• Women's Studies Review
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.3-36
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• 2010

This paper is based on the certain point that 'the indigenous', which have long been occupied by the Asian patriarchy or the local communities, now calls for the repositioning in the feminist context. 'The indigenous', in one part, generally refer to the matured long-standing traditions and practices of certain regional, or local communities, as a mode of a place specific way of endowing the world with integral meaning. In the narrow definition, it points to the particular form of placed based knowledge for survival, for example, the useful knowledge of a population who have lived experiences of the environment. In the other part, 'the indigenous' could be criticized in the gender perspectives because it has been served as an ideological tool for patriarchy and sexism, which have undermined women's body and subjectivity in the name of the Asian traditional community. That's why the feminists with sensitivity to the discourses of it, may perceive it very differently, still hesitating dealing with the problem. However, even if there are tendencies that the conservatives romanticize local traditions and essentialize 'the indigenous', as it were, it does not exist 'out there'. Then, it could be scrutinized in the contemporary context which, especially, needs to seek the possibility towards the alternatively post - develope mental knowledge system. In the face of global economic crisis which might be resulted from the instrumentalized or fragmented knowledge production system, it's holistic conceptions that human, society, and nature should not be isolated from each other. is able to give an insightful thinking. It will work in the restraint condition that we reconceptualize the indigenous knowledge not as an unchanging artefact of a timeless culture, but as a dynamic, living and culturally meaningful system towards the ecofeminstic indigenous knowledge. And then, indigenous renaissance phenomena which empower non-western culture and knowledge system and generate increased consciousness of cultural membership. Thus, this paper argues that the indigenous knowledges which have been underestimated in the western-centered knowledge-power relations, could be reconstructed as a potential resources of ecological civility transnationally which reconnect individuals and societies with nature.