Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science

by Jessica Hernandez

My credentials were something I had to seek in order to somewhat receive recognition and some validation for the ancestral knowledge I carry. This has not been an easy journey as under Western science my ancestral and Indigenous knowledge is invalidated. I have often been asked to cite my lived experiences under the guise of Western academia because oral stories are not as valuable as peer-reviewed journal articles. We, as Indigenous peoples, have often been asked to do this because, for academia, lived experiences and perspectives are not important unless they have been developed into a framework or theory.

Oftentimes, we as a society become naive to the oppression that governments enact, especially those of us with power and privilege.