Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer Mechanisms in Indigenous Communities Facing Climate Displacement

Abstract

The environmental degradation caused by climate change is compelling indigenous communities to migrate. This displacement is a danger to the continuity of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) because the geographical locators of this knowledge are lost. The critical research gap that exists is how exactly survival and cultural wisdom can be successfully transferred across generations in a situation where the environment that provided the ancestral wisdom is no longer available. This paper is a Qualitative Multi-Case Study of three displaced indigenous populations. These transfer mechanisms were divided into a Knowledge Management Framework into Explicit (digital/written archives) and Tacit (oral traditions). The study proposes the Indigenous Knowledge Resilience Model (IKRM) that assesses how the intellectual loss due to displacement can be addressed with the help of hybrid strategies of transmission, including the use of the ancestral orality and the use of modern ICT technologies. It will be seen that the Hybrid Transfer Mechanisms are far more effective in preserving cultural and technical survival skills as compared to the traditional oral-only practices. One of the conclusions is that the knowledge fracture in technical expertise is devastating in land-based skills, but the application of the Adaptive Storytelling and digital scaffold enabled the preservation of the main ecological management savvy at 78.2% rate, even when it came to absolutely new environments. The authors conclude that a process-based knowledge transfer should be the strategic approach to climate displacement, as opposed to place-based knowledge transfer. The suggested IKRM framework offers a universal framework that NGOs and governments can use to approach indigenous wisdom as a portable asset and wisdom. The study makes a contribution to the world debate on the knowledge-based economy by providing a model on how culture can be sustained in the face of an environmental crisis.