Indigenous and Local Knowledge’s Role in Social Movement’s Struggles Against Threats to Community-Based Natural Resource Management Systems: Insights from a Qualitative Meta-analysis

Despite the international consensus about the benefits of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) for sustainable resource governance, Indigenous peoples and local communities continue to face threats to their self-governance stemming from shortsighted government regulations, marginalization, and other global political economy forces. To contribute to scholarship on the impact of social movements on CBNRM organization and robustness, in this article we focus on the role that Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) plays in the social movement’s struggles against threats to their CBNRM system. Specifically, we present the results from a qualitative meta-analysis of 20 cases extracted from a previous literature review (Villamayor-Tomas & García-López 2018). Through our analyses we explore the extent to which different ILK dimensions are a) part of the baseline CBNRM system; b) impacted by the threats to the CBNRM system; c) mobilized by social movements in their struggle to defend the CBNRM system; and d) affected by the outcomes of the social movement’s struggle. Our results show that ILK is affected by threats to CBNRM both directly (e.g., via the erosion of ILK-based institutions that govern the CBNRM system) and indirectly (e.g., via the erosion of the natural environments in which ILK develops). We also highlight that social movements mobilize different ILK dimensions depending on the socio-political context, the locally perceived nature of threats, and the perceived importance of certain ILK dimensions for community cohesion and collective action strengthening. Finally, we reflect on how, although conceptualizing ILK dimensions and CBNRM system separately and formalizing their linkages might offer new research opportunities, ILK systems are holistic knowledge commons that are hard to disentangle from the physical commons in the context of CBNRM systems.