Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T14:39:33.426Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

15 - Indigenous Storytelling and Climate Change Adaptation

from Part III - Global Change and Indigenous Responses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2022

By
Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares  and
Mar Cabeza
Edited by
Marie Roué ,
Douglas Nakashima  and
Igor Krupnik
Marie Roué
Affiliation:
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris
Douglas Nakashima
Affiliation:
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), France
Igor Krupnik
Affiliation:
Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
Get access

Summary

Storytelling among indigenous peoples is central to the intergenerational transmission of indigenous and local knowledge (ILK), allowing for human adaptation to new social-ecological contexts. However, little attention has been paid to the potential applications of storytelling in guiding climate change adaptation efforts. In this chapter, we present a number of case studies from all over the world in which indigenous stories and traditional oral narratives have been applied to inform culturally sensitive climate change adaptation strategies. We contend that greater consideration of indigenous ontologies, as transmitted through storytelling, can contribute towards making climate change communication and adaptation more acceptable to local communities, facilitating intercultural discussions and bridging worldviews. Our chapter shows that attention to and promotion of indigenous storytelling can lead to enhanced understanding of diverse values and perceptions around climate change, hence allowing climate change adaptation strategies to become tailored to the local contexts where they are implemented.

Keywords

biocultural heritageIndigenous Knowledgeintergenerational transmissionoral historysense of placesocial-ecological resiliencestorytelling
Type
Chapter
Information
Resilience through Knowledge Co-Production
Indigenous Knowledge, Science, and Global Environmental Change
 , pp. 247 - 260
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aikenhead, G. 2001. Integrating Western and aboriginal sciences: Cross-cultural science teaching. Research in Science Education, 31(3): 337–355. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013151709605Google Scholar
Athayde, S., Troncarelli, M. C., Silva, G. M., Würker, E., Ballester, W. C. and Schmidt, M. V. C. 2002. Educação ambiental e conservação da biodiversidade: A experiência dos povos do Parque Indígena Do Xingu. In Bensusan, N. (ed.) Seria Melhor Mandar Ladrilhar? Biodiversidade: Como, Para Que, Por Que. Brasilia (Brazil): Editora da Universidade de Brasilia, pp. 175–188.Google Scholar
Bali, A. and Kofinas, G. P. 2014. Voices of the Caribou people: A participatory videography method to document and share local knowledge from the North American human- Rangifer systems. Ecology and Society, 19(2): 16. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-06327-190216Google Scholar
Barber, E. W. and Barber, P. T. 2004. When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth. 1st edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Blaser, M. 2014. Ontology and indigeneity: On the political ontology of heterogeneous assemblages. Cultural Geographies, 21: 49–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474012462534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cronin, S. J. and Cashman, K. V. 2008. Volcanic oral traditions in hazard assessment and mitigation. In Gratton, J. and Torrence, R. (eds.) Living under the Shadow: Cultural Impacts of Volcanic Eruptions. Oakland, CA: Left Coast Press, pp. 175–202.Google Scholar
Davidson-Hunt, I. and Berkes, F. 2003. Learning as you journey: Anishinaabe perception of social-ecological environments and adaptive learning. Conservation Ecology, 8(1): 5. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-00587-080105Google Scholar
Deur, D. 2002. A most sacred place: The significance of Crater Lake among the Indians of Southern Oregon. Oregon Historical Quarterly, 103(1): 18–49.Google Scholar
Díaz, S., Demissew, S., Carabias, J., Joly, C., Lonsdale, M., Ash, N., Larigauderie, A., Adhikari, J. R., Arico, S., Báldi, A., Bartuska, A., Baste, I. A., Bilgin, A., Brondizio, E., Chan, K. M. A., Figueroa, V. E., Duraiappah, A., Fischer, M., Hill, R., Koetz, T., Leadley, P., Lyver, P., Mace, G. M., Martin-Lopez, B., Okumura, M., Pacheco, D., Pascual, U., Pérez, E. S., Reyers, B., Roth, E., Saito, O., Scholes, R. J., Sharma, N., Tallis, H., Thaman, R., Watson, R., Yahara, T., Hamid, Z. A., Akosim, C., Al-Hafedh, Y., Allahverdiyev, R., Amankwah, E., Asah, T. S., Asfaw, Z., Bartus, G., Brooks, A. L., Caillaux, J., Dalle, G., Darnaedi, D., Driver, A., Erpul, G., Escobar-Eyzaguirre, P., Failler, P., Fouda, A. M. M., Fu, B., Gundimeda, H., Hashimoto, S., Homer, F., Lavorel, S., Lichtenstein, G., Mala, W. A., Mandivenyi, W., Matczak, P., Mbizvo, C., Mehrdadi, M., Metzger, J.P., Mikissa, J. B., Moller, H., Mooney, H. A., Mumby, P., Nagendra, H., Nesshover, C., Oteng-Yeboah, A. A., Pataki, G., Roué, M., Rubis, J., Schultz, M., Smith, P., Sumaila, R., Takeuchi, K., Thomas, S., Verma, M., Yeo-Chang, Y. and Zlatanova, D. 2015. The IPBES Conceptual Framework – connecting nature and people. