--- title: "many ways of knowing, shared with care" canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/many-ways-of-knowing-shared-with-care markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/many-ways-of-knowing-shared-with-care.md subtitle: "keeping experience, research and meaning connected to the people and places they come from" category: philosophy --- # many ways of knowing, shared with care *keeping experience, research and meaning connected to the people and places they come from* A salmon count and a family's account of a river can concern the same water while answering different questions. One may help estimate a population. The other may explain a relationship, a responsibility, or why a change matters. Listening well means keeping those questions visible. It also means allowing the people who hold knowledge to decide how it travels. Ecological ways of knowing include scientific investigation, repeated field observation, practical stewardship, lived experience, and knowledge grounded in particular communities and traditions. People also describe spiritual connections and channeling experiences involving animals, plants, and places. A useful conversation can receive these contributions with their origins intact, then ask what each can support and what kind of response is appropriate. The practical starting point is an attributed account: what someone observed or experienced, how they understand it, and what they permit others to do with it. ## begin with the question being answered Suppose a creek looks different after a storm. A laboratory result could describe sediment in a sample. A person who visits every week could identify an unfamiliar deposit on a bank. Someone else might describe a sense of loss or a spiritual experience associated with that place. Those are illustrative possibilities, not reports from named people. They show why a single label such as “nature data” can hide important differences. For a measurement, ask about the instrument, method, time, units, sampling location, and uncertainty. For a personal account, ask whose experience it is, how the person describes it, and whether the account may be quoted. For community-held knowledge, begin with the community's own authority and protocols. A contribution can contain several parts. Someone might report an experience, interpret it as concern for a place, and propose a field visit. Keep each part identifiable. The experience belongs to its contributor. The proposed ecological explanation can be investigated. The field visit needs an appropriate person, permission, and purpose. This gives uncertainty somewhere to go without requiring every contribution to become the same kind of evidence. ## a river relationship can include instruments The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe's own published work offers a concrete example of why simple categories are inadequate. Its Fisheries Department describes salmon's cultural importance alongside monitoring of adult returns, juvenile migration, and spawning areas. It also describes using sonar observations and sampling to estimate fish populations. These activities belong to the Tribe's work and its relationships with the river. [Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe: Fisheries](https://www.elwha.org/departments/natural-resources/fisheries/). The Tribe's Habitat Restoration page describes identifying projects through monitoring and watershed analysis, then carrying out work including barrier corrections, stream-channel wood additions, and revegetation. [Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe: Habitat Restoration](https://www.elwha.org/departments/natural-resources/habitat-restoration/). Read that work in the Tribe's own terms. It does not authorize an outside platform to speak for the Tribe, supply an invented spiritual interpretation, or treat a public description as access to every underlying record. The lesson for a researcher or software builder is practical: preserve the knowledge holder's account of what the work is for. A technical description can explain a measurement while its governance explains who may use it and for whose benefit. ## authority travels with the source The Global Indigenous Data Alliance's CARE Principles place collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility, and ethics at the center of Indigenous data governance. They ask data practices to attend to people and purpose as well as technical sharing. These principles concern Indigenous Peoples' rights and interests; they are not a generic label for every spiritual practice or personal belief. [GIDA: CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance](https://www.gida-global.org/care-principles-copy). For someone receiving a contribution, this changes the first conversation. “Can we download it?” is only one question. Others include who has authority to share it, whether the proposed use fits its terms, how contributors will be represented, and who should review an interpretation. An individual's permission may cover their own account while leaving community-held material subject to another process. A publicly readable page can be cited within its terms without implying access to restricted knowledge. An invitation to discuss a project is also separate from permission to redistribute material or use it to train a model. Ask these questions before copying a source into a system that will circulate it further. ## a sharing template you can use The following is a conversation aid. It helps a contributor and a recipient agree on what is being offered before choosing a file format or integration. | question | what to record | |---|---| | What place, being, or relationship is involved? | The subject and relevant context, at a level of detail the contributor can share. | | What happened? | The observation or experience in the contributor's own words. | | How do you understand it? | The interpretation, its author, and any important alternatives. | | What supports a factual claim? | A method, source, recording, repeated observation, or proposed way to investigate it. | | Who may authorize this use? | The relevant person, organization, or community process. | | What may be shared? | The permitted audience, attribution, uses, and details to withhold. | | What would you like to happen next? | A discussion, review, investigation, or care proposal. | Leave room for “unknown,” “not for publication,” and “ask again before this use.” Agree on how corrections and changes to future access will be handled. Keep the contributor's words distinguishable from a later summary written by a person or an agent. ## give agents a source they can explain For claims and evidence, the aim is a record that retains these relationships. An agent should be able to explain who supplied an account, what interpretation it is using, and why a suggested next step follows. A personal or spiritual account may motivate a question or a consensual investigation. A conclusion about water chemistry requires a suitable measurement. A decision to intervene needs the authority of the people responsible for that place. These decisions can be related without treating one as automatic permission for another. Our proposed coordination layer follows that sequence: receive a contribution with its terms, make interpretations attributable, and connect an appropriate review to a possible response. Begin with a non-sensitive description so sharing arrangements can be discussed before restricted material changes hands. For the distinction between an assertion and a place-based reading, see [a claim is not a reading](/guide/a-claim-is-not-a-reading?from=guide). ## frequently asked questions ### what are ecological ways of knowing? They include the practices and relationships through which people learn about living systems: research, fieldwork, stewardship, experience, and community-held knowledge. State the particular method and context rather than assuming one phrase explains every tradition. ### can spiritual connection or channeling be part of a contribution? Yes. Describe whose experience it is, how they interpret it, and what may be shared. Keep any proposed testable ecological claim identifiable so an appropriate investigation can examine it. ### does sharing an account give permission to publish it? Agree on publication separately. Attribution, audience, future reuse, and model training are different uses and should be addressed explicitly with the relevant knowledge holders. ## share your perspective and terms If your work involves research, lived experience, spiritual connection, or a community-led approach to caring for a place, tell us what you would like to explore. A short non-sensitive description, a permitted public link, and your sharing preferences are enough to begin. [Share your perspective and terms](/contact?from=guide&topic=listening-across-species). ## sources [Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe: Fisheries](https://www.elwha.org/departments/natural-resources/fisheries/) — the Tribe's account of fish monitoring, fisheries, and cultural relationships. [Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe: Habitat Restoration](https://www.elwha.org/departments/natural-resources/habitat-restoration/) — the Tribe's account of its restoration methods and project identification. [Global Indigenous Data Alliance: CARE Principles](https://www.gida-global.org/care-principles-copy) — Indigenous data governance, people, purpose, and authority. ## the series Listening across species follows observations, interpretations and the care they could inform. 1. [what would it take to understand another species?](/guide/what-would-it-take-to-understand-another-species?from=guide) 2. [a whale calls back. what can we learn?](/guide/a-whale-calls-back-what-can-we-learn?from=guide) 3. [the plant has a signal. what does it mean?](/guide/the-plant-has-a-signal-what-does-it-mean?from=guide) 4. [one tree is a place to start](/guide/one-tree-is-a-place-to-start?from=guide) 5. [many ways of knowing, shared with care](/guide/many-ways-of-knowing-shared-with-care?from=guide) 6. [share the finding, protect the place](/guide/share-the-finding-protect-the-place?from=guide) 7. [from a signal to an act of care](/guide/from-a-signal-to-an-act-of-care?from=guide) 8. [bring one signal. help shape what happens next.](/guide/bring-one-signal-help-shape-what-happens-next?from=guide)