The Epistemology of Resilience: Integrating Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge for Climate-Adapted African Livestock Systems

African livestock farmers have developed sophisticated knowledge systems for breeding climate-resilient animals over generations, observing behavioural patterns and survival across droughts and heat waves. Meanwhile, molecular scientists measure resilience through laboratory tests of animal genes and stress responses. Climate policymakers use yet another approach, relying on population-scale models and vulnerability indices. Each produces valuable insights, but these knowledge systems rarely communicate with each other. This project asks: what if we stopped trying to translate between these different ways of knowing and instead created frameworks that allow them to coexist as equals? Through intensive fieldwork with Nigerian pastoralists and molecular analysis, this project will develop a poly-epistemic framework that treats indigenous breeding knowledge and Western science as complementary partners rather than competitors. The goal is not just theoretical but a means of creating practical tools that help farmers, scientists, and policymakers work together on climate adaptation without dismissing anyone's expertise. The work challenges colonial assumptions about what counts as real knowledge and demonstrates what decolonial science can look like in practice: not critique alone, but constructive alternatives that serve Africa's most climate-vulnerable communities.