Listening to indigenous stories helps science — and how New Zealand is doing it right
Oral tradition provides more than myths and stories, pre-colonial indigenous history is helping scientists and government officials in New Zealand to have better disaster risk reduction strategies.
“There needs to be more effective engagement with indigenous epistemologies and a greater inclusion of children’s voices” — United Nations, 2013
History has made multicultural people appreciate their white-conqueror heritage and forget their indigenous roots.
Now, the world is changing, mestizos, immigrants and descendants of slaves want to honor their ancestors and learn about the culture.
Our cultural identities are important, but it is just as important to incorporate the practices of indigenous people into the community.
I had the luck of listening to Christine Kenney, professor from Massey University at New Zealand, who is encouraging the academic world to marry traditional stories with science.
Allow them to explain their own systems and practices, after all, they have being doing it for thousands of years.
“We have found that myths, such as the rival wizards of pre-colonial New Zealand, had been decontextualized from tribal stories.”
The knowledge and wisdom from local communities is getting lost due to the lack of acknowledgement from the government and population.
“The myth is a reaccount of a tsunami that impacted two iwi tribes. Meaning that indigenous people have disaster risk reduction practices that work but are underfunded.”
There are a few reasons why the tribal practices have been ignored, such as a lack of resources; cultural differences; language barriers; intergenerational losses in tribes; hierarchy of Non Governmental Organizations responses and lack of investments.
What can be done?
The academic and her colleagues suggest:
- Re-evaluation of past events and practices
- Start by implementing simple actions (like painting blue lines on the safe zones in bridges)
- Increase the United Nations recognition of indigenous science
- Include senior indigenous scientists in decision-making committees
- Use resources to straighten strategies
- Design and implement bi-cultural and bilingual activities in local schools (such as drawing, singing, making art)
- Involve teachers and children in the design of a toolbox for disaster risk reduction
Thanks to this work, the First New Zealand National Disaster Resilience Strategy was created, thus providing government recognition of indigenous approaches to disaster risk reduction.
Supporting tribal or indigenous communities has to be through government and non-governmental collaboration and allocation of resources.
