Perceiving the Environment in Finnish Lapland
We contrast two understandings of traditional knowledge: as enframed in the discourse of modernity (MTK), and as generated in the practices of locality (LTK). Where `indigenous knowledge' is opposed to science, it always appears in the guise of MTK. This modernist understanding rests on a genea...
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crsagepubl:10.1177/1357034x00006003010 2024-06-23T07:56:28+00:00 Perceiving the Environment in Finnish Lapland INGOLD, TIM KURTTILA, TERHI 2000 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1357034x00006003010 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1357034X00006003010 en eng SAGE Publications http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license Body & Society volume 6, issue 3-4, page 183-196 ISSN 1357-034X 1460-3632 journal-article 2000 crsagepubl https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034x00006003010 2024-06-11T04:30:11Z We contrast two understandings of traditional knowledge: as enframed in the discourse of modernity (MTK), and as generated in the practices of locality (LTK). Where `indigenous knowledge' is opposed to science, it always appears in the guise of MTK. This modernist understanding rests on a genealogical model of transmission that separates the acquisition of knowledge from environmentally situated practice. For local people, by contrast, traditional knowledge is inseparable from the practices of inhabiting the land that both bring places into being and constitute persons as of those places. To illustrate the meaning of LTK, we describe how Saami people in northernmost Finland perceive their environment, focusing on their experiences of the weather. These are shown to be embedded in life-histories, dependent on tasks of travel, multisensory, crucial to spatial orientation and the co-ordination of activities, and seasonally periodic. To regard people's knowledge of the weather as an aspect of tradition means thinking of tradition as process rather than substance, as part of a way of life conceived not as the enactment of a received script but as the continual negotiation of a path through the world. Here there is no contradiction between continuity and change. LTK, we show, is tantamount to skill: a property of the whole organism-person, having emerged through a history of involvement in an environment. From the perspective of LTK, there is no opposition between traditional knowledge and science. For science is itself a form of LTK, differing from other forms in the practices through which it is generated, rather than in the epistemological status of the knowledge itself. Article in Journal/Newspaper saami Lapland SAGE Publications Body & Society 6 3-4 183 196 |
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English |
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We contrast two understandings of traditional knowledge: as enframed in the discourse of modernity (MTK), and as generated in the practices of locality (LTK). Where `indigenous knowledge' is opposed to science, it always appears in the guise of MTK. This modernist understanding rests on a genealogical model of transmission that separates the acquisition of knowledge from environmentally situated practice. For local people, by contrast, traditional knowledge is inseparable from the practices of inhabiting the land that both bring places into being and constitute persons as of those places. To illustrate the meaning of LTK, we describe how Saami people in northernmost Finland perceive their environment, focusing on their experiences of the weather. These are shown to be embedded in life-histories, dependent on tasks of travel, multisensory, crucial to spatial orientation and the co-ordination of activities, and seasonally periodic. To regard people's knowledge of the weather as an aspect of tradition means thinking of tradition as process rather than substance, as part of a way of life conceived not as the enactment of a received script but as the continual negotiation of a path through the world. Here there is no contradiction between continuity and change. LTK, we show, is tantamount to skill: a property of the whole organism-person, having emerged through a history of involvement in an environment. From the perspective of LTK, there is no opposition between traditional knowledge and science. For science is itself a form of LTK, differing from other forms in the practices through which it is generated, rather than in the epistemological status of the knowledge itself. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
INGOLD, TIM KURTTILA, TERHI |
spellingShingle |
INGOLD, TIM KURTTILA, TERHI Perceiving the Environment in Finnish Lapland |
author_facet |
INGOLD, TIM KURTTILA, TERHI |
author_sort |
INGOLD, TIM |
title |
Perceiving the Environment in Finnish Lapland |
title_short |
Perceiving the Environment in Finnish Lapland |
title_full |
Perceiving the Environment in Finnish Lapland |
title_fullStr |
Perceiving the Environment in Finnish Lapland |
title_full_unstemmed |
Perceiving the Environment in Finnish Lapland |
title_sort |
perceiving the environment in finnish lapland |
publisher |
SAGE Publications |
publishDate |
2000 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1357034x00006003010 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1357034X00006003010 |
genre |
saami Lapland |
genre_facet |
saami Lapland |
op_source |
Body & Society volume 6, issue 3-4, page 183-196 ISSN 1357-034X 1460-3632 |
op_rights |
http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034x00006003010 |
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Body & Society |
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6 |
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3-4 |
container_start_page |
183 |
op_container_end_page |
196 |
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1802649571885580288 |