Coproducing Knowledge About Climate Change: Indigenous Perspectives can be Revealing

Abstract

The article investigates the role of Indigenous knowledge (IK) in the coproduction of knowledge about climate change, in interaction with Western science. IK, grounded on long-term and local-based observation, broadens the range and depth of the information on the climate crisis. It also provides alternative (nonexploitative) views of the human–nature relationship, which are embedded in their worldviews and value systems. Insight might be gained by Indigenous ways of knowing too, which do not separate knowledge generation from ethical engagement. The article also scrutinizes the multiple challenges posed by knowledge coproduction as a research strategy, outlining a number of conditions that, from a Western point of view, would be required to properly create the space of coproduction.