Deadline: 10 July 2026
Editor: Alexandra JUSTER: Alexandra.Juster@uibk.ac.at
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) refers to the ecological knowledge that indigenous peoples have acquired through generations of direct contact with their environment, plants, animals, natural phenomena, and everything living and non-living. TEK embodies a spiritual, biocentric philosophy of life that sees humans as an integral part of nature, in the broader sense of our concept of ‘nature’.
While the majority of current debates on the Anthropocene discuss the relationship between humans and nature while maintaining the difference between the human and the non-human, “many indigenous peoples”, as Tina Rametsteiner points out, “see themselves as part of nature and the world as a coherent whole in which no part has the right to dominate another part”. The Western understanding of the relationship between the human and the non-human diverges substantially from this holistic worldview of most indigenous cultures. For example, as Elisabeth Weydt explains, the Andean peoples combine spiritual and physical elements in their biocentric worldview, which they refer to with different variations of the term Pachamama: “Pacha originates from the languages [ …] of the great peoples of the Andes. It means [ …] universe perhaps, a force, a source [ …]. Pacha thus stands for everything, for the totality of being, for a balance between opposites [ …]. There is no outside of nature, everything is nature, including humans”. For them, nature is the basis for the possibility of leading a “good life, i.e. a life in harmony – sumak kawsay – with Mamapacha”. This concept refers to the harmonious and respectful coexistence of humans with all elements of the cosmos – the Pachamama – which is different from the Western pursuit of a materially richer and beQer life.
Bruno Latour, Arturo Escobar and Philippe Descola aQribute the ecological crisis to the rational dualism between culture and nature. Olivier Barrière et al. refer to the indigenous holistic visions – under the term coviability – stressing the interdependence between all living human and non-human organisms and entities, which also gives rise to mutual responsibility. This refers to the concept of ecological solidarity within a community of subjects composed of humans and non-humans, in which the boundary between the subject ‘human’ and the object ‘non-human’ dissolves. There are mutual relationships and connections (liens de viabilité) between all components of this ‘community’ that link the human with the non-human, just as a social group can be connected to a river, a forest or a lake.
At the international level, the UN World Charter for Nature, proclaimed in 1982, commits itself for the first time to a biocentric worldview: “Mankind is a part of nature and life [ …] .” The Earth Charter, proclaimed in 2000, conveys the biocentric idea even more clearly: “Earth is our home, is alive with a unique community of life.” Article 25 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007 supplements the Earth Charter with spiritual values, based on the holistic worldview of indigenous cultures: “Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, territories, waters and coastal seas and other resources [ …] .” This implicitly results in a recognition of the knowledge of indigenous peoples and their role as qualified ‘stewards’ of nature.
The indigenous holistic vision that thinks together the human and the non-human is transmiQed orally from generation to generation or documented through wriQen texts. In this context, literature plays a crucial role in the documentation and transmission of these holistic visions expressing TEK and can
provide precious information and suggestions to help the Western capitalist world to foster a new global understanding of our relationship with nature, involving a different vision of life, society, economy and law.
A good example for the power of TEK to influence society is the enshrinement of the Andean nature rights in a traditional legal institution such as the Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008 that has, to date, triggered numerous initiatives aimed at protecting nature through legal instruments: in New Zealand, TEK led to the granting of legal personality to the Te Urewera forest area and the Te Awa Tupua River and to the Atrato river and the Amazon region in Colombia. In Bolivia, the Via Parque Isla de Salamanca national park and ‘Mother Earth’ have been declared legal entities. In the USA, Lake Erie and several rivers, as well as the Manoomin wild rice variety, have been granted legal personality. In India, the High Court declared the Ganges and Yamuna rivers and the surrounding glacier regions to be legal entities. In other countries, rivers have been declared legal entities or at least worthy of protection: in Bangladesh (Turag River), Australia (Yarra River), and Canada (Magpie River). In Peru, besides Marañón River, Lake Titicaca was very recently declared a legal entity. In Europe, the Mar Menor ecosystem in Spain was declared a legal entity with its own rights for the first time in 2022.
Against this background, I invite interested scholars to investigate indigenous literature on all continents, through the lens of TEK transmission and documentation. I am interested to see how different indigenous literatures describe, detail and understand the indigenous relationship to nature. How do they highlight indigenous visions, customs, rules, rites and beliefs related to the articulation between the human and the non-human?
How do these understandings impact society, legality, culture?
How can these understandings help change the Western anthropocentric vision?
I would be happy to bring together scholars from all continents, possibly able to work on liQle-known original indigenous literary texts which can offer new insights into TEK.
Examples of interesting indigenous literature – without being exhaustive – would include literature wriQen by Northern Europe’s Sámi people, Siberian Nenets, Khanty, Evenki, Chukchi, Yakut/Sakha, etc., Canadian Métis and Inuit, Alaska’s Natives Yup’ik, Iñupiat, Tlingit, Aleut, etc., Greenland’s Kalaallit, American Navajo/Diné, Cherokee, Lakota, Ojibwe, Pueblo peoples, etc., Latin America’s Andean (Quechua, Aymara, etc.), Amazonian (Yanomami, Kayapó, Asháninka, Shuar, etc.) and Mesoamerican (Nahua, Maya, and Zapotec, etc.) peoples, New Zealand’s Māori, Aboriginal Australians, Native Hawaiians, various Polynesian, Melanesian, and Micronesian peoples (Samoans, Fijians, Kanak in New Caledonia, Chamorro in Guam, Papuans in Papua New Guinea) and African indigenous populations.
The publication is planned with a renowned publisher such as Springer, Bloomsbury, CUP or OUP.
Please send your abstract by 10 July 2026, together with your short bio and your academic CV to Alexandra Juster at Alexandra.Juster@uibk.ac.at.
Bibliography
Barrière, Olivier et al. (eds.) (2019): Coviability of Social and Ecological Systems: Reconnecting Mankind to the Biosphere in an Era of Global Change (2 vols.). Cham: Springer.
Barrière, Olivier (2022): “La solidarité écologique, lien de droit d’une interdépendance au vivant”, in
VertigO, special edition 37.
Camproux Duffrène, Marie-Pierre (2022): “Les communs naturels comme expression de la solidarité écologique”, in VertigO, special edition 37.
Descola, Philippe (2005): Par-delà nature et culture, Paris: Gallimard.
Escobar, Arturo (2018): Sentir-Penser avec la terre, une écologie au-delà de l’occident, Paris: Seuil-Anthropocène.
Gomez-Muller, Alfred (2024): Les droits de la Terre-Mère. Nature, Pachamama et buen vivir, Wildproject. Latour, Bruno (2020): Kampf um Gaia. Acht Vorträge über das neue Klimaregime, Berlin: Suhrkamp.
Liendo Tagle, Illa (2025): “Una victoria ambiental para las guardianas del lago Titicaca”, in El País, 13.11.2025.
Michelot, Agnès (2022): “Introduction: Ecological solidarity: what prospects for a new principle of environmental law?”, VertigO, special issue 37.
Pelizzon, Alessandro (2025): Ecological Jurisprudence. The Law of Nature and the Nature of Law, Cham: Springer.
Rametsteiner, Tina (2025): Rechte der Natur. Eine rechtsvergleichende Untersuchung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Rechte von Flüssen, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
Weydt, Elisabeth (2023): Die Natur hat Recht. Wenn Tiere, Wälder und Flüsse vor Gericht ziehen – für ein radikales Umdenken im Miteinander von Mensch und Natur, Munich: Knesebeck.
To apply for this job email your details to Alexandra.Juster@uibk.ac.at