Strategies for including communication of non-Western and indigenous knowledges in science communication histories

Publication date
Wednesday, 15 Apr 2020
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By Lindy Orthia in Journal of Science Communication

How a discipline's history is written shapes its identity.

Accordingly, science communicators opposed to cultural exclusion may seek cross-cultural conceptualizations of science communication's past, beyond familiar narratives centred on the recent West.

Here I make a case for thinking about science communication history in these broader geotemporal terms.

I discuss works by historians and knowledge keepers from the Indigenous Australian Yorta Yorta Nation who describe a geological event their ancestors witnessed 30,000 ybp and communicated about over generations to the present.

This is likely one of the oldest examples of science communication, warranting a prominent place in science communication histories.