This volume presents a selection of articles aimed at introducing the field of local knowledge to a local and international audience. Based upon the theme “Retracing Tradition for a Sustainable Future,” the articles detail local practices that reflect local wisdom in various domains of knowledge such as literature, architecture, water management, tourism, dance and drama. This collection of articles embodies an important, tangible initiative by Universiti Sains Malaysia Local Knowledge Secretariat to identify and retrace indigenous local knowledge, besides documenting and conserving local wisdom for future generations. It presents an important resource for researchers and students interested in exploring the under-researched area of local knowledge and indigenous science in the Malaysian context.

Global Perspectives on Eco-Aesthetics and Eco-Ethics: A Green Critique focuses on the interface of the Anthropocene, sustainability, ecological aesthetics, multispecies relationality, and the environment as reflected in literature and culture. This book examines how writers have addressed ecological crises and environmental challenges that transcend national, cultural, political, social, and linguistic borders. It demonstrates how, as the environmental humanities developed and emerged as a critical discipline, it generated a diverse range of interdisciplinary fields of study such as ecographics, ecodesign, ecocinema, ecotheology, ecofeminism, ethnobotany, ecolinguistics, and bioregionalism, and formed valuable, interdisciplinary networks of critique and advocacy—and its contemporary expansion is exceptionally salient to social, political, and public issues today.

Local knowledge worldwide is rapidly declining. Since local knowledge is passed from generation through oral tradition the chances of it being documented are low. Further to that, scientific knowledge sometimes cannot provide solutions to management and development problems. This book attempts to show that local knowledge and scientific knowledge have similarities in how they are obtained, however local knowledge has a further and more complex spiritual existence practised through cultural rituals or myths. Local knowledge has many applications in agriculture, water management, agroforestry and environmental management and when combined with science have greater uses to solve local problems at hand.

This book deals with local knowledge as a valuable source of practical solutions to enhance the sustainability of modern life. It is an eclectic collection of papers written in English that explores various aspects of indigenous, local knowledge in the Asia-Pacific region. Encompassing the gamut of human sciences: performance, dance, literature, arts and craft, architecture, local traditions, religious knowledge, teaching and learning, traditional conservation and healing practices. This book will add on to publication to make local knowledge, especially from the Malay world, accessible to a global non-specialist (read non-anthropologist) readership. The editors have intentionally chosen to classify the topics to embody the transdisciplinary nature of knowledge in this region.

Education in Indigenous, Nomadic and Travelling Communities provides a thorough examination of up-to-date case studies of educational provision to travelling communities and indigenous people in their homelands or in host countries. Education is usually under-utilised during phases of transition. In many instances, indigenous groups and travelling people, including nomads, do not have educational opportunities equal to that of their settled counterpart-citizens. For such groups, this results in early school leaving, high school drop-out rates, low school attendance and low success rates. Indeed, indigenous, traveling and nomadic groups often begin their working life at an early age and often experience difficulties penetrating the formal employment arena. In this volume international researchers analyse the internal and external factors affecting educational provision to travelling, nomadic and indigenous groups. A comparative examination of the issues is enabled through the global case studies including the Roma people in Europe; indigenous groups in Malaysia; the Gypsies of England; the Travellers of Ireland; the Sami nomadic people of Scandinavia and Russia as well as the Amazonian Indians of Latin America.

This book draws on elements of critical social theory, research on globalization, neo liberalism and education, and Malaysian Studies to understand the interplay of globalization, nationalism, cultural politics and ethnicized neoliberalism in shaping the educational reforms in Malaysia. Using the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 (MEB) as a case study, a catalyst and a context, this collection critically explores some of the complex historical and contemporary push-pull politics and factors shaping Malaysia’s education system, its reform and the experience of Malaysians – and others – within it. The authors in this volume focus on the interplay of neoliberalism, nationalism, ethnic and cultural politics in shaping the educational reforms in Malaysia. Their work captures and seeks to understand the enduring, though changing, hierarchy of access and differentiated rights to educational, social and economic resources and opportunities experienced by different individuals and collectives, including those involved in the neoliberal enterprise of international education. It looks at how inequities have been re-configured in different educational spaces in Malaysia, and at how these inequities have been addressed through reform policies and practices. The book will be a shaper and critical contributor to the assessment of the Malaysian Education Blueprint and related policies. It will also have wider relevance globally as a critical approach to policy discussion.

In the series of Local Knowledge publication, this book particularly deals with empowering local knowledge further, towards a more globalized vision. It is an anthology of copious articles that delves deeper into stabilizing the establishment of local knowledge and preservation of archaic knowledge, literature, traditions and culture in the Asia-Pacific region. This book pushes the boundaries of mediocrity by going to great lengths and course in its research to interpret and preserve certain dying knowledge of local cultures and literature. Mostly, the methods used in compiling these local wisdoms and memories is by immortalizing the knowledge though oral account where the gist of the research is transcribed and discussed in the articles presented in this book. This book also highlights the different perspectives of looking at local knowledge that it has subscribed to. This compilation presents how local knowledge of various disciplines is considered in different fields such as local art, political science, business and tourism and traditional folklore. The cosmic approach to looking at local knowledge through these various fields provides a holistic review of local knowledge.

This book presents local knowledge about issues on life, science and technology. It presents the related science and technology knowledge, new applications or developments that have taken place based on local knowledge. It consists of papers that illustrate the contribution of local knowledge to scientific investigation, unearth unknown or little known significance of local plant and animal resources, as well as their management and conservation. The argument for the importance of modern techniques to increase the supply of natural resources through scientific manipulations is clear. However, traditional methods that ensure better quality and resilience is recommended. Integration of the traditional with the modern is explored, using disaster management strategies and integrative health care system as examples. Another aspect explored in this book is the changing food culture among the three main ethnics groups in Malaysia due to their interactions within a multicultural society. This book also highlights the contribution of local knowledge in developing animation technology. Experimentation with GIS technology in the performing arts to map a dance performance is an example of trans-disciplinary collaboration between technology and the arts. This book serves to expand knowledge in science and technology that deals with local knowledge, and make it accessible to a wider, global audience beyond the Malay world.

Major religious traditions have begun to reflect on sustainability concerns in their theology and practice. Little research, however, has explored the implications of this development for organizational behavior as well as secular thinkers and practitioners of sustainable development. This book elucidates the varied ways in which faith traditions provide new forms of coping mechanisms to deal with environmental challenges confronting humanity through an integrative review and critical analysis of recent research. Bringing together a compendium of religious and faith traditions, rooted in both Eastern and Western approaches, the work provides a new perspective and presents alternative paradigms to deal with the contemporary ecological crises. The UN Interfaith Statement on Climate Change (2021) highlights the importance of faith traditions to foster “shared moral responsibility for the environment” and set an example for the “life-style of billions of people and political leaders around the world to act more boldly in protecting people and planet.” This interdisciplinary work examines the interaction between management/organizational settings and spirituality focusing on a range of contexts and spiritual traditions including Buddhism, Sikhism, Christianity, Confucianism, mindfulness practices and indigenous spiritual traditions. Featuring theoretical papers and case studies from different contexts and geographical regions, this book provides researchers, faculty, students, and practitioners with a broad overview of the field from a research perspective, while keeping an eye on building a bridge between scholarship and practice.