Living Heritage, Resilience and Ethically Informed Infrastructures in Malawi

Abstract Rooted in a rural community’s needs, this paper explores how historically, and ethically informed infrastructures can support community engagement towards identification, documentation, and dissemination of local, traditional, and indigenous knowledge relating to climate change. The paper examines climate adaptation and sustainability issues through the lenses of community organizing and Library & Information Science best practices. It draws on a growing body of literature identifying a role for expanded epistemological and subject discipline perspectives. While the impacts of climate on material culture are increasingly recognized, intangible, and biocultural heritage have not received as much attention. Living heritage traditions and knowledge systems provide pathways for community involvement and sharing of information about sustainable practices in relation to the environment. A Central Malawian community created the KEYS (Knowledge Elders, Youth Share) organization around local needs and knowledge systems relating to economic sustainability, agriculture, and climate change. Organizational infrastructure supports gender balance and participation across age cohorts. Community engagement includes arts and storytelling traditions. The dual cases examine how library initiatives and heritage structures might serve in broadening the range of narratives and data points available to scientific, cultural, and local communities – and how community-informed data of living heritage might benefit resilience in Africa and globally.