Evaluating the Loss of Indigenous Knowledge and Local Traditions in the Technical World: A PRISMA-ScR-Guided Scoping Review and Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Background: Indigenous and local knowledge systems encode centuries of accumulated observation about ecosystems, medicine, food, language, social organisation and ethics. Their erosion under conditions of technological modernity is widely asserted, yet the evidence for it is scattered across ecology, linguistics, anthropology, health sciences, education and digital studies, and is rarely examined as a single analytical problem. Objective: This paper evaluates the nature, magnitude, mechanisms and consequences of the loss of Indigenous knowledge and local traditions in the technical world, and tests whether the loss is best understood as passive decay, active displacement or adaptive transformation. Methods: A scoping review guided by the PRISMA-ScR reporting standard was applied to a supplied corpus of 117 records, which was screened against explicit eligibility criteria. The result was triangulated against a comparative evidence set of 17 landmark empirical studies, global assessments and institutional reports. Findings were synthesised thematically across eight disciplinary perspectives. Results: After removal of two records with incomplete bibliographic data and 29 off-scope records, 86 records were retained and mapped to six themes: traditional knowledge systems and practices (36.0%), digital society and algorithmic mediation (22.1%), education policy and quality assurance (17.4%), environment and climate (10.5%), language, culture and epistemology (7.0%) and research methodology (7.0%). The comparative evidence set shows that knowledge loss is measurable within a single generation, is tightly coupled to language endangerment, is accelerated by formal schooling, market integration and digital infrastructure, and carries concrete ecological and biomedical costs. A critical gap was identified: none of the 86 records was framed as a direct empirical measurement of knowledge loss in a community. Conclusions: Loss is neither uniform nor inevitable. It follows identifiable channels of displacement, epistemic devaluation, extraction and digital exclusion, each of which is amenable to policy. Safeguarding requires community-governed documentation, intergenerational transmission, institutional recognition and Indigenous data sovereignty rather than technological preservation alone.