How a local shaman can help fight climate change
Who knows more about environmental governance: a professor of natural resource governance or a local shaman in the remote uplands of Myanmar? ‘To tackle climate change, we need pluralistic views of what we consider knowledge to be’, says the professor in question, Diana Suhardiman.
Diana Suhardiman focuses on the intersection between water, land, climate and environmental governance in Southeast Asia. She does this in both her work as Director of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies and as Professor of Natural Resource Governance, Climate and Equity at the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology. In her inaugural lecture, Suhardiman calls for a broad view of knowledge production and state transformation processes. ‘When we talk about natural resource governance, climate and equity, we should take into account multiple overlapping – but not necessarily connected – knowledge systems and grassroot realities.’
Undocumented knowledge
On the border between Thailand and Myanmar at the beginning of this year, Suhardiman met the personification of her research: Pati Melo. He is a shaman, or seer, among the Karen people who live in parts of Myanmar and Thailand. ‘Pati Melo is the embodiment of a place-based knowledge system’, says Suhardiman. ‘He carries a wealth of undocumented knowledge about Karen ancestral land, life, traditions and culture. Pati Melo knows all about environmental governance and the rotational farming practices used by the Karen.’
Pati Melo symbolises the grassroots knowledge held by people and communities. ‘People are developing all kinds of strategies to defend their ancestral lands from external threats such as large-scale land concessions, dam development and the slow violence of climate change’, says Suhardiman. However, she warns, these strategies receive little to no recognition in the global research agendas on climate governance and adaptation, let alone in policy discussions and decision-making processes.
‘It makes a big difference if people can find and support each other.’
Connect grassroots actors and communities
‘We also need global policy and academic knowledge’, says Suhardiman. ‘But to tackle climate change, we need to have pluralistic views about what we consider knowledge to be. We can do that by centring grassroots actors and their place-based knowledge systems, cultural values and political voice.’ Suhardiman hopes to help connect grassroots actors and communities. ‘Throughout Southeast Asia, and especially in remote upland areas, the local populations are fighting the same threats. It makes a big difference if people can find and support each other.’
Open mind
‘I was born in Indonesia, studied in the Netherlands and later worked in various countries in mainland Southeast Asia. Perhaps it’s that combination that makes it easier for me to deal with different points of view and perspectives’, says Suhardiman. ‘When you live in different places, the boundaries between you and others blur. You learn that there is no single interpretation of the truth and that you need to see things in relation to each other.’
Wherever she goes, Suhardiman tries to make links between people and their surroundings. ‘As a researcher, I want to build bridges and that takes a certain degree of openness. If you go into the field and encounter Pati Melo, you have to be able to make a connection and recognise the knowledge he possesses as equal to your own.’
On Friday 19 April, Diana Suhardiman will give her inaugural lecture Grassroots alliances in natural resource governance: Shaping territories of life. Suhardiman is Professor of Natural Resource Governance, Climate and Equity at the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology.
Text: Julie de Graaf
Banner photo: Pati Melo. Source: Karen Environmental and Social Action Network, 2024