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 14: 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eder, D. J. 2007. Bringing Navajo storytelling practices into schools: The importance of maintaining cultural integrity. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 38(3): 278–296. https://doi.org/10.1525/aeq.2007.38.3.278CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernández-Llamazares, Á. and Lepofsky, D. 2019. Ethnobiology through Song. Journal of Ethnobiology, 39(3): 337–353. https://doi.org/10.2993/0278-0771-39.3.337CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernández-Llamazares, Á., Díaz-Reviriego, I. and Reyes-García, V. 2017. Defaunation through the eyes of the Tsimane’. In Reyes-García, V. and Pyhälä, A. (eds.) Hunter-Gatherers in a Changing World. Cham (Switzerland): Springer International Publishing, pp. 77–90.Google Scholar
Fernández-Llamazares, Á., Díaz-Reviriego, I., Luz, A. C., Cabeza, M., Pyhälä, A. and Reyes-García, V. 2015a. Rapid ecosystem change challenges the adaptive capacity of local environmental knowledge. Global Environmental Change, 31: 272–284. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.02.001CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fernández-Llamazares, Á., Méndez-López, M. E., Díaz-Reviriego, I., McBride, M. F., Pyhälä, A., Rosell-Melé, A. and Reyes-García, V. 2015b. Links between media communication and local perceptions of climate change in an Indigenous society. Climatic Change, 131(2): 307–320. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584–015-1381-7Google Scholar
Fienup-Riordan, A. 1986. When Our Bad Season Comes: A Cultural Account of Subsistence Harvesting and Harvest Disruption on the Yukon Delta. Anchorage, AK: Alaska Anthropological Association.Google Scholar
Ford, J. D., Smit, B. and Wandel, J., 2006. Vulnerability to climate change in the Arctic: A case study from Arctic Bay, Canada. Global Environmental Change, 16: 145–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2005.11.007Google Scholar
Ford, J. D., Pearce, T., Duerden, F., Furgal, C. and Smit, B. 2010. Climate change policy responses for Canada’s Inuit population: The importance of and opportunities for adaptation. Global Environmental Change, 20: 177–191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2009.10.008CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garteizgogeascoa, M., García-del-Amo, D. and Reyes-García, V. 2020. Using proverbs to study local perceptions of climate change: a case study in Sierra Nevada (Spain). Regional Environmental Change. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113–020-01646-1.Google Scholar
Gómez-Baggethun, E. and Reyes-García, V., 2013. Reinterpreting change in traditional ecological knowledge. Human Ecology, 41(4): 643–647, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10745–013-9577-9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenop, K. 2009. Place Meaning, Attachment, and Identity in Indigenous Inala, Queensland. Acton (Australia): Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.Google Scholar
Hausmann, A., Slotow, R., Burns, J. K. and Di Minin, E. 2016. The ecosystem service of sense of place: Benefits for human well-being and biodiversity conservation. Environmental Conservation, 43(2): 117–127. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892915000314CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heller, N. E. and Zavaleta, E. S. 2009. Biodiversity management in the face of climate change: A review of 22 years of recommendations. Biological Conservation, 142: 14–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2008.10.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heras, M. and Tabàra, J. D. 2014. Let’s play transformations! Performative methods for sustainability. Sustainability Science, 9: 379–398. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11625–014-0245-9.Google Scholar
Herman, R. D. K. 2016. Traditional knowledge in a time of crisis: Climate change, culture and communication. Sustainability Science, 11: 163–176. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11625–015-0305-9Google Scholar
Herman-Mercer, N. M., Matkin, E., Laituri, M. J., Toohey, R. C., Massey, M., Elder, K., Schuster, P. F. and Mutter, E. A. 2016. Changing times, changing stories: Generational differences in climate change perspectives from four remote Indigenous communities in subarctic. Ecology and Society, 21(3): 28. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08463-210328CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodge, F. S., Pasqua, A., Marquez, C. A. and Geishirt-Cantrell, B. 2002. Utilizing traditional storytelling to promote wellness in American Indian communities. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 13(1): 6–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/104365960201300102CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huanca, T. 2008. Tsimane’ Oral Tradition, Landscape and Identity in Tropical Forest. La Paz: Imprenta Wagui.Google Scholar
Hulme, M. 2015. Finding the message of the Pope’s Encyclical. Environment, 57: 16–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/00139157.2015.1089139Google Scholar
