Indigenous knowledge in the workplace: A workshop for indigenous practitioners

This workshop drew together Indigenous professionals to discuss Indigenous Knowledge in the context of their own workplaces. The idea for the conference in part grew out of a feeling of vague dissatisfaction, amongst Indigenous practitioners in the social sciences, with statements about the meaning of world-wide Indigenous Knowledge. Such statements, while positive and fulfilling, sometimes still leave professionals thinking: but how does this work for me? Here is one example: Traditional knowledge is a cumulative body of knowledge, know-how, practices and representations maintained and developed by peoples with extant sets of histories of interaction with the natural environment. These sophisticated sets of understandings, interpretations and meanings are part and parcel of a cultural complex that encompasses language, naming and classification systems, resource use practices, ritual, spirituality and worldview. (‘Science and Traditional Knowledge’, paper delivered to 27th General Assembly of ICSU, Rio de Janeiro, Sept 2002: 3). Participants were asked to discuss, then: how useful is this definition to you in your professional life