From pumpkin seeds to sustainable futures: Folklore as cultural intelligence for the SDGs
What if the path to achieving the SDGs lies not in more technology, but in the cultural wisdom embedded in everyday practices? From pumpkin seeds to ecological rituals, folkloristics offers insights for building sustainable, equitable, and resilient futures.
In 1976, folklorist MacBarrick documented a curious belief: eating pumpkin seeds could prevent bedwetting. At first glance, it might seem like harmless superstition, one more curious custom woven into family folklore. Yet beneath this modest detail lies a profound lesson.
Communities historically devised strategies of care using the resources around them, sustaining health, identity, and cohesion when formal institutions fell short.
Today, in 2025, these fragments of folklore demand renewed attention. They matter not because pumpkin seeds "cure" ailments, but because they reveal the cultural logics of survival: how communities made meaning, built trust, and maintained cohesion in uncertain times. In a world striving to meet the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), folkloristics emerges not as a relic of the past, but as a living form of cultural intelligence capable of guiding societies towards equitable and resilient futures.
Folklore, health, and community resilience
MacBarrick's pumpkin seed remedy illustrates how families crafted their own responses to health challenges in the absence of accessible medical care. Giving a child pumpkin seeds was more than a dietary act—it was a symbolic practice that reassured parents, calmed anxieties, and restored a sense of control.
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Such practices remind us that health is never purely clinical; it is always cultural. Narratives of healing, rituals of care, and symbolic acts shape how people interpret their bodies, make health decisions, and respond to interventions.
Even in today's technologically advanced world, crises of trust persist. Vaccine hesitancy, misinformation, and the alienation of technical systems from local contexts often undermine well-intentioned health initiatives. Folklore offers lessons for culturally grounded approaches, emphasising engagement, respect, and inclusion. For SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), this approach ensures that global health strategies resonate with local belief systems, making interventions more effective and humane.
The pumpkin seed story also highlights how rituals build belonging. Remedies were passed across generations, weaving individuals into the social fabric. They cultivated patience, responsibility, and interdependence. Modern cities, while technologically sophisticated, risk becoming socially shallow—producing proximity without connection and mobility without continuity.
Integrating folklore into education, public spaces, and urban planning can counter fragmentation. Festivals, storytelling, and design practices that honour cultural memory foster community cohesion, supporting SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities).
Equity, inclusion, and cultural knowledge
Folkloristics originates from lived experience, validating the insights of ordinary people—farmers, healers, parents, and elders—who have historically been excluded from formal authority. Every tradition, no matter how humble, contributes to knowledge. Dismissing folklore as superstition risks silencing these voices.
For SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), folkloristics promotes epistemic justice, recognising marginalised groups as co-creators of solutions rather than passive recipients of policy. Incorporating local wisdom into governance, education, and development empowers communities to shape interventions, ensuring that solutions are culturally grounded and socially inclusive.
Ecological intelligence embedded in tradition
Beyond health and social cohesion, folklore carries ecological knowledge. Rituals surrounding planting, harvesting, food preservation, and seasonal cycles encode strategies for balancing human needs with natural rhythms. Seeds, like pumpkin seeds, symbolise continuity, sustenance, and survival. Whether through rotational planting, communal storage, or water-conservation rituals, these practices represent centuries of adaptive cultural technologies.
Modern folklorists collaborate with ecologists and community members to adapt traditional knowledge for contemporary challenges. This collaborative approach aligns with SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals), transforming folklore from static memory into actionable strategies for resilience, sustainability, and equity.
In an era of climate crisis, such knowledge is invaluable. Folklore can inspire sustainable diets, regenerative agriculture, and waste reduction practices that communities trust and adopt. For SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and SDG 13 (Climate Action), integrating traditional ecological wisdom ensures that initiatives are not imposed externally but evolve from cultural practice.
Modern folklorists collaborate with ecologists and community members to adapt traditional knowledge for contemporary challenges. Community story mapping, behavioural design, and participatory decision-making embed folklore into urban and environmental planning, guiding water conservation, recycling, and youth mental health initiatives. This collaborative approach aligns with SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals), transforming folklore from static memory into actionable strategies for resilience, sustainability, and equity.
Folkloristics as a forward-looking strategy
The SDGs risk remaining abstract policy checklists unless they are lived and experienced. Folkloristics fills this gap, providing cultural infrastructure that transforms technical goals into human practices.
For SDG 3, it highlights that health must be approached both culturally and clinically. For SDG 10, it ensures marginalised voices are recognised in decision-making. For SDG 11, it embeds rituals of belonging to prevent social fragmentation. For SDGs 12 and 13, it preserves ecological wisdom for sustainable adaptation. Across all goals, folkloristics provides the imagination and practical knowledge required to convert abstract objectives into everyday realities.
The pumpkin seed as a metaphor for possibility
MacBarrick's 1976 note on pumpkin seeds may have seemed trivial, but it symbolises resilience, hope, and human ingenuity. Folkloristics demonstrates how ordinary practices carry extraordinary insights. It shows that sustainability, equity, and community cohesion are not imposed from above—they emerge from lived culture, nurtured by trust, meaning, and shared practice.
The pumpkin seed, therefore, is not just a folk remedy. It is a seed of possibility: the symbol of a future where communities thrive, development honours human dignity, and ecological balance is integrated into daily life. In 2025, folkloristics offers a blueprint for turning the SDGs from abstract targets into lived, culturally resonant realities.
Abdullah Al Mamun, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Folklore and Social Development Studies at the University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Business Standard.
