Dr. Muru-Lenning made an interesting point about the place of Mātauranga Māori in contemporary New Zealand, and especially within the scientific community. She related a particular anecdote as representative of many interactions throughout her career.
She noted that on one occasion, she had presented her work on the aquatic science and techniques employed by Māori on the Waikato River. After her presentation, the host stood up and commented that now they could “get onto the real science”, before inviting the next speaker, a guest from the Faculty of Science, to begin.
It would be nice to consider this interaction as an outlier, but unfortunately this is a common type of interaction for indigenous academics all over the world. Traditional knowledge is dismissed as primitive, and often superstitious, and “Western” or “real” science is thought to provide far superior explanations for any given phenomenon. But what is the point of dividing science into “real” versus “traditional” – and since when did those words have opposite meanings?
This is a significant resource that the scientific community is almost entirely ignoring. There are examples of historic instances when, if indigenous knowledge had not been ignored, environmental issues could have been anticipated or even avoided altogether. It makes sense to combine all sources of scientific knowledge, to draw the most accurate conclusions possible, but instead we are preserving an elitist, Eurocentric viewpoint, to the detriment of all involved.
