The Elder Tree Podcast

63. The Complexity of Knowledge: Prof. John Bradley on Sacred Herbalism

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Can knowledge belong to a place? Can knowledge belong to a people? And what happens when we force other cultures to prove that their ways of knowledge also have a place at the table? What is lost when we lose the ability to hold many perspectives at once, and what happens when languages that knowledge emerges from disappears? In this more-academic-than-usual (but hopefully still relevant and mind-bending) Stephanie Hazel interviews her university Anthropology lecturer, John Bradley. John taught Stephanie at UQ in 2006 on the topic of Indigenous Ethnoecology.

This conversation explores epistemic violence and the exclusion of non-western ways of knowing, and does this through stories about cycad palms, about university arrogance, and about Snow Lions disappearing with glaciers melting. John shares the real lived experience of the Yanyuwa people of Arnhem Land - what living 'in relationship' with the rest of ecology actually looks like through kin-centric ecologies.The conversation also highlights the loss of indigenous languages and knowledge and the role of language in preserving plant medicine knowledge.


If you want to read more about Yanyuwa kinships systems, here is a free pdf book about Yanyuwa Law, co-authored by John Bradley.

And here is another one a bit less about Law, and more about Kinship. Warning: both of these are heavy, but fascinating!


You can check John out on LinkedIn.



Key Points:

  • Unlearning is essential to include other ways of knowing and challenge Western-centric perspectives.
  • Cultural appropriation and epistemic violence occur when knowledge is taken without acknowledgment or understanding of its cultural context.
  • The loss of indigenous languages and knowledge poses a threat to the preservation of plant medicine knowledge. Traditional plant knowledge is complex and diverse, and it should be respected and embraced in herbal medicine practices.
  • There is a need to acknowledge and value the authority and complexity of Indigenous knowledge in herbal medicine.
  • Curiosity, imagination, and a willingness to embrace complexity are essential in understanding plants and their relationships.


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