The Idea of Indigenous Knowledge

The idea of ‘indigenous knowledge’ is a relatively recent phenomenon that, amongst other things, constitutes part of a challenge to ‘western’ thinking and conceptualization. Advocates of indigenous knowledge maintain that its study has profound educational and ethical relevance and also emphasise its significance in antiracist, antisexist and postcolonialist discourse, in general, and in terms of the ‘African Renaissance’, in particular. This paper argues the following: (1) ‘indigenous knowledge’ involves at best an incomplete, partial or, at worst, a questionable understanding or conception of knowledge; (2) as a tool in anti-discrimination and anti-repression discourse, ‘indigenous knowledge’ is largely inappropriate. I show, further, that in the development of ‘knowledge’, following some necessary conceptual readjustments in our understanding of this term, there is considerably greater common ground than admitted by theorists. It is this acknowledgement, not adherence to a popular concept of debatable plausibility that has profound educational, ethical and political consequences.     

The Sharing of Knowledge to Gain a Competitive Advantage by Small Businesses in Africa: Some critical comments

The application of knowledge management methods by small businesses in Africa can contribute to the continent's growth rate. Africa's wealth lies in its human resources, and in its indigenous knowledge. Investing in the intellectual development of African people, and preserving their indigenous knowledge is an important route towards sustainable development. If small African businesses learn to apply knowledge management methods — particularly the SECI model in order to preserve and use their indigenous knowledge in their local markets, they will indeed reach new horizons of competitive advantage and market profitability.     

Cultural Geography of American Foodways: An Annotated Bibliography

Despite recent interest in indigenous knowledge, few studies have linked it with indigenous beliefs system and its role in environmental stewardship. This link is important to cultural geographers interested in the study of small-scale cultural groups and how they relate to the environment. It also helps us understand the cultural dimensions of environmental stewardship and resource conservation. Based on a study of a monkey sanctuary in Ghana, West Africa, this paper argues that indigenous belief systems form an essential part of indigenous knowledge and that they can serve as a very effective tool for the protection of sacred groves and isolated patches of rainforests that have fallen victim to development as a result of increasing globalization, population pressures, and the spread of Christianity. The paper concludes that indigenous beliefs are not just a relic of the past but something that is needed today and may be needed in future for the conservation of natural resources in indigenous societies.     

Beyond convention: reimagining indigenous tourism

As a knowledge domain, contemporary indigenous tourism is framed in reference to cultures conventionally recognized as ‘indigenous,’ and engages this almost exclusively from a supply-side perspective. This paper reimagines indigeneity and indigenous tourism as embracing also the other 94% of global population. From a utilitarian perspective, this inclusion of ‘nonconventional indigenous people’ harbors opportunities to advance the sustainability agenda by reconnecting modern mainstream cultures, through personal exposure in dispersed settings, with ancestral roots and associated sustainable livelihoods. Such reconnections are framed as a form of re-indigenization that may be especially attractive to ‘travel promiscuous’ diasporic populations such as those found in the ‘settler’ countries of Canada, United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Articulation of this concept could be facilitated by existing knowledge domains and products in heritage tourism, rural tourism, and urban tourism, as well as sustainable tourism. Rather than usurping conventional indigenous efforts to re-indigenize and re-empower, it is contended that the nonconventional dimension can coexist with and even reinforce the latter, while enriching the dimensions of indigenous tourism as a dynamic knowledge domain.     

Living a Long Way from Home: Communicating Land-related Knowledge in Dispersed Indigenous Communities,an Alternative Approach

Many indigenous communities are at a crossroads as regards lived experience of traditional livelihoods and members with intimate knowledge of their traditional landscapes. Using case studies from two indigenous communities, this article explores the application of both GIS tools and other geographic multimedia in community-based research projects that document landscape-related knowledge. The study involves a First Nation community in British Columbia, Canada and a Sámi community in Finnmark County, Norway. We discuss how land-use traditions and related knowledge constitute a peoples' identity and explore digital means of transferring this knowledge to support the ongoing transfer of indigenous knowledge between geographically dispersed community members, as well as future generations.     

Development at the Edge of Difference: Rethinking Capital and Market Relations from Lugu Lake,Southwest China

This paper rethinks the relationships between capitalist development in indigenous places and the fabric of local differences and specificities. It first develops a critical appraisal of the celebration of ethnic identities, local agency and indigenous knowledge in existing literatures. It suggests that, based on such insights, we can further envision the possibility of questioning and problematising the ontology and concept of the capitalist economy. Above all, this paper is interested in non-capitalist factors percolating into capitalist economies and creating fissures in their logical and ontological coherence. It examines how capitalist economies depend on local specificities to achieve particular configurations. We elucidate this argument with a case study of indigenous development in Lugu Lake, Southwest China, which is inhabited by the ethnic Mosuo people. Through the dual lenses of land and labour, we pay special attention to the transition from grassroots development initiatives to heavy dependence on exogenous capital and entrepreneurs.     

Examining the Potential of Indigenous Institutions for Development: A Perspective from Borana,Ethiopia

This article examines an institutional approach to development in which indigenous institutions are viewed as a resource for achieving development. It concentrates on indigenous natural resource management (NRM) institutions which have been seen by some development agencies to be a means to address the needs of people and the environment in a way that is also participatory. Using material from Borana, Ethiopia, the article describes the indigenous NRM institutions and examines the outcome of one attempt to work with them. In the process, it shows that partnerships between development agencies and indigenous NRM institutions are often fragile, and tend to dissolve when they fail to meet the preconceptions of the developers. Through an examination of this approach to development, the article also examines the usefulness of recent broad approaches to institutions.     

