Proceedings of the NARST 2004 Annual Meeting (Vancouver, BC, Canada)

ORIGIN, STRUCTURE AND NATURE OF INDIGENOUS SCIENCE AND SEIGYO (SUBSISTENCE)

Much more attentions have been paid to indigenous and/or traditional knowledge of non-western cultural groups by science educators, especially who are deeply committing to educational enterprise for those groups. However, while many specific examples of indigenous knowledge have been reported, there are few studies examining the origin, structure and nature indigenous knowledge in general. Such trial is crucial to deliberate how indigenous knowledge should be treated in science education in a certain context. Ogawa (2002) argues that indigenous science should be conceived, not as one system of knowledge and cosmology, which is comparable to Western Modern Science, but as a body of stratified and amalgamated knowledge and cosmology with several different kinds of precedent cultures or civilizations. The present paper extends the discussion further by criticizing our tacit dependence upon ‘knowledge claim’ and also by introducing a Japanese folklore studies‘ concept ‘Seigyo (subsistence)’ into it, and reaches a revised stratified and amalgamated model of indigenous science. Also discussed is the need of involvement of Seigyo education as identity education into science education framework.

Masakata Ogawa, Kobe University, Kobe 657-8501, JAPAN

Introduction

Interests in indigenous knowledge seem to be prevailing among education studies (Semali and Kincheloe, 1999: Teasdale, and Zane Ma Rhea, 2000). Among them, ‘Culture studies in science education’ is a current topic of interest among science education researchers, though no shared ideas on the stances toward indigenous (traditional, local, or everyday) knowledge, modern science and relationship between them have been obtained among the science educators of culture studies group. Some professional journals have published special issues (JRST, 1999; Science Education, 2001), others have published review articles (Cobern and Aikenhead, 1998; Aikenhead, 1996; Jegede, 1995; Pomeroy, 1994), and several books are also published (Cobern, 1998; Reiss, 1993). One of the fundamental issues in this research field is how we should grasp ‘indigenous knowledge’ or ‘indigenous science.’ Definition and naming varies among researchers. For example, Snively and Corsiglia (2001) discuss the definition and naming issue in detail before arguing the involvement of traditional ecological knowledge into science classes. But still, we have not yet reached a consensus on its true colors of what have been calling ‘indigenous knowledge,’ ‘traditional ecological knowledge,’ or ‘indigenous science’ in the contexts of science education. The consensus will be one of the top priorities to promote research in culture studies in science education. The present paper aims at tackling with the issue by introducing a unique concept, Seigyo (subsistence), which has developed in Japanese folklore studies.

IndigenousKnowledge and Indigenous Science

Indigenous (traditional or local) knowledge or indigenous science is of concern among various sectors of scientific community.For example, one of the international organizations of science community, ICSU (International Council for Science) has special interest in traditional knowledge because they come to face a need to involve traditional (ecological) knowledge as one of the branches of science (ICSU, 2002). Protection and conservation of traditional knowledge is also concerned seriously under the development of intellectual property rights (World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, see in development studies is indispensable to face the issue of indigenous knowledge. There are many usages and terms signifying similar concepts: indigenous, traditional, ethno-, local, and everyday are the first group of terms; knowledge, knowledge system, and also science are the second group of terms, and finally combination of the terms from each of two groups appears. Researchers in development studieshave been also trying to define and distinguish some of them, but it seems that no consensus among them has yet been reached. For example, Haverkort (1994) defines ‘Local Indigenous Knowledge’ as the actual knowledge of a given population that reflects the experiences based on traditions and includes more recent experiences with modern technologies. Warren (1991) explains: ‘Indigenous knowledge systems’ are, in the broadest sense, systems of knowledge that are unique to a particular culture and are passed from generation to generation by members of that society and it is the basis for local-level decision making in agriculture, health care, food preparation, education, natural-resource management, and a host of other activities in rural communities.”Antweiler (1998) tries to summarize diversity of terms for local knowledge (and its branches) and their various connotations (compiled from the literature of the 1960s to 1997)(see Table 1).

