Locals know best: How science can benefit by incorporating indigenous knowledge

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Michael Charles in blue suit at 2017 UN Climate Negotiations
Michael Charles speaks at the UN Climate Negotiations in Bonn Germany, 2017. 

When Michael Charles was a senior undergraduate, an assignment for a one-credit module in a sustainable engineering elective turned into a pivotal moment in his academic career. 

Students were given a case study: design an energy system for a community learning center in rural India that was preparing meals for nearly 400 students a day using open-fire cooking methods in enclosed spaces, leading to health concerns such as lung disease.

Charles and two classmates submitted a proposal for a biodigester system. The proposal, which utilized the manure and urine from the on-site dairy farm to produce bio syngas as cooking fuel, quickly turned from a graded assignment into a funded international research experience to construct the design.

The beauty of this experience was not in the fact that things went according to plan. Quite the contrary. The value was in learning how even a well-researched proposal with solid design equations derived from the chemical engineering literature paled in comparison to the results yielded by the on-site collaboration with the local population, ultimately leading to a successful implementation. 

“We thought our preparation research was thorough, but found out that it only utilized one perspective and one system of knowledge,” Charles recalled. “After one day on site, the local community was able to identify many potential points of failure because we lacked the local knowledge of the monsoon intensity, the size of the rats in the area, and the availability of materials and construction equipment in the region.”

Charles, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, had always been told that to succeed, he had to navigate between two worlds— one based in his traditional culture and one based in post-colonial society. 

“Working with local experts in India was eye-opening because it was the first time I observed that these two worlds do not have to be separate,” he said. This led Charles to an immediate interest in understanding the balance and harmony of his indigenous cultural knowledge and the science of the academy.

As a doctoral student in Dr. Bhavik Bakshi’s lab, exploring this balance led to his research on the inclusion of ecological models and the services of nature within computational sustainable design. 

Traditional science and the wisdom of tribal peoples can be complementary systems of knowledge, not competing. Scientists can learn from indigenous people who live in extreme climates to understand how they manage and provide food in typically-ignored regions like deserts or tundra without producing the emissions associated with the life cycle of industrial agriculture.  -Doctoral student and Navaho tribe member Michael Charles

Charles asserts that in Diné (Navajo) culture, the concept of hózhó–a way of life that has been related to the English words of balance, beauty, and harmony–must be included in solutions addressing today’s environmental predicaments, like climate change. Hózhó encourages academics and scientists to involve a balance of voices that includes indigenous sources of knowledge.

Within the research of Bakshi’s Sustainable Engineering Research Group, the hózhó concept can parallel the framework that has been published as Techno-Ecological Synergy (TES), which aims to design systems in which technology operates within the capacity of nature. 

Michael Charles received an American Indian Youth Foundation Dreamstarter Grant to encourage more high school students on his reservation to participate in higher education.

Charles has continued advocating for ways to incorporate indigenous knowledge, and on a very visible platform. In December 2019, he co-led the first United States Indigenous Youth Delegation to the United Nations Climate Negotiations. He first attended these negotiations in 2017 and quickly became involved in the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change, a group that aims to represent the different perspectives and impacts of climate change on Indigenous Peoples across the world, keep governments accountable to their rights, and advocate for the need to listen to the traditional ecological knowledge of indigenous peoples as the UN Parties aim to address climate change. The discussion has focused on determining how both indigenous knowledge systems and academic science can be used in parallel towards climate solutions. 

Example: California officials are now looking to what indigenous people have known all along – how bringing back “good fire,” a tribal practice of using localized controlled burns to clear out underbrush, can prevent more widespread, out-of-control wildfires. 

Further, tapping indigenous knowledge can help protect communities and increase resilience against climate impacts, such as understanding how Pacific Islanders are able to predict storms by having observed conditions for thousands of years. 

“These and other examples offer real value to society, but indigenous communities across the globe also understand that sharing their knowledge is a risk for exploitation and abuse,” Charles said. “However, if the rights of indigenous peoples and their knowledge are protected, many opportunities can open for implementing solutions to climate change that are rooted in the harmony between indigenous knowledge and western science.”

His efforts continue to bring results. At the October 2020 American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) National Conference—which attracts over 2,000 members and American and Canadian attendees from as far away as Alaska and Hawaii—he won second place in the graduate poster research competition.

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To learn more: 

Hozho: Kahn-John, Michelle, and Mary Koithan. “Living in health, harmony, and beauty: The Diné (Navajo) Hózhó wellness philosophy.” Global Advances in Health and Medicine, 4.3 (2015): 24-30.

Techno-Ecological Synergy: Bakshi, Bhavik R., Guy Ziv, and Michael D. Lepech. “Techno-ecological synergy: A framework for sustainable engineering.” Environmental Science & Technology, 49.3 (2015): 1752-1760.