Welcome to the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) LibGuide!
Devil's Club. Digital Image. University of Northern British Columbia. Accessed 9 March 2022. https://www2.unbc.ca/continuing-studies/courses/traditional-ecological-knowledge-virtual-delivery.
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is a subset of Traditional Knowledge, or what Gregory Cajete terms, “Native Science”[1]. TEK is not only what is known about the environment, but how it is known. It is a way of knowing, or knowledge system, that comes from a culture developing a reciprocal relationship with the land on which a people have lived for thousands of years. TEK is holistic and adaptive, passed down from generation to generation through language, stories, and subsistence methods. An Indigenous people’s TEK is formed around language, place, culture, and identity, so it is impossible to classify it as just one thing for all Indigenous people.
Applied TEK is used worldwide in biological sustainability efforts and land conservation and management. In the past, Western scientists have questioned the validity of the qualitative methodology of TEK, despite the proven benefits of incorporating TEK into these fields. Tribal members still face challenges having an equal voice in land-management decisions at regional and federal levels. When TEK is used in policy decisions, Deborah Mcgregor notes, it is often “an extracted form of knowledge”, meaning applying the function of the knowledge divorced from the millennia of reasoning behind it [2] Scientists are now giving TEK-based land and resource management strategies more credence since the exponential increase in climate-change related natural disasters over the past decade.
Though the holistic nature of TEK means the subject has an expansive scope, this LibGuide can serve as a starting point for students learning about TEK and contemporary issues within the field.
[1] Cajete, Gregory. "Native Science and Sustaining Indigenous Communities," In Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Stability, edited by Melissa K. Nelson and Daniel Shilling, 15-26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
[2] McGregor, Deborah, Danika Littlechild, and Marilyn Capreol. “Traditional Ecological Knowledge,” YouTube, June 26, 2020, Video, 1:22:32, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhh73nU3opo.
Don't know where to start? Here are some questions to help focus your search efforts:
Where can I find information on the current uses of TEK in conservation efforts?
What studies have been done on the links between endangered languages, the loss of TEK, and biodiversity?
What are the discussions surrounding TEK and Intellectual Property (IP) laws?
What are some challenges in reconciling TEK with scientific ecological knowledge (SEK)?
