330
Santana and Narchi 2018) but also through the compilation of rich oral history centered in their sophisticated views of the natural order expressed in stories, poetry,
and songs (Di Peso and Matson 1965, p. 5; Felger and Moser 1985; Marlett et al.
1998; Martínez- Tagüeña 2015; Martínez-Tagüeña and Torres 2018; Moser and
Marlett 2010; Renteria 2009, 2015). At large, it was not until the 1960s that scholars
enjoyed systematic access to a more intimate view of the Comcaac universe through
the pioneering language-based work of Edward and Rebecca Moser who documented the relationships between ecological traditional knowledge and material life
(Felger and Moser listed above; Moser 1963). The vast research that resulted in the
last part of the twentieth century has nonetheless uncritically generalized assertions
in atemporal vacuums (“Comcaacs believe this or that”) omitting in turn an examination of the enormous variability that characterizes Comcaac knowledge. It
includes how their power structures affect and have affected its production, distribution, and implementation, conditions that reflect the vertiginous historical, cultural,
and economic transformations described above.
More problematic, however, is the fact that until today and with the exception of
a few Comcaac members, the community does not have access to much of this
information (published in expensive volumes or erudite dissertations written mostly
in English) nor they have been given credit and ownership for this knowledge. With
a few exceptions were publications have been made in co-authorship, see Marlett
et al. 1998; Martínez-Tagüeña and Torres 2018; Wilder et al. 2007, 2008a, b. While
published studies provide ethnobiological information centered on cataloging lists
of plants and animals with their associated uses, they do not describe how knowledge is generated, how it evolves and changes through time, and how it is distributed among community members (Narchi et al. 2015 explored the association
between ethnomedicinal knowledge gender, age, and literacy but through the problematic lens of proficiency assessment).
Descriptions of management practices around useful/relevant plants and animal
populations are scarce or non-existent nor an acknowledgment of these changing
practices through time. In the same tenet, attention has failed to underpin the underlying processes of territorial and/or species-specific types of expertise that sustain
differential types of expertise within this society and its implications in terms of
social networks, reciprocity, and access to resources. Families possess differing
knowledge about their land, reflecting the different territories of the Comcaac bands
to which they belonged—affiliations that are still relevant to many of them. It is
very important not to consider the Comcaac as a homogenous group. Even though
contemporary Comcaac have lost much of their homeland, they relate to their ancestral territory through long-term continuity expressed in their vast knowledge
(Martínez-Tagüeña 2015).
Furthermore, no information has been published about the local community
members’ perception on the changing contexts that they are living, on the one hand,
by their contact with researchers that come to the community and document their
traditional knowledge, and on the other hand, by their interactions with government
agencies and extractive industries that are creating conflict over their resources and
their territory and are promoting the inadequate appropriation of their patrimony.
N. Martínez-Tagüeña and R. F. Rentería-Valencia
Santana and Narchi 2018) but also through the compilation of rich oral history centered in their sophisticated views of the natural order expressed in stories, poetry,
and songs (Di Peso and Matson 1965, p. 5; Felger and Moser 1985; Marlett et al.
1998; Martínez- Tagüeña 2015; Martínez-Tagüeña and Torres 2018; Moser and
Marlett 2010; Renteria 2009, 2015). At large, it was not until the 1960s that scholars
enjoyed systematic access to a more intimate view of the Comcaac universe through
the pioneering language-based work of Edward and Rebecca Moser who documented the relationships between ecological traditional knowledge and material life
(Felger and Moser listed above; Moser 1963). The vast research that resulted in the
last part of the twentieth century has nonetheless uncritically generalized assertions
in atemporal vacuums (“Comcaacs believe this or that”) omitting in turn an examination of the enormous variability that characterizes Comcaac knowledge. It
includes how their power structures affect and have affected its production, distribution, and implementation, conditions that reflect the vertiginous historical, cultural,
and economic transformations described above.
More problematic, however, is the fact that until today and with the exception of
a few Comcaac members, the community does not have access to much of this
information (published in expensive volumes or erudite dissertations written mostly
in English) nor they have been given credit and ownership for this knowledge. With
a few exceptions were publications have been made in co-authorship, see Marlett
et al. 1998; Martínez-Tagüeña and Torres 2018; Wilder et al. 2007, 2008a, b. While
published studies provide ethnobiological information centered on cataloging lists
of plants and animals with their associated uses, they do not describe how knowledge is generated, how it evolves and changes through time, and how it is distributed among community members (Narchi et al. 2015 explored the association
between ethnomedicinal knowledge gender, age, and literacy but through the problematic lens of proficiency assessment).
Descriptions of management practices around useful/relevant plants and animal
populations are scarce or non-existent nor an acknowledgment of these changing
practices through time. In the same tenet, attention has failed to underpin the underlying processes of territorial and/or species-specific types of expertise that sustain
differential types of expertise within this society and its implications in terms of
social networks, reciprocity, and access to resources. Families possess differing
knowledge about their land, reflecting the different territories of the Comcaac bands
to which they belonged—affiliations that are still relevant to many of them. It is
very important not to consider the Comcaac as a homogenous group. Even though
contemporary Comcaac have lost much of their homeland, they relate to their ancestral territory through long-term continuity expressed in their vast knowledge
(Martínez-Tagüeña 2015).
Furthermore, no information has been published about the local community
members’ perception on the changing contexts that they are living, on the one hand,
by their contact with researchers that come to the community and document their
traditional knowledge, and on the other hand, by their interactions with government
agencies and extractive industries that are creating conflict over their resources and
their territory and are promoting the inadequate appropriation of their patrimony.
N. Martínez-Tagüeña and R. F. Rentería-Valencia