Description
Indigenous Knowledges in Global Contexts - Multiple Readings of Our World is the recent publication edited by three professors from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. The editors have done a remarkable job in collecting 16 essays by Indigenous and Non-Indigenous scholars from Canada, United States, Africa, and India. The growing scholarly attention to Traditional Indigenous Knowledge or ethnoscience is reflected in these essays that discuss the implications of incorporating the cultural knowledge of Indigenous Peoples into the Euro-Western academic world. Of particular interest are the essays by Tyendinaga Mohawk scholar Marlene Brant Castellano, and Cree Metis academic Joseph Couture. Marlene Brant Castellano brings her expertise as a Native Studies professor and Research Director for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples to a review of Aboriginal Traditions of Knowledge. Joseph Couture examines how Native Studies has developed as a discipline within the university system. Other essays discuss Indigenous health and healing, literature, the environment, the role of Elders, the human genome diversity project, peace and development, and advocacy. The writers explore worldviews, cultural knowledge, traditions, values, and belief systems of Indigenous peoples. The essays position Indigenous Knowledge in relation to conventional Euro-Western knowledge, and identify various strategies, projects and theories that are currently being developed in support of Traditional Indigenous Knowledges. This text is recommended for university and college level courses in Education, Native Studies, Anthropology, Women's Studies, and Environmental Studies.