Toxic Desecration

Indigenous Knowledge and ‘Western’ Science in Defense of Sacred Land

Bibliographic Data

ID12901590
AuthorsAdam Dunstan (0000-0003-4141-4296, University of North Texas, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume15
Issue4
Pages462-486
Publication date2022-02-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal for the Study of Religion Nature and Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-4907 • E-ISSN: 1749-4915
PublisherEquinox Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1558/jsrnc.18954
OpenAlexW4224292552
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited33

In studies of Native American knowledge, the sacred ecologies of Indigenous people are often contrasted with (allegedly secular) Western science. Other scholars have challenged this binary, sometimes under a model of ‘hybrid knowledge’ wherein Indigenous knowledge is ‘integrated’ into settler conservation. I argue for a different model, wherein unique expressions of sacred ecological knowledge emerge from the ground up within environmental activism. Drawing on ethnographic research with Protect the Peaks, a movement to halt expansion of a ski resort on an Arizona mountain sacred to thirteen Indigenous nations, I show how, in Protect the Peaks’ public messages, ceremonial standards and scientific studies are utilized to highlight snowmaking as a form of toxic desecration. This discourse, coupled with presenting snowmaking as a threat to health, ecosystems, and sacredness simultaneously, is an articulation of Indigenous knowledge which presents a direct critique to hegemonic distinctions of culture/nature and sacred/secular in policy and scholarship

Articulation (sociology · Environmental ethics · Ethnography · Hegemony · Indigenous · Political science · Scholarship · Sociology · Traditional knowledge · Anthropology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Law · Philosophy · Ecology

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