pratical category whose only real interest or value is to be collected and added to the Western archive as either exotic or exploitable.
Recent approaches in the sociology of scientific knowledge, anthropology and history of science, feminism, and post-colonialism have provided a new understanding of Western science and technology. Science and technology are not simply pure and applied knowledge they are intimately linked and were created at a particular juncture and at particular sites, that is to say they are local and moreover their supposedly acultural character was coproduced with them. Recognizing the local nature of Western technoscience provides for the possibility of an equitable comparison of knowledge traditions. Ultimately the point of comparing knowledge traditions is to enable indigenous students to discover and appreciate their own knowledge traditions, for non-indigenous students to interrogate Western traditions and for all students to find ways of enabling disparate knowledge traditions to work together to ensure the viability of cultural diversity.
Essential Library Resource:
Selin, H. (ed.), Encyclopedia of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, 2nd edition (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2007).
Journals:
Indigenous Knowledge Monitor
Cultural Survival Quarterly
Elecronic/Internet Resources:
Indkno
Day 1: Introduction: Comparing Knowledge Traditions
Student Reading
Cunningham, A. and P. Williams, "De-centring the 'Big Picture': The Origins of Modern Science and the Modern Origins of Science," Brit. J. Hist. Sci., 26 (1993): 407-32.
Watson-Verran, H. and D. Turnbull, "Science and Other Indigenous Knowledge Systems," in Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, S. Jasanoff, G. Markle, T. Pinch and J. Petersen (eds.) (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1995), pp. 115-139.
Turnbull, David. Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers: Comparative Studies in the Sociology of Scientific and Indigenous Knowledge, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 2003), Chapter 1, “On With the Motley.”
Extended Reading
- Anon. Science and Indigenous Knowledge, SciDevNet Science and Development Network, August 2002. On-line address: http://www.scidev.net/dossiers/index.cfm?fuseaction=dossierfulltext&Dossier=7.
- Agrawal, A., "Dismantling the Divide Between Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge," Development and Change, 26(3) (1995): 413-439.
- Chambers, Wade and Richard Gillespie, "Locality in the History of Science: Colonial Science, Technoscience, and Indigenous Knowledge." Osiris 15 (2000): 221-40.
- Harding, S., "Is Modern Science a European Knowledge System? Rethinking Epistemological Verities," in Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, T. Shinn (ed.), (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1996).
- Hobart, M. (ed.), An Anthropological Critique of Development (London: Routledge, 1993).
- ICSU. "Science, Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Development." The International Council for Science and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2002. On-line address: http://www.icsu.org/Gestion/img/ICSU_DOC_DOWNLOAD/65_DD_FILE_Vol4.pdf
- Latour, B., "Visualisation and Cognition: Thinking With Eyes and Hands," Knowledge and Society, 6 (1986): 1-40.
- Smith, Linda Tuhiwai, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (London: Zed Books, 1999).
Day 2: Indigenous Mapping
One of the most insightful ways to compare knowledge traditions is to examine their modes of mapping. This is especially so for Australian Aboriginal, Maori, and Pacific Island traditions.
Student Reading
Turnbull, D., Maps Are Territories; Science is an Atlas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
Extended Reading
- Barton, Phillip, "Maori Cartography and the European Encounter." In The History of Cartography, Vol 2, Book 3: Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies, David Woodward and G. Malcom Lewis, (eds.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 493-536.
- Chapin, Mac, Zachary Lamb, and Bill Threlkeld, "Mapping Indigenous Lands," Annual Review of Anthropology, 34 (2005): 619-38.
- Kelly, Jan. "Maori Maps," Cartographica, 36 (2) (1999): 1-30.
- Sutton, Peter, "Aboriginal Maps and Plans," in The History of Cartography, Vol. 2. Book 3. Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian and Pacific Societies, David Woodward and G. Malcom Lewis, (eds.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 387-413.
- Wood, D., The Power of Maps (New York: The Guilford Press, 1992).
- Wood, D., "Maps and Mapmaking," Cartographica, 30 (1993): 1-9.
Day 3: Pacific Island Navigation
Pacific Island navigation is perhaps the single best example of an organised knowledge system that does not have Western characteristics: there is no writing, no calculation, no compasses. But the Pacific was nonetheless colonized.
Student Reading
Turnbull, D., Mapping The World in the Mind: An Investigation of the Unwritten Knowledge of the Micronesian Navigators (Geelong: Deakin University Press, 1991).
Extended Reading
- Bednarik, Robert, "Seafaring in the Pleistocene." Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 13 (1) (2003): 41-66.
- Finney, Ben, "Nautical Cartography and Traditional Navigation in Oceania," in The History of Cartography, Vol 2, Book 3: Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies, David Woodward and G. Malcom Lewis, (eds.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 443-92.
- Finney, Ben, Sailing in the Wake of the Ancestors: Reviving Polynesian Voyaging (Bishop Museum, 2004).