Table 1 Here

While these works concentratemainly in ‘knowledge aspect’, some works try to grasp ‘indigenous science’ in much more broader meaning, for example, in the aspect of the way of understanding world. Among them, Ogawa (1995), proposing to see science education in a multiscience perspective, defines science very simply as ‘a rational perceiving of reality,’ and identifies three types of science; Western Modern Science, indigenous science, and personal science. While Western Modern Science is defined as ‘a collective rational perceiving of reality, which is shared and authorized by the scientific community,’ indigenous science is defined as ‘a culture-dependent collective rational perceiving of reality’ and personal science as ‘a rational perceiving of reality, which is unique to each individual.’

In his discussion, however, since little attention is paid to the ‘knowledge’ aspect,a concrete image of what indigenous science implies seems to be difficult to grasp. So in Ogawa’s (2002) paper, where he makes a challenge to uncover nature of Japanese indigenous science and tries to describe an example of concrete image of indigenous science, he proposes a theoretical model of indigenous science, where indigenous science should be conceived, not as a system consisting of one knowledge and cosmology, but as a body of stratified and amalgamated knowledge and cosmology with several different kinds of precedent cultures or civilizations of the community concerned.As the result, his ‘indigenous science’ consists of ‘knowledge’ and ‘cosmology.’

Thus, an interesting point appears: while researchers are very nervous to the differences in connotations of ‘indigenous,’ ‘traditional,’ ‘local’ or ‘everyday,’ they are naïve to that of ‘knowledge.’ There seems to be a certain shared idea on ‘knowledge.’ This may be a pitfall.

Need to Escape from ‘Knowledge Claim’?

We have not yet reached a consensus on definition of indigenous or traditional knowledge from the context of science education research which has eager to involve indigenous or traditional knowledge into science classes. Why does the difficulty emerge? One of the main reasons may be that science educators as well as scientists are accustomed to see phenomena, objects, activities or events in the indigenous or traditional settings through the eyeglasses of modern science or modern tradition of ways of thinking. They readily see the phenomena, objects or events as those cut and isolated from the contexts so as to ‘understand’ them through their familiar web of meaning. Thus, ‘indigenous or traditional’ knowledge on such phenomena, objects, activities or events is molded unconsciously assomething quite similar form to modern knowledge, that is, ‘adjusted’ to the form ‘comfortably understandable’ for the researchers concerned. In short, while we believe that we do deliberately identify knowledge in its own in indigenous or traditional settings, our tendency to ‘find out knowledge’ itself has already been fallen into a trap of modern (scientific) points of view. This is beyond the claim that knowledge is a construct, which is popular idea among constructivists.

Two types of pitfall are pointed out: one is that such knowledge is ‘presupposed’ and ‘constructed’ not by insiders’ (indigenous people’s) viewpoints but by outsiders’ (researchers’) viewpoints, and the other is that such construction of knowledge tacitly fills with the need for possible establishment of a comparative base with modern scientific knowledge. The first one excludes the possibility that indigenous people may have no ‘knowledge’ comparable to modern scientific knowledge or certain kind of ‘knowledge’incomparable to modern scientific knowledge. If this is the case, the ‘indigenous knowledge’ itself never reflects indigenous people’s reality and it has no value to be involved in science classes for their kids. The second one indicates that the outsiders (researchers) unconsciously urgeinsiders to see everything from outsiders’ own viewpoints. A tacit idea that once we can identify some kinds of ‘knowledge’ we can readily compare them with those of modern scientific knowledge may work in science educators’ minds. It is quite natural for those who want to contextualize teaching contents, though their eyes are, without any consciousness, still directed from modern science side to indigenous or traditional science side.

How can we escape from thepitfall? One possible resolution might be not to try to find out indigenous ‘knowledge’ though it is an ironical suggestion. We should not see the indigenous world through the viewpoint guided, dominated and mediated by ‘knowledge’ or ‘knowledge-like’ things. When we see phenomena, objects, activities or events in indigenous or traditional settings, we should try to forget the urge to find out (or cut off) some ‘knowledge-like’ thingsfrom them, rather, try to grasp them as a whole: There is no need to ‘analyze’ or ‘observe’ them for the purpose of obtaining ‘knowledge-like’ thingsMuch more straight-forwardly, science educators should wear eyeglasses of folklorist without any special training in science when try to grasp reality of indigenous or localsetting. Thus, what is grasped is far from what is called scientific worldview.

