Locally Based, Globally Relevant

Locally Based, Globally Relevant

Location: North Lobby Gallery
Opening: August 26th, 2024
Lead Curator: Kaila Cogdill, Curator of Collections Impact
Guest Curator: Dr. Eduardo S. Brondizio, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University

Locally Based, Globally Relevant is an interactive exhibition showing the importance and scale of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities along six pathways.

1. Land & Water Management
2. Conservation & Restoration
3. Assessment & Monitoring Practices
4. Reclamation & Resistance Movement
5. Environmental Governance
6. People’s Relationship to Nature.

Comprised of nearly half a billion people globally with over 5,000 groups and 4,000 languages, Indigenous Peoples hold the territorial rights to and manage over a quarter of the global land surface, including the planet's most well-conserved ecosystems. Their contributions are locally based, but influence entire regional landscapes and have global relevance for biodiversity and climate action. More broadly, Indigenous knowledge and worldviews offer alternative ways of understanding, interacting, and living with nature.

Six case studies are used to illustrate the impact of Indigenous knowledge and understanding in these domains, offering alternative ways of thinking about the relationship between nature and humanity that have global impacts.

Acknowledgments

IUMAA would like to acknowledge the following for their support: IU Office of the Vice-President for Humanities, IU Working Group on Indigenous Futures, Authors of the Local Biodiversity Outlook and the Forest Peoples Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Authors of the ‘global land map of Indigenous lands’ Garnett et al. 2018, Authors of the article “Locally based, regionally manifested, globally relevant: Indigenous and local knowledge, values, and practices for nature” Brondizio et al. 2021, and Theresa Quill, IU Map and Spatial Data Librarian.

About Dr. Eduardo S. Brondizio

Dr. Eduardo S. Brondizio is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Director of the Center for the Analysis of Social-Ecological Landscapes, and Senior Fellow at the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University-Bloomington and holds external professorship with the Environment and Society program (NEPAM) at the University of Campinas, Brazil. On the ground and at the regional level, Dr. Brondizio’s work has documented, examined, and responded to the social-environmental transformation and governance challenges of Amazonia.

His research has contributed new methodologies for linking ethnographic research, household and community surveys, institutional analysis, Indigenous and local knowledge, and geospatial analysis, contributing to multiscalar understandings of land-use processes such as deforestation and reforestation, agricultural intensification, migration and urbanization, the value-chain of biodiversity products, population vulnerability to climate change, and the governance of complex landscape arrangements. He has contributed to numerous international initiatives on global environmental and climate change and sustainability.

Dr. Brondizio served as co-chair of the Global Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) and the United States National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and an international member of the French Academy of Agriculture (AAF). In 2023, Dr. Brondizio was awarded the Volvo Environmental Prize.