- Howe, K. R., The Quest for Origins: Who First Discovered and Settled New Zealand and the Pacific Islands? (Auckland, NZ: Penguin, 2003).
- Hutchins, E., Cognition in the Wild (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996).
- Irwin, G., The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonisation of the Pacific (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
- Kirch, Patrick Vinton, On the Road of the Winds: An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
- Lewis, D., We, the Navigators: The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific, 2nd edition. (Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1994).
- Salmond, Anne, "Their Body Is Different, Our Body Is Different: European and Tahitian Navigators in The18th Century." History and Anthropology, 16 (2) (2005): 167-86.
- Turnbull, David. Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers: Comparative Studies in the Sociology of Scientific and Indigenous Knowledge, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 2003), Chapter 4, “Pacific navigation: An Alternative Scientific Tradition.”
Day 4: Australian Aboriginal Ecological Knowledge
Student Reading
- Christie, M. J., Aboriginal Science for the Ecologically Sustainable Future, National CONSTA Conference of Teachers of Science and Technology, Alice Springs, 1990.
- Helen Watson with the Yolgnu community at Yirrkala and David Wade Chambers, Singing The Land, Signing The Land (Geelong: Deakin University Press, 1989).
Extended Reading
- Baker, Richard. Land Is Life: From Bush to Town. The Story of the Yanyuwa People (St Leonards NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1999).
- ———, "Traditional Aboriginal Land Use in the Borroloola Region," in Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Wisdom for Sustainable Development, Nancy Williams and Graham Baines, (eds.) (Canberra: Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, ANU, 1993), pp. 126-43.
- Hoogenraad, Robert and George Jampijinpa Robertson, "Seasonal Calendars from Central Australia," in Windows on Meteorology: Australian Perspectives, edited by Eric Webb (Collingwood, Victoria: CSIRO, 1997), pp. 34-41.
- Johnson, Dianne, Night Skies of Aboriginal Australia: A Noctuary, Vol. 47, Oceania Monographs (Sydney: University of Sydney, 1998).
- Jones, Rhys and Betty Meehan, "Balmarrk Wana: Big Winds of Arnhemland," in Windows on Meteorology: Australian Perspectives, Eric Webb, (ed.) (Melbourne: CSIRO, 1997), pp. 15-19.
- Kimber, Dick, "Cry of the Plover, Song of the Desert Rain," in Windows on Meteorology: Australian Perspectives, Eric Webb, (ed.) (Melbourne: CSIRO, 1997), pp. 7-13.
- Watson-Verran, H., "Working Where Knowledge Systems Overlap," Knowledge and Policy, 14 (1993).
- Williams, N. and G. Baines (eds.), Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Wisdom for Sustainable Development (Canberra: Center for Resource and Environmental Studies, 1993).
Day 5: Maori Knowledge
Readings:
- Roberts, Mere, Brad Haami, Richard Benton, Terre Satterfield, Melissa Finucane, Mark Henare, and Manuka Henare, "Whakapapa as a Maori Mental Construct: Some Implications for the Debate over Genetic Modification of Organisms.," The Contemporary Pacific, 16 (1) (2004): 1-28.
- Roberts, Mere and Peter Willis, "Understanding Maori Epistemology: A Scientific Perspective," in Tribal Epistemologies: Essays in the Philosophy of Anthropology, Helmut Wautischer, (ed.) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 43-78.
- Salmond, A., "Maori Epistemologies," in Reason and Morality, J. Overing (ed.) (London: Tavistock Pbls., 1985), pp. 240-63.
- Salmond, A., Two Worlds: First Meetings Between Maori and Europeans 1642-1772 (Auckland: Penguin Books, 1991).
Day 6: Pacific Natural History
Student Reading
- Gegeo, David and Karen Watson-Gegeo, ""How We Know": Kwara`Ae Rural Villagers Doing Indigenous Epistemology (the Kwara'ae Genealogy Project, Solomon Islands)," The Contemporary Pacific, 13 (1) (2001): 55-88.
- Klee, Gary, "Traditional Knowledge of Oceania," in Gary A. Klee (ed.), World Systems of Traditional Resource Management, 1980.
- Davis, Allen, "The Native Knowledge of Chuuk Lagoon," in Oceanographic History: The Pacific and Beyond, F. Rehbock and K. Benson (eds.), 1998.
Extended Reading
- Abbott, Beatrice H., Laau Hawaii: Traditional Hawaiian Uses of Plants, 1992.
- Cox, Paula and Sandra A. Banack, Islands, Plants and Polynesians: An Introduction to Polynesian Ethnobotany (Discordes Press, 1991).
- Feinberg, Richard, Ute J. Dymon, Pu Paiaki, Pu Rangituteki, Pu Nukuriaki, and Matthew Rollins, "‘Drawing the Coral Heads’: Mental Mapping and Its Physical Representation in a Polynesian Community," The Cartographic Journal, 40 (3) (2003): 243-54.