How does folklorist grasp reality of indigenous or local world? The question is quite significant when we think of education on ‘indigenous science’ in the context of culture studies in science education. Discussion so far indicates that since the idea, ‘indigenous knowledge,’ which is popularly referred to, is deeply influenced by the modern scientific viewpoints, it should be irrelevant to ‘authentic’ multiscience perspective (Ogawa, 1995). Rather, we need a new type of grasp as an alternative to indigenous ‘knowledge’ in terms of culture studies in science education.

On this point, it may be helpful to re-examine the Ogawa’s (1995: 588) original idea of ‘indigenous science,’ defined as ‘a culture-dependent collective rational perceiving of reality’ in which ‘rational’ comes not from universal rationality but from rationality in its own culture, and ‘perceiving’ means ‘ both ‘the action constructing reality and the construct of reality’ by the indigenous people concerned. Ogawa (1995:585-6) argues as follows:

Indigenous science is held by a specific cultural group, not by a specific individual. Indigenous science may be of a nature such that even individuals living in that culture may neither recognize its existence nor be aware of being governed by it tacitly. Also, indigenous science might be tacitly transferred from generation to generation through daily social and cultural events….. I claim that “metaphorically, indigenous science is superordinate to individual minds.” An individual cannot express indigenous science as a kind of specific theoretical system. Rather, indigenous science is, so to speak, only collectively lived in and collectively experienced by the people of that culture. (emphasis added)

The most interesting points here are:we can find no words relevant to ‘knowledge’ which should be extracted from reality, and also there are no viewpoints of ‘outsiders’ from which indigenous people are analyzed or observed. Indigenous science is described as what insiders live in and experience. This may be a good chance for us to overcome the pitfall of ‘knowledge claim.’ That is, to grasp ‘indigenous science’ as it is. For this purpose, the author introduces one of the important outcomes of Japanese folklore studies. It is the concept, Seigyo (which is usually translated as subsistence in English). His intention is that if we adopt the concept as an alternative grasp of indigenous reality, a new image of ‘indigenous science’ can emerge.

Seigyo: an Alternative Grasp of Indigenous Reality

When discussing indigenous people’s ways of life, it is popular to refer to their subsistence. But It isdifficult to reach a consensus on the definition of ‘subsistence’ among different disciplines (anthropology, politics, economics, and education etc.). For example, subsistence, can be defined as ‘the minimum food and shelter necessary to support life’ while ‘subsistence activities’ are defined as ‘harvesting or growing products directly for personal or family livelihood’ (CCFM, 1997). In Japanese tradition of folklore studies, however, Seigyo, a similar concept to subsistence or subsistence activities and sometimes translated into English as just ‘subsistence’, is a popular academic term when describing traditional ways of living. Seigyo is defined in a dictionary of Japanese folklore studies as ‘works performed for making and maintaining a living,’ and explained that it is a broader concept than what occupation signifies to, and involves works indispensable for the people to sustain their ways of life even if those are not directly linked to their incomes (Nihon Minzoku Daijiten, 1999: emphasis added).

An important point of the concept, Seigyo is that there is no idea of distinct separation between natural things (Shizen or nature) and cultural things (Bunka or culture). Let me show a simple example: A man is just catching salmon in a small river for his family. His ‘catching salmon’ can be called as Seigyo despite of his occupation (farmer, merchant, or craftsman). And the ‘catching salmon’ is not necessarily linked to the income, indeed. In order to catch salmon successfully, he has to have an integratedset of refined skills (not only physical skills but also intellectual and/or mental skills which enable him, for example, to predict correct position of the salmon through ‘reading tiny waves of the river surface reflecting the riverbed).

