In this review of Hearsay is not excluded by Michael Dove (2024) in the Journal of Political Ecology, Hatib Kadir explores the uneasy boundary between science and people’s everyday knowledge.

Abstract

Following Rumphius, Linnaeus, Wallace, and Conklin, the review shows how early naturalists integrated local knowledge into their work before modern science increasingly separated itself from everyday practices, stories, and so-called “hearsay.”

The result is a history of both discovery and disconnection, where culture and nature, local expertise and formal science, drifted apart. Rather than rejecting science, the piece urges us to rethink and relisten to ordinary people's voices that have long been ignored -including myths, beliefs, spirits, traditional practices, daily observations, prayers and chants, and poems- and to embrace them to understand the changes in the natural world that have suffered from climate crises and global pandemics.

Author

Hatib Kadir

Journal

Journal of Political Ecology 33-1

22-03-2026

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