Iseke, J. and Moore, S. 2011. Community-based Indigenous digital storytelling with elders and youth. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 35: 19–38. https://doi.org/10.17953/aicr.35.4.4588445552858866Google Scholar
Janif, S. Z., Nunn, P. D., Geraghty, P., Aalbersberg, W., Thomas, F. R. and Camilakeba, M. 2016. Value of traditional oral narratives in building climate-change resilience: Insights from rural communities in Fiji. Ecology and Society, 21(2): 7. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-08100-210207CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jorgensen, B. S. and Stedman, R. C. 2006. A comparative analysis of predictors of sense of place dimensions: Attachment to, dependence on, and identification with lakeshore properties. Journal of Environmental Management, 79: 316–327. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2005.08.003Google Scholar
Kesavan, P. C. and Swaminathan, M. S. 2006. Managing extreme natural disasters in coastal areas. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 364(1845): 2191–2216. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2006.1822Google Scholar
King, D. N. T., Goff, J. and Skipper, A. 2007. Māori environmental knowledge and natural hazards in Aotearoa-New Zealand. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 37(2): 59–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/03014220709510536CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, R. L. and Paige, D. S. 2016. What our ancestors knew: Teaching and learning through storytelling. In Nanton, C. R. (ed.) Tectonic Boundaries: Negotiating Convergent Forces in Adult Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 63–72.Google Scholar
Lokhorst, A. M., Hoon, C., le Rutte, R. and de Snoo, G. 2014. There is an I in nature: The crucial role of the self in nature conservation. Land Use Policy, 39: 121–126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2014.03.005Google Scholar
McAdoo, B. G., Dengler, L., Prasetya, G. and Titov, V. 2006. Smong: How an oral history saved thousands on Indonesia’s Simeulue Island during the December 2004 and March 2005 tsunamis. Earthquake Spectra, 22(S3): S661–S669. https://doi.org/10.1193/1.2204966Google Scholar
McCarter, J., Gavin, M. C., Baereleo, S. and Love, M. 2014. The challenges of maintaining Indigenous ecological knowledge. Ecology and Society, 19(3): 39. http://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06741-190339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMillan, A. D. and Hutchinson, I. 2002. When the mountain dwarfs danced: Aboriginal traditions of paleoseismic events along the Cascadia subduction zone of Western North America. Ethnohistory, 49 (1): 41–68. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-49-1-41Google Scholar
Mercer, J., Dominey-Howes, D., Kelman, I. and Lloyd, K. 2007. The potential for combining Indigenous and Western knowledge in reducing vulnerability to environmental hazards in small island developing states. Environmental Hazards, 7(4): 245–256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envhaz.2006.11.001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nakashima, D. J., Galloway McLean, K., Thulstrup, H., Ramos-Castillo, A. and Rubis, J. 2012. Weathering Uncertainty: Traditional Knowledge for Climate Change Assessment and Adaptation. Paris and Darwin: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and United Nations University Traditional Knowledge Initiative.Google Scholar
Nanson, A. 2011. Words of Re‐enchantment. 1st edition. Stroud: Awen Publications.Google Scholar
Nunn, P. D. 2009. Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents of the Pacific. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar
Ryan, J. C. 2015. The virtual and the vegetal: Creating a ‘living’ biocultural heritage archive through digital storytelling approaches. Global Media Journal, 9(1): 1–10.Google Scholar
Sakakibara, C. 2008. ‘Our home is drowning’: Iñupiat storytelling and climate change in Point Hope, Alaska. Geographical Review, 98(4): 456–475. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1931-0846.2008.tb00312.xGoogle Scholar
Silko, L. 1981. Language and literature from a Pueblo Indian perspective. In Fiedler, L. A. and Baker, H. A. (eds.) Opening up the Canon. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, pp. 54–72.Google Scholar
Singh, R. K., Pretty, J. and Pilgrim, S. 2010. Traditional knowledge and biocultural diversity: Learning from tribal communities for sustainable development in northeast India. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 53: 511–533.Google Scholar
Walshe, R. A. and Nunn, P. D. 2012. Integration of Indigenous knowledge and disaster risk reduction: A case study from Baie Martelli, Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 3(4): 185–194. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753–012-0019-xGoogle Scholar
Watson, A. and Huntington, O. H. 2008. They’re here – I can feel them: The epistemic spaces of Indigenous and Western knowledges. Social & Cultural Geography, 9(3): 257–281. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360801990488Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×