- Johannes, R. E., Words of the Lagoon: Fishing and Marine Lore in the Palau District of Micronesia, 1981.
- Krauss, Beatrice H., Plants in Hawaiian Culture, 1993.
- Lefale, Penehuro, "Indigenous Knowledge in the Pacific," Tiempo, 49 (2003).
- http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/tiempo/floor0/recent/issue49/t49a1.htm
- Merlin, Mark, et al, Keinikkan im melan aelon kein = Plants and Environments of the Marshall Islands, 1994.
- Morrison, J., P., Geraghty, & L. Crowl (eds.), Science of Pacific Island Peoples, Vols. 1-5 (Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, 1994).
− Vol. 1: Ocean and Coastal Studies
− Vol. 2: Land Use and Agriculture
− Vol. 3: Fauna, Flora, Food and Medicine
− Vol. 4: Education, Language, Patterns and Policy - Verran, Helen, "A Postcolonial Moment in Science Studies: Alternative Firing Regimes of Environmental Scientists and Aboriginal Landowners." Social Studies of Science, 32 (5/6) (2002): 729-62.
Extension Day: Encounters and Interactions
Readings
- Conner, Clifford, A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives and "Low Mechanics" (New York: Nation Books, 2005), Chapter 2.
- Kelly, Jan, "Tuki's Map of New Zealand," The New Zealand Map Society Journal, 9 (1995): 11-18.
- Lewthwaite, G., "Tupaia's Map: The Horizons of a Polynesian Geographer," Association of Pacific Coast Geographers Yearbook, 28 (1966):41-53.
- Lewthwaite, G., "The Puzzle of Tupaia's Map," New Zealand Geographer, 26 (1970):1-19.
- Milligan, R. R. D., The Map Drawn by the Chief Tuki-Tahua in 1793, Mangonui, 1964.
- Salmond, Anne, "Kidnapped: Tuki and Huri's Involuntary Visit to Norfolk Island in 1793," in From Maps to Metaphors: The Pacific World of George Vancouver, Robin Fisher and Hugh Johnston, (eds.) (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1993), pp. 191-226.
- Frost, Alan, The Global Reach of Empire: Britain's Maritime Expansion in the Indian and Pacific Oceans (Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2003).
- Frost, Alan, "The Antipodean Exchange: European Horticulture and Imperial Designs," in Visions of Empire: Voyages, Botany and Representations of Nature, David Miller and Peter Reill, (eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 58-79.
- McBryde, I., "...To Establish a Commerce of This Sort'- Cultural Exchange at the Port Jackson Settlement, in Studies from Terra Australis to Australia, J. Hardy and A. Frost, (eds.) (Canberra: Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1989), pp. 169-82.
- Smith, K.V., Bennelong: The Coming in of the Eora. Sydney Cove 1788-1792 (Sydney: Kangaroo Press, 2001).
- Smith, K.V., King Bungaree: A Sydney Aborigine meets the great South Pacific Explorers, 1799-1830 (Kenthurst NSW: Kangaroo Press, 1992).
- Turnbull, David. "Mapping Encounters and (En)Countering Maps: A Critical Examination of Cartographic Resistance," in Research in Science and Technology Studies: Knowledge Systems. Knowledge and Society, Shirley Gorenstein, (ed.) (Stanford, Connecticut: JAI Press, 1998), pp. 15-44.
- Turnbull, David, "Cook and Tupaia, a Tale of Cartographic Méconnaissance?" in Science and Exploration in the Pacific: European Voyages to the Southern Oceans in the Eighteenth Century, Margarette Lincoln, (ed.) (London: Boydell Press in assoc. with National Maritime Museum, 1998), pp. 117-32.
- Turnbull, D., “Cultural Encounters, Go-betweens, and the Tense Topography of the Intercultural Zone,” in William Buckley: Rediscovered (Geelong: Geelong Gallery, 2001), pp. 18-25.
- Williams, Glyndwr, "Tupaia: Polynesian Warrior, Navigator, High Priest– and Artist," in The Global Eighteenth Century, Felicity Nussbaum, (ed.) (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2003), pp. 38-52.
Possible Topics for Student Research
1. Critically evaluate the recent study by the Rural Advancement Foundation International, Conserving Indigenous Knowledge: Integrating Two Systems of Innovation, commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme.
2. Critically evaluate the role of indigenous knowledge in development.
3. What is the role of indigenous knowledge in intellectual property rights and biodiversity?
4. What was the role of indigenous knowledge in the exploration of Australia?
5. How can reframing Pacific Island navigation benefit contemporary Pacific Islanders?
6. Examine ways in which indigenous mapping and Western mapping techniques like GIS can help indigenous groups in land claims and establishing autonomy.
7. How was indigenous knowledge conceived in the encounters between the peoples of Australia and the Pacific and western explorers?
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About the Authors