Munekan Masha (trans. Let it be (re)born) was devised and designed by a group of Kogi people from Colombia. Watching local environments incrementally degrade over the last 30 years, the Kogi decided they needed to teach ‘us’ how to manage the land. Consequently, this project allows environmental scientists to be taught indigenous land management and restoration methods by the Kogi. Indigenous conceptions of land management are not incorporated into conventional environmental methods because they depend on holistic philosophies rather than evidence (Armstrong 2020).
This project questions the assumption that different methods are incompatible by drawing these different knowledge systems together it aims to explore the consequences and value of working collaboratively to regenerate degraded territory. The emerging field of indigenous anthropology includes the interrogation of western knowledge systems by indigenous enquirers with a view to liberate global thinking from ideas that dominate and constrain indigenous lives. This project asks the questions, can different knowledge systems work together credibly and what benefits do using multiple systems provide?
This project is presented by Prof. Alan Ereira, UWTSD and the Tairona Heritage Trust (THT) and a representative of the Kogi people.
