Cat's Cradle as a Relational Framework in Mapping Traditional Knowledge: Herders of Kazakhstan, Farmers of the Italian South, and Tribal Communities of the US Gulf Coast

Melkozernova, Arina and Anayatova, Dilraba (2026) Cat's Cradle as a Relational Framework in Mapping Traditional Knowledge: Herders of Kazakhstan, Farmers of the Italian South, and Tribal Communities of the US Gulf Coast. The NORPAK Review, 1 (1). pp. 24-43.

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Abstract

Traditional Knowledge (TK) encompassing Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) is alive, adaptive, and relational. It is a continuously generated reciprocal relationship with the communities and more-than-human worlds. This article examines three geographically distinct cases – nomadic herders of Kazakhstan, peasant farmers of the Italian South, and tribal communities in the U.S. Gulf Coast, through frameworks of relationality, which integrate relational research and critical attention to disciplinary boundaries. Drawing on Haraway's cat's cradle as both metaphor and method, the article argues that TK systems are shaped by historically entangled epistemologies that resist binary frameworks opposing Western and Indigenous, modern and traditional, global and local knowledge. Through comparative analysis, the article traces a recurring pattern: dominant narratives, including the barbaric nomad, the backward peasant, and the vanishing Indian, have systematically delegitimized ‘subaltern’ TK as a mechanism of dispossession, yet all three communities maintained the relational logic of their knowledge systems. Resilience, the article argues, is not the preservation of knowledge intact but the maintenance of the reciprocal relationships through which knowledge is continuously regenerated.

Item Type:	Article
Publisher’s Statement:	The NORPAK Review is published by the Northern Research, Policy, and Arctic Knowledge Hub (NORPAK) and the Department of Sociology at Northern Arizona University. NORPAK and the Department of Sociology hold membership in the University of the Arctic (UArctic), an international network of universities, research institutes, and organizations engaged in northern and Arctic research and education.
Keywords:	Traditional Knowledge, Cat’s Cradle, Resilience, Dominant Narrative, Relationality
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Department/Unit:	Journals > The NORPAK Review
Date Deposited:	02 Oct 2026 18:17
Last Modified:	02 Oct 2026 18:17
URI:	https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/6371

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