ICOMOS Lecture: Working together with(in) different knowledge systems

We kindly invite you to the upcoming lecture evening on 10 November on "Working together with(in) different knowledge systems: On the representation of and research into nature and biocultural heritage". Western knowledge and culture are not the only ways of knowing and of being in the world. Yet they have become dominant, a process connected to Europe’s imperial and colonial history. During this event, our speakers, Arjen Kok, Tinde van Andel, Raika Scherer and Luciana Martins, will give presentations about two different projects that involve working on the interrelation of non-western and western knowledge in relation to nature and biocultural heritage. 

PROGRAMME

19:30    Welcome and introduction: Sofia Lovegrove

19:35    Arjen Kok, Tinde van Andel & Raika Scherer: Working together in difference: non-western & western knowledges of nature in Suriname

20:00    Short Q&A

20:05    Break

20:15    Luciana Martins: Resources of hope: reactivating Indigenous biocultural heritage in Amazonia

20:35    Panel discussion and Q&A 

21:00    End

ABOUT THE LECTURES

Working together in difference: Non-western & western knowledges of nature in Suriname

A few years ago, the Aucan Maroon community in Diitabiki started working on a heritage preservation project. Initiated by their Granman, it incorporates many aspects of the community's life and culture, such as objects, rituals and nature. Following a request in 2015 by anthropologist Thomas Polimé, Arjen Kok of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands has since been supporting this initiative. The Aucan Maroon community’s history dates back to the seventeenth-century, and its culture is very much alive today. Projects such as this one attest to the need felt amongst community members to preserve their culture and way of life. The first results of the project are promising, yet there are also challenges. Such as finding a balance between the representation of and the relationship between western and non-western systems of knowledge, since both are part of the community. The development of an educational tree trail is representative of such challenges. In this talk, Arjen Kok and Tinde van Andel will discuss some of the project’s recent developments. Tinde has been working with the community to map the trees and knowledge about them. Raika Scherer will give a short presentation about the interrelation of western and non-western knowledge in representing natural heritage, based on a report she wrote that brings together recent academic developments on this complex topic.

Resources of hope: Reactivating Indigenous biocultural heritage in Amazonia

The biocultural objects collected by nineteenth-century botanist Richard Spruce in Amazonia are a unique point of reference for the useful plants, ethnobotany, and environmental history of the region. This remarkable collection, housed mainly at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the British Museum in London, incorporates Indigenous plant-based artefacts, detailed archival notes, and accompanying herbarium voucher collections. This talk focusses on an ongoing research programme – developed since 2015 by Brazilian and UK institutions – that aims to share scientific and Indigenous traditional knowledge, make biocultural collections and associated data accessible online and strengthen the capacity of Indigenous communities in Northwest Amazonia for autonomous research into material culture, plant use and conservation. We will be discussing the potentials and challenges that working with biocultural heritage brings to new co-curatorial practices with Indigenous communities today.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Arjen Kok is an art historian and museum collections specialist at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands. Currently he is involved in several projects related to transport heritage, historic infrastructure, contested heritage, museum buildings and collection policy.   

Tinde van Andel is Senior Researcher of Ethnobotany at Naturalis, Professor of Ethnobotany at Wageningen University and Professor of the History of Botany and Gardens at Leiden University. As an ethnobotanist, Tinde studies traditional plant use. Together with PhD students, postdocs and MSc students, she is involved in a number of research projects, namely about Traditional rice varieties grown in the Guianas, Historical herbaria and botanical drawings in the Leiden treasure rooms, and Wild food collection by hunter-gatherers in Cameroon.

Raika Scherer is a cultural anthropologist trained at the University of Vienna and Erasmus University Rotterdam, currently working at the Science Education Center NaturErlebnisPark in Graz, Austria. Based on her master's thesis her current research interests are the ontological turn, influences of the Anthropocene in the natural heritage sector as well as indigenous & western knowledge systems.

Luciana Martins is Professor of Latin American Visual Cultures and Co-Director of the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies (CILAVS) at Birkbeck, University of London, and Visiting Researcher at Kew. Her research considers the role of visual and material culture in the scientific exploration of Latin America. She is currently working on a monograph titled Drawing Together: The Visual Archive of Expeditionary Travel, supported by the Leverhulme Trust; and on a Brazil-UK collaborative research project with Kew on the biocultural collections of Richard Spruce, supported by the British Academy.

To register: please send an email to lezingen@icomos.nl 

Header photo: Brazilian Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers and curators visit the Kew herbarium during a workshop in London in 2019 (photo: Bea Moyes).