Characteristics
Traditional knowledge has been defined as "a cumulative body of knowledge, know-how, practices and representations maintained and developed by peoples with extended 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."
Traditional knowledge typically distinguishes one community from another. For some communities, traditional knowledge takes on a personal and spiritual meaning. Traditional knowledge can also reflect a community's interests. Some communities depend on their traditional knowledge for survival. This is particularly true of traditional environmental knowledge, which refers to a "particular form of place-based knowledge of the diversity and interactions among plant and animal species, landforms, watercourses, and other qualities of the biophysical environment in a given place". An example of a society with a wealth of TEK is the South American Kayapo people, who have developed an extensive classification system of ecological zones of the Amazonian tropical savannah (i.e., campo / cerrado) to better manage the land.
Some social scientists conceptualise knowledge within a naturalistic framework, and emphasize the gradation of recent knowledge into knowledge acquired over many generations. These accounts use terms like "adaptively acquired knowledge", "socially constructed knowledge," and other terms that emphasize the social aspects of knowledge. Local knowledge and traditional knowledge may be thought of as distinguished by the length of time they have existed - decades to centuries versus millennia. A large number of scholarly studies in the naturalistic tradition demonstrate that traditional knowledge is not a natural category, and may reflect power struggles and relationships for land, resources and social control rather than adherence to a claimed ancestry or heritage.
Traditional knowledge, on the other hand, may be perceived very differently by indigenous and local communities themselves. The knowledge of indigenous and local communities is often embedded in a cosmology, and the distinction between "intangible" knowledge and physical things is often blurred. Indigenous peoples often say that "our knowledge is holistic, and cannot be separated from our lands and resources". Traditional knowledge in these cosmologies is inextricably bound to ancestors, and ancestral lands. Knowledge may not be acquired by naturalistic trial and error, but through direct revelation through conversations with "the creator", spirits, or ancestors. As Chamberlin (2003) writes of a Gitksan elder from British Columbia confronted by a government land claim: "If this is your land," he asked, "where are your stories?"
Indigenous and local communities often do not have strong traditions of ownership over knowledge that resemble the modern forms of private ownership. Many have clear traditions of custodianship over knowledge, and customary law may guide who may use different kinds of knowledge at particular times and places, and obligations that accompany the use of knowledge. From their perspective, misappropriation and misuse of knowledge may be offensive to traditions, and may have spiritual and physical repercussions in their cosmological systems. Subsequently, indigenous and local communities argue that others' use of their traditional knowledge warrants respect and sensitivity. Critics of "traditional knowledge", however, maintain that such demands for "respect" are really an attempt to prevent unsubstantiated beliefs from being subjected to the same scrutiny as other knowledge claims. This has particular significance for environmental management because the spiritual component of "traditional knowledge" can be used to justify any activity, including the unsustainable harvesting of resources.
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