Participation in subsistence activities and maintenance of traditional skills among indigenous youth in the South Rupununi, Guyana

Visualizações: 1021

Authors

  • Nathalie van Vliet CIFOR
  • Neal Millar
  • Alyssa Melville
  • Oswin David
  • Leroy Ignacio

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15451/ec2022-08-11.22-1-13

Keywords:

Cultural transmission

Abstract

Over the past few decades, issues including globalization and the transition to the cash economy have increasingly hindered the transmission of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in Indigenous communities throughout the world. The imparting of TEK across generations of Indigenous Peoples is essential in sustaining cultural practices and to maintaining their subsistence lifestyles. In this study, we used semi-structure interviews to assess the level of participation in subsistence activities and acquisition of subsistence skills among Indigenous children in Guyana.  We also assessed whether the level of participation or acquisition of skills was explained by location and social characteristics such as age, gender, occupation of mother/father. We found that Indigenous children in the South Rupununi are highly involved in subsistence activities and the majority conserves subsistence related skills.  Traditional gears, such as the bow and arrow are still dominant among Indigenous children in South Rupununi, particularly for hunting purposes, but also for fishing.  Results also suggest that children’s participation (through work or play) in subsistence activities are key to the acquisition of subsistence knowledge and skills. Among indigenous children in South Rupununi, participation to subsistence activities varies according to gender and is linked to the main occupation of the parents. While participation in subsistence activities is primarily motivated by the need to search for food, those activities are also explicitly described as providing opportunities for skill development and as sources of fun or amusement. The study concludes by advocating the need to revive connections to subsistence ways of life and the integration of more situated learning experiences within the regular school curriculum for indigenous youth.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Antunes, A. P., Rebêlo, G. H., Pezzuti, J. C. B., de Mattos Vieira, M. A. R., Constantino, P. D. A. L., Campos-Silva, J. V., ... & Shepard Jr, G. H. (2019). A conspiracy of silence: Subsistence hunting rights in the Brazilian Amazon. Land Use Policy, 84, 1-11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.02.045

Atran, S., & Medin, D. L. (1997). Knowledge and actions: Cultural models of nature and resource management in Mesoamerica.

Bentley J, Rodríguez G. 2001. Honduran folk entomology. Current Anthropology 42(2):285-301 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/320010

Berkes, F., Colding, J., & Folke, C. (2000). Rediscovery of traditional ecological knowledge as adaptive management. Ecological applications, 10(5), 1251-1262. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1890/1051-0761(2000)010[1251:ROTEKA]2.0.CO;2

Brush, S., Kesseli, R., Ortega, R., Cisneros, P., Zimmerer, K., & Quiros, C. (1995). Potato diversity in the Andean center of crop domestication. Conservation Biology, 9(5), 1189-1198. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1523-1739.1995.9051176.x-i1

Colson, E. (1979). The Harvey Lecture Series. In good years and in bad: food strategies of self-reliant societies. Journal of Anthropological Research, 35(1), 18-29. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/jar.35.1.3629494

David, Beryl; Isaacs, Percival; Johnny, Angelburt; Johnson, Pugsley, Larry; Maxi; Ramachindo, Claudine; Winter, Gavin & Winter, Yolanda (2006) Wa Wiizi - Wa Kaduzz. Our territory - our custom. Customary use of biological resources and related traditional practices within Wapichan Territory in Guyana. An indigenous case study.

Descola, P., & Pálsson, G. (Eds.). (1996). Nature and society: anthropological perspectives. Taylor & Francis.

Eyssartier, C., Ladio, A. H., & Lozada, M. (2011). Traditional horticultural knowledge change in a rural population of the Patagonian steppe. Journal of Arid Environments, 75(1), 78-86. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2010.09.006

Godoy, R., Reyes-García, V., Broesch, J., Fitzpatrick, I. C., Giovannini, P., Rodríguez, M. R. M., ... & TAPS Bolivia Study Team. (2009). Long-term (secular) change of ethnobotanical knowledge of useful plants: separating cohort and age effects. Journal of Anthropological Research, 65(1), 51-67. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/jar.0521004.0065.105

Gómez-Baggethun, E. (2009). Perspectivas del conocimiento ecológico local ante el proceso de globalización. Papeles de relaciones ecosociales y cambio global, 107, 57-67.

Gómez-Baggethun, E., & Reyes-García, V. (2013). Reinterpreting change in traditional ecological knowledge. Human Ecology, 41(4), 643-647. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-013-9577-9

Gómez-Baggethun, E., Reyes-García, V., Olsson, P., & Montes, C. (2012). Traditional ecological knowledge and community resilience to environmental extremes: A case study in Doñana, SW Spain. Global Environmental Change, 22(3), 640-650. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.02.005

Gómez‐Baggethun, E., Mingorria, S., Reyes‐García, V., Calvet, L., & Montes, C. (2010). Traditional ecological knowledge trends in the transition to a market economy: empirical study in the Doñana natural areas. Conservation Biology, 24(3), 721-729. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01401.x

González-Ruibal, A., Hernando, A., & Politis, G. (2011). Ontology of the self and material culture: Arrow-making among the Awá hunter–gatherers (Brazil). Journal of anthropological archaeology, 30(1), 1-16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2010.10.001

Gragson, T. L. (1992). Strategic procurement of fish by the Pumé: a South American “fishing culture”. Human Ecology, 20(1), 109-130. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00889698

Hames, R. B. (1979). A comparison of the efficiencies of the shotgun and the bow in neotropical forest hunting. Human Ecology, 7(3), 219-252. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00889493

Henfrey, T. B. (2002). Ethnoecology, resource use, conservation and development in a Wapishana community in the South Rupununi, Guyana. UK: University of Kent at Canterbury.