Caution must be taken that what is directly important and needed is‘skill,’and not‘knowledge.’Even if somebody obtains something which might be named as‘knowledge to catch salmon,’ it never makes sure for him/her to catch salmon. The set of skills had been acquired or learned from older generation, not through textbooks but through just emerging and involving deeply in the activity to catch salmon with those who had the very set of skills within themselves.Important point is that the activity, ‘catching salmon’ is never grasped as a total integratedbody of various components: (1) man catching salmon, (2) a series of action the man is performing, (3) the salmon caught, (4) the river salmon is swimming, (5) the tools and skills he utilized etc. Each of such things cannot be separable from the ‘work’ named ‘catching salmon.’What is there is just ‘catching salmon,’ and that’s it.It may be said that the activity, ‘catching salmon’ reflects specific worldview or cosmology. Indigenous people live in a multiple world of activities consisting of various kinds of Seigyo.

Nature of Seigyo: Minor Subsistence Theory

A Japanese ecological anthropologist and folklorist, Matsui (1998) explains that ecological anthropology has uncovered reality of Seigyo of peoples living in hunting-gathering ways of life with primitive technical levels in severe natural environments: One of the major ‘unexpected’ findings is that they never live in Seigyo but live very well off and they can be rather regarded as ‘affluent forager’ in terms of the amount of energy intake, working time, and annual utilization of resources. Such hunting-gathering ways of life are revealed to be maintained mainly not by men’s hunting, but by women’s utilization of plants and small animals (mainly gathering activities). Thus, the image of hunting-gathering ways of life has been changed drastically through such empirical studies, and agricultural or nomadic ways of life have been under re-examination. Despite of such success of ecological anthropology, there still remain some open questions: Among them are: Why do they still maintain their self-image as ‘hunter’ while their main Seigyo is virtually gatherer-oriented activities? Why different kinds of Seigyo (hunting-gathering, agricultural, and nomadic activities) are sometimes simultaneously found in a given community? (In fact, there are farmers hunting small animals with trap or catching fish in the river near by, and nomadic people in dessert areas hunting wild animals or collecting grasshoppers or certain mushrooms.)

Overviewing extensive research findings in ecological anthropology, Matsui (1998) proposes a new research program, which has still been in its beginning stage: to analyze meanings and significance of the activities which he names ‘Minor Subsistence.’ At first, he distinguishes two types of Seigyo, ‘Major Subsistence’ and ‘Minor Subsistence.’ And then, the first one, ‘Major Subsistence’ is divided into two categories, ‘Main Subsistence’ and ‘Subordinate Subsistence.’

He makes distinction between ‘major subsistence’ and ‘minor subsistence’ from the viewpoint of the extent to which a certain Seigyo will contribute to the maintenance of their living. The same is the case when he tries to distinguish main subsistence and subordinate subsistence. Roughly speaking, most parts of their living are covered by the Seigyo called ‘main’ or ‘subordinate’ subsistence while ‘minor’ subsistence covers little parts of their living. One symbolicexample from Japanese case will be helpful to understand the distinction: About 300 years ago, a farmer, who was living in rural area with cultivating rice, in the off season went into a coppice or forest near by in order to hunt small animals, collecting wild grasses and mushrooms, or caught fishes in a small river near by. And once or twice a year, he is crazy about collecting wasp-hives with his neighborhood, which requires a set of secret skills transferred from generation to generation. In this example, rice cultivation can be major subsistence and probably main subsistence also. Hunting and gathering can serve as major and subordinate subsistence, and collecting wasp-hives should be minor subsistence. Caution must be taken that the idea of this kind of classification can be applied to Seigyo in contemporary Japan, though main or subordinate subsistence is composed of quite different Seigyo. Manypeoplein contemporary Japan get major incomes from business works, and in the weekends they may serve as ‘farmer’ to cultivate rice. In this sense, rice cultivation in contemporary Japan seems to be subordinate subsistence. And main or subordinate subsistence activities like fishing or hunting and gathering in the prior eras are now found in its trace as a kind of game or hobby (though the spirit or essence of the nature of Seigyo is still vividly alive), which means it become minor subsistence. Thus, each Seigyois possible to change its status from main subsistence, subordinate subsistence to minor subsistence.