Ways of Knowing

As an newly appointed member (by the MPRB) to the new Minneapolis Neighborhood Community Engagement Commission I have been doing a lot of exploring of the best ways to connect with communities.

One big topic I keep running into is a need to respect different “ways of knowing.” Right now in our culture research science and academia rule the roost in respected ways of gaining knowledge; having an advanced degree or being published are our cultural indicators of knowledge possession. However, there are other valid ways of gaining knowledge -which, when recognized, increases our culture’s knowledge as a whole.

This article , from NASA’s Earth Observatory website, is a case study of how Inuit community knowledge was incorporated into climate change scientific research resulting in greater knowledge for both groups.

From the article:

“Weatherhead and Gearheard said they are intrigued by the insights that incorporate indigenous knowledge and climate studies, but they don’t want to stop there. The new study has sparked an interest in the type of environmental knowledge other communities could provide to climate scientists, from ranchers and farmers to indigenous groups. “When you treat these perspectives as different forms of evidence or knowledge and see where that takes you, that is when exciting stuff happens,” said Gearheard.”