Hewlett, B. S., & Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. (1986). Cultural transmission among Aka pygmies. American Anthropologist, 88(4), 922-934. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1986.88.4.02a00100

Hewlett, B. S., Fouts, H. N., Boyette, A. H., & Hewlett, B. L. (2011). Social learning among Congo Basin hunter–gatherers. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1567), 1168-1178. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0373

Huntington, H. P. (2000). Using traditional ecological knowledge in science: methods and applications. Ecological applications, 10(5), 1270-1274. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1890/1051-0761(2000)010[1270:UTEKIS]2.0.CO;2

Kawabe, T. (1983). Development of hunting and fishing skill among boys of the Gidra in lowland Papua New Guinea. Journal of Human Ergology, 12(1), 65-74.

Kik, A., Adamec, M., Aikhenvald, A. Y., Bajzekova, J., Baro, N., Bowern, C., ... & Novotny, V. (2021). Language and ethnobiological skills decline precipitously in Papua New Guinea, the world’s most linguistically diverse nation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(22). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2100096118

Kuhnlein, H. V., & Receveur, O. (1996). Dietary change and traditional food systems of indigenous peoples. Annual review of nutrition, 16(1), 417-442. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.nu.16.070196.002221

Kuhnlein, H. V., & Turner, N. J. (2020). Traditional plant foods of Canadian indigenous peoples: nutrition, botany and use. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003054689

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge university press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815355

Lehmann, L., Wakano, J. Y., & Aoki, K. (2013). On optimal learning schedules and the marginal value of cumulative cultural evolution. Evolution, 67(5), 1435-1445. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.12040

Lew-Levy, S., Reckin, R., Lavi, N., Cristóbal-Azkarate, J., & Ellis-Davies, K. (2017). How do hunter-gatherer children learn subsistence skills?. Human Nature, 28(4), 367-394.

Lew-Levy, S., Reckin, R., Lavi, N., Cristóbal-Azkarate, J., & Ellis-Davies, K. (2017). How do hunter-gatherer children learn subsistence skills?. Human Nature, 28(4), 367-394. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-017-9302-2

Lindstrom, G. E. (2022). Accountability, relationality and Indigenous epistemology: Advancing an Indigenous perspective on academic integrity. In Academic Integrity in Canada (pp. 125-139). Springer, Cham. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83255-1_6

Macfarlane, D., & Olive, A. (2021). Whither Wintego: Environmental Impact Assessment and Indigenous Opposition in Saskatchewan’s Churchill River Hydropower Project in the 1970s. Canadian Historical Review, 102(4), 620-646. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/chr-2020-0011

Mistry, J., Jafferally, D., Xavier, R., Albert, G., Robertson, B., Benjamin, R., ... & Ingwall-King, L. (2021). Assessing the state of traditional knowledge at national level. Global Environmental Change, 71, 102409. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102409

Naveh, D., & Bird‐David, N. (2014). How persons become things: economic and epistemological changes among N ayaka hunter‐gatherers. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 20(1), 74-92. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12080

Parathian, H. E. (2019). Understanding Cosmopolitan Communities in Protected Areas: A Case Study from the Colombian Amazon. Conservation & Society, 17(1), 26-37. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_18_49

Pearce, T., Ford, J., Willox, A. C., & Smit, B. (2015). Inuit traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), subsistence hunting and adaptation to climate change in the Canadian Arctic. Arctic, 233-245. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14430/arctic4475

Reyes-García, V., Guèze, M., Luz, A. C., Paneque-Gálvez, J., Macía, M. J., Orta-Martínez, M., ... & Rubio-Campillo, X. (2013). Evidence of traditional knowledge loss among a contemporary indigenous society. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34(4), 249-257. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2013.03.002

Reyes-Rodríguez, M. L., Gulisano, M., Silva, Y., Pivarunas, B., Luna-Reyes, K. L., & Bulik, C. M. (2016). “Las penas con pan duelen menos”: The role of food and culture in Latinas with disordered eating behaviors. Appetite, 100, 102-109. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2016.02.029

Tang, C. P., & Tang, S. Y. (2010). Institutional adaptation and community-based conservation of natural resources: the cases of the Tao and Atayal in Taiwan. Human Ecology, 38(1), 101-111. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-009-9292-8

Velasco-Herrejón, P., Bauwens, T., & Friant, M. C. (2022). Challenging dominant sustainability worldviews on the energy transition: Lessons from Indigenous communities in Mexico and a plea for pluriversal technologies. World Development, 150, 105725. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105725

Walters, G., Broome, N., Cracco, M., Dash, T., Dudley, N., Elías, S., ... & Van Vliet, N. (2021). COVID-19, indigenous peoples, local communities and natural resource governance. Parks, 27, 57-62. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.CH.2021.PARKS-27-SIGW.en

Zarger, R. K. (2002). Children's ethnoecological knowledge: situated learning and the cultural transmission of subsistence knowledge and skills among Q'eqchi'Maya (Doctoral dissertation, University of Georgia).

Downloads

Published

08/11/2022

How to Cite

van Vliet, N., Millar, N., Melville, A., David, O., & Ignacio, L. (2022). Participation in subsistence activities and maintenance of traditional skills among indigenous youth in the South Rupununi, Guyana . Ethnobiology and Conservation, 11. https://doi.org/10.15451/ec2022-08-11.22-1-13

Issue

Section

Original research article

Most read articles by the same author(s)