Yikes please do not propose this sort of thing.

- Indigenous biologist https://twitter.com/kiblerchris/status/1279300983302926336

It’s true I speak for no one else but hear me out: this is a (probably well intentioned) Very Bad Idea.

First of all, let’s just consider the goal, which presumably is to increase the space in STEM and STEM-adjacent spaces...for non euro-tradition epistemologies. Yes?

Holding space for marginalized epistemologies and knowledge is NOT a thing you can do by forcing those things to take the exact shape of euro-epistemologies/knowledge.

A field guide that *includes* these marginalized knowledges is an epistemologically violent thing.

Am I being too intense about this?

No, I am not.

The structures of knowledge presentation themselves have a cultural source. Which means that a field guide (even in its most Platonic form) is still a fundamentally colonial form of knowledge presentation.

You cannot have a field guide (which is organized in a particular way and which deems certain pieces of information relevant) which includes cultural and linguistic knowledge in a way that is not disrespectful.

I know the proposal meant well, but unfortunately that’s not enough.

Which brings me to the second point:

You do not have the right to that cultural and linguistic knowledge.

That stuff has been kept going in spite (and so much has been lost as a result) of ongoing genocide.

Scientists absolutely participate in this on a daily basis.

It is absolutely sickeningly entitled to expect that stealing more knowledge and putting it on fractured display in a field guide (similar to a museum) would be ... something you would ever be allowed to do.

That knowledge is the opposite of yours. The opposite.

Further, do you have any idea how many nations there are? And how the concept of consent would need to be a thing you’d have to reflect on for years before even knowing whether you could ethically ask for this knowledge?

(Yes, this feeds back on point 1)

Third: Historically, asking/expecting/requiring Native* people to participate in field guiding you...

let’s just say that’s an icky resonance that you really ought to be aware of. (while I‘m here, don’t call us “hostile”)

*You can do “Genus species”, you can do big N Native.

Fourth: this is cosmetic inclusion.

Yeah, yeah, I know, you can’t see language.

But it’s cosmetic. It’s a relatively easy way to add “inclusion” in a way that white people (and nonNative people) can notice.

That’s not equitable.

Fourth-and-a-half, you’ve all read what I think about the hubris of conservation and restoration ecologies? If not, maybe bother, because it’s stuff that doesn’t get said very often.

Fifth: (will make more sense if you do the 4.5 reading)

Bioprospecting, ethnobotany, all that stuff? Ongoing dispossession of global Indigenous knowledge for profit of others.

This is the same thing, except for feels.

Sixth: If you want to be inclusive of knowledge held by Indigenous people on their land...

Support Indigenous people.

Put your body between police protecting petro-industry...and the land.

Fund cultural and language revitalization.

Without expectation of thanks.

You want to include Indigenous knowledge then ultimately you’re gonna need to hand us the mic and listen to the words we say.

Don’t steal our words (and cultural practices) lift them out of all context, and put them in a field guide.

That is not helping.

Just a note: I in no way want to shame the OP for his good inteng.

We can have the best intentions and still mess up.

This is about the idea, not the person proposing it—he is listening and learning, and that’s all any of us can do.

*intent.

Here’s some of the 4.5 reading

https://twitter.com/cricketcrocker/status/1038396422624821248?s=21 https://twitter.com/cricketcrocker/status/1038396422624821248

Apparently I was doing little i indigenous when I wrote those threads. Just goes to show we can all do better.

Another of the 4.5 reading

https://twitter.com/cricketcrocker/status/1227799052559015937?s=21 https://twitter.com/cricketcrocker/status/1227799052559015937

PS

Hey senior colleagues I’m still looking for a TT position; you know your faculty and students would benefit from me being there facilitating conversations like this and doing cool research. ;)