By exploring indigenous people's knowledge and use of sea ice, the SIKU project has demonstrated the power of multiple perspectives and introduced a new field of interdisciplinary research, the study of social (socio-cultural) aspects of the natural world, or what we call the social life of sea ice. It incorporates local terminologies and classifications, place names, personal stories, teachings, safety rules, historic narratives, and explanations of the empirical and spiritual connections that people create with the natural world. In opening the social life of sea ice and the value of indigenous perspectives we make a novel contribution to IPY, to science, and to the public

By exploring indigenous people's knowledge and use of sea ice, the SIKU project has demonstrated the power of multiple perspectives and introduced a new field of interdisciplinary research, the study of social (socio-cultural) aspects of the natural world, or what we call the social life of sea ice. It incorporates local terminologies and classifications, place names, personal stories, teachings, safety rules, historic narratives, and explanations of the empirical and spiritual connections that people create with the natural world. In opening the social life of sea ice and the value of indigenous perspectives we make a novel contribution to IPY, to science, and to the public.

Confronted with the complex environmental crises of the Anthropocene, scientists have moved towards an interdisciplinary approach to address challenges that are both social and ecological. Several arenas are now calling for co-production of new transdisciplinary knowledge by combining Indigenous knowledge and science. This book revisits epistemological debates on the notion of co-production and assesses the relevant methods, principles and values that enable communities to co-produce. It explores the factors that determine how indigenous-scientific knowledge can be rooted in equity, mutual respect and shared benefits. Resilience through Knowledge Co-Production includes several collective papers co-authored by Indigenous experts and scientists, with case studies involving Indigenous communities from the Arctic, Pacific islands, the Amazon, the Sahel and high altitude areas. Offering guidance to indigenous peoples, scientists, decision-makers and NGOs, this book moves towards a decolonised co-production of knowledge that unites indigenous knowledge and science to address global environmental crises.

This unique transdisciplinary publication is the result of collaboration between UNESCO's Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS) programme, the United Nations University's Traditional Knowledge Initiative, the IPCC, and other organisations. Chapters, written by indigenous peoples, scientists and development experts, provide insight into how diverse societies observe and adapt to changing environments. A broad range of case studies illustrate how these societies, building upon traditional knowledge handed down through generations, are already developing their own solutions for dealing with a rapidly changing climate and how this might be useful on a global scale. Of interest to policy-makers, social and natural scientists, and indigenous peoples and experts, this book provides an indispensable reference for those interested in climate science, policy and adaptation.

The common view of indigenous Arctic cultures, even among scholarly observers, has long been one of communities continually in ecological harmony with their natural environment. In Arctic Adaptations, Igor Krupnik dismisses the textbook notion of traditional societies as static. Using information from years of field research, interviews with native Siberians, and archaeological site visits, Krupnik demonstrates that these societies are characterized not by stability but by dynamism and significant evolutionary breaks. Their apparent state of ecological harmony is, in fact, a conscious survival strategy resulting from a prolonged and therefore successful process of human adaptation in one of the most extreme inhabited environments in the world. As their physical and cultural environment has changed--fluctuating reindeer and caribou herds, unpredictable weather patterns, introduction of firearms and better seacraft--Arctic communities have adapted by developing distinctive subsistence practices, social structures, and ethics regarding utilization of natural resources. Krupnik's pioneering work represents a dynamic marriage of ethnography and ecology, and makes accessible to Western scholars crucial findings and archival data previously unavailable because of political and language barriers.