ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the political ecology of traditional knowledge, and continues with its role in the empowerment of indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups dependent on local resources. It argues that the use of indigenous knowledge is political because it threatens to change power relations between indigenous groups and the dominant society. The chapter discusses of traditional knowledge as a challenge to the positivist-reductionist paradigm in Western science and the development of alternative environmental management approaches in Western science, such as Adaptive Management. It also discusses making scientific sense of indigenous knowledge, and compares indigenous knowledge with post-positivist approaches in Western science. The chapter ends with a recap of some of the main lessons of traditional ecological knowledge: its compelling argument for conceptual pluralism; community-based alternatives to top-down resource management; and its potential to inject a measure of ethics into the science of ecology and resource management, thereby restoring the "unity of mind and nature".
