Knowledge and indigenous societies
To explore knowledge and indigenous societies, it is important to know that Indigenous societies comprise people following distinctive traditional, cultural, socio-economic, and political practices in contrast to dominant societies with whom they share space. As per the estimate given out by the UN, there are around 370 million indigenous people spread over 70 countries around the globe.
According to the definitions, they are the descendants of those who inhabited a country or a geographical region at the time when people of different cultures or ethnic origins arrived. The newer migrants then became dominant to establish their footprints through nature of work, settling in the vicinity and means of living that kept their interest.
It is need of the hour, to conserve and preserve the ideologies propagated by them because it gives an insight to the origins of many systems and practices. The essence of their traditions and practices must be contained before it goes completely extinct.
The optional theme tries to engage students on the relevance of such groups and engages them to embrace more on such cultures and promote evident learning on the same.
Knowledge Framework- Scope
Knowledge questions
In what ways does the loss of indigenous languages signify a loss of knowledge and cultural diversity?
Language is not just a medium of communication. It is also a gateway to know how a particular culture defines itself. Language envisages as the representation or an embodiment of culture or heritage represented by a particular group of people. Through the loss of a language, also implies the loss of legacy or existence of the people it represented. According to a study by linguists, it is found that apparently a language goes extinct every two weeks and most of them belong to the indigenous societies.
With the advent of new systems and developments, people started moving around the world. The process initiated engaging into dominant cultures and adapting into the system and leaving behind one’s own indigenous heritage. This might be one of the reasons there is language extinction which eventually leads to a significant loss of culture and altogether the knowledge it propagated. This whole process can be named as language switch which means people leave the heritage language and move towards a major language or a language with more acceptance around the world.
Mandana Seyfeddinipur is a linguist and the director of the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme at SOAS University of London. She talks about how most of the languages will be extinct by the end of this century. How it leads to the extinction of an entire community which is a treasure bowl of various things the humanity must not even have ventured into yet.
Knowledge framework- Perspective
Knowledge questions
To what extent is our perspective determined by our membership of a particular culture?
Indigenous societies are abundant in values and traditions. They have a very rich cultural heritage and the surroundings they live and strive for might be completely different from the dominant societies. The first shaping up of an individual comes from the environment they are born into. It all intertwines with the system.
What one chooses to see, to react, to eat, etc., all of this is influenced in a high probability. As their heritage is unique, people belonging to such rich cultures may have a higher chance of carrying what they have endured and learned through with them. The chances of these learnings to affect how they see the world is something that cannot be pushed aside.
To delve into the rich tapestry of knowledge and indigenous societies, and to appreciate how indigenous perspectives enrich our global understanding of the world, embark on a journey of exploration into this optional theme. Discover the unique ways in which indigenous knowledge systems contribute to environmental stewardship, cultural practices, and holistic understandings of humanity’s place in the natural world.
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