Karst Ethnogeology in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic: Local Interpretations of Features and Processes
Abstract
Indigenous senses of place, teaching philosophies, and empirical knowledge of surrounding Earth systems (also known as ethnogeology) can be used to enrich geoscience education. Indigenous or historically resident people may perceive local places differently from outside observers trained in the "Western" tradition. Traditional indigenous knowledge (alternatively referred to as traditional ecological knowledgeor TEK) exceeds the boundaries of non-Indigenous ideas of physical characteristics of the world, tends to be more holistic, and is culturally framed. Indigenous people have been actively present in the Caribbean for millennia and have accrued rich empirical knowledge about Earth processes and changes in the environment.
Ethnogeological research blends methods from field geology with methods from field ethnography that include participatory observation, free-listing, participatory mapping, and cultural consensus analysis. Our objective was to develop a cultural consensus model (CCM) for ethnogeological knowledge about speleothem formation and river geomorphology among local indigenous communities such as the Boricua jíbaroand the Dominican campesino. Results from applied focused ethnographic fieldwork suggest a good fit for the CCM about geological processes among culturally expert consultants in DR and PR, as well as a competence average with values above 0.6 in both cases. We will present and discuss the CCM for the domain of karst (in its majority) that is shared between consultants in the countries of PR and DR that is in the form of metaphors. Additional data in support of the CCM include stories, family history using participant observation, and participatory mapping. These results are applicable to locally place-based geoscience teaching.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMPA53A..05G
- Keywords:
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- 0230 Impacts of climate change: human health;
- GEOHEALTHDE: 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGEDE: 1880 Water management;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 6620 Science policy;
- PUBLIC ISSUES