Science education remains the last bastion of positivism, maintaining an epistemic hierarchy that privilege binary and individualistic views of life. This stance is even more problematic in contexts marked by coloniality, where the exclusion of indigenous knowledge perpetuates historical violence and limits the possibilities for epistemic justice.
In this research, I focus on teaching ‘what is life’ in biology through decolonial lenses, positioning ethnobiology as a bridge between worlds. Ethnobiology offers spaces for dialogue where scientific and indigenous conceptions of life meet for challenging dominant narratives and fostering relational understandings.
To put this approach into practice, I developed a pedagogical tool, a case study for science education, that introduces the question ‘What is life?’ through storytelling based on indigenous notions of life. The case study invites reflection on the political and pedagogical implications of science education and concludes with possibilities for transforming scientific concepts through learning with indigenous communities. This includes moving from the cell to the microbiome as the fundamental unity of life. By presenting this case study and its theoretical foundations to scholars involved in science education, my goal is to open a dialogue about how decolonial pedagogies can create spaces where multiple forms of knowledge coexist and inform each other.
Preliminary results from the interviews are presented. Placing indigenous knowledge at the centre for understanding life generates conflict. There is a persistent belief that the hegemony of science is disconnected from coloniality or other violent historical processes. This perception reinforces positivism and scientism, making it difficult to move beyond these paradigms in science classrooms. This research argues that recognising these tensions and adopting decolonial pedagogies is essential to transforming biology teaching for promoting epistemic justice.