The Maritime Cultural Landscape of Northern Patagonia

This article is a contribution to the study of the indigenous navigation and its boats in the region of northern Patagonia. This article also aims to contribute to the understanding of indigenous navigation practices and technologies and their origins from prehistoric times to the mid-twentieth century. It presents and discusses the concept of Westerdahl’s Maritime Cultural Landscape in relation to other landscape concepts. This model is applied to northern Patagonia in order to discuss if it is possible to speak of a true maritime culture in the region. For this purpose, archaeological, historical and ethnographic data are presented in an integrative and innovative methodology for the discipline. Finally, the Maritime Cultural Landscape model will allow the integration of aquatic and terrestrial landscapes as routes traveled by native inhabitants of northern Patagonia and southern Chile, and propose an important and diversified maritime, river and lake tradition.     

中国传统文物观初探

传统文物观是中华民族数千年来形成并发展变化的对文物的思想认识。文物承载的历电记录和文化内涵使人们很早就意识到文物彰显着人类文明发展的进程。原始崇拜和祖先崇拜的玉器、反映宗法等级的青铜器、精美绝伦的瓷器、卷帙浩瀚的经史典籍、历代名家的书法绘画等丰富多样的文物皆蕴含着千年历吏积淀而未显题化的中国传统文物观,需要我们去理解和诠释。本文尝试对中国传统文物观的发端、形成进行探寻,就思想、文化、艺术、财富等方面在中国传统文物观中的反映略作剖析。     

INTEGRATING INDIGENOUS AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE BASES FOR DISASTER RISK REDUCTION IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA

In investigating ways to reduce community vulnerability to environmental hazards it is essential to recognize the interaction between indigenous and scientific knowledge bases. Indigenous and scientific knowledge bases are dynamic entities. Using a Process Framework to identify how indigenous and scientific knowledge bases may be integrated, three communities impacted upon by environmental hazards in Papua New Guinea, a Small Island Developing State, have established how their vulnerability to environmental hazards may be reduced. This article explores the application of the framework within the communities of Kumalu, Singas and Baliau, and how this could impact upon the future management of environmental hazards within indigenous communities in Small Island Developing States.     

Proving Fishers Right. Effects of the Integration of Experience-Based Knowledge in Ecosystem-Based Management

Abstract

This article discusses effects of and drivers behind the current integration of experience-based knowledge in management. The case in point is production and integration of fishers' ecological knowledge (FEK) in coastal zone management in Norway. The article discusses how the principles of social justice and protection of biodiversity drive FEK integration, through analysing a case of conflict between small-scale fishers and cod farming in Storfjord, northern Norway. The case became known for the appearance of deformed “monster cod” which supported the fishers' claims that fish farming was harmful to the environment and thus also to the indigenous Sami culture. Assessing how FEK was judged in terms of its credibility, legitimacy and saliency, the article argues that the criteria by which FEK is judged are different from how other types of policy-relevant knowledge is judged. In addition to being scientifically credible, its quality as age-old knowledge derived from interaction with the environment increases its influence on management decisions in biodiversity conservation controversies where fishers' and managers' interests coincide. The article concludes that integration of FEK in management both fulfils goals of protection of biodiversity and social justice, which makes it harder to ignore in socially and environmentally controversial contexts in the future.     

Indigenous claims and heritage conservation: an opportunity for critical dialogue

Abstract

Indigenous claims of ownership and access to material culture challenge the field of heritage conservation. This article illustrates how indigenous concerns conflict with basic constructs of Western conservation, and how conservators respond to these claims. Despite efforts of inclusion, relatively few conservation projects integrate indigenous knowledge with scientific research. Redistribution of conservation authority is rarely put into practice. The article concludes by pointing to conservation as a meeting ground where collaborative decisions can be made about material culture on display. Conflict negotiation in conservation presents a potential forum for cultural representation and contested meaning of objects on display.     

The Green Frog and Desalination: A Nyungar Metaphor for the (Mis‐)Management of Water Resources,Swan Coastal Plain,Western Australia

ABSTRACT In common with Aboriginal groups around Australia, the indigenous people, or Nyungars, of Perth adopt a holistic attitude towards groundwater resources. Of cultural significance are lakes, springs, soaks and watercourses that feature in Dreamtime creation narratives. Perth is experiencing major water shortages and many Nyungars feel that the degradation of the freshwater supply is a result of mismanagement and unsustainable development by non‐Aboriginal people. Proposals for dealing with the issue are seen as equally out of balance with the natural order of things. Water regulators have much to learn from indigenous Australians about water and environmental management. Although water continues to be central to Nyungar identity, the study on which this article is based found evidence of attenuated knowledge about the Dreaming, with discontinuities evident in the way significance is increasingly being read in everyplace rather than in specific ‘story places’.     

Negotiating Cultural Heritage? Aboriginal–Mining Company Agreements in Australia

Mining and other forms of industrial development can result in profound and often irreversible damage to the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples. Fear of such damage regularly results in indigenous opposition to development and, in many cases, to delays in construction of development projects or even to their abandonment. Government legislation has generally proved ineffective in protecting indigenous heritage. An alternative means of achieving protection arises from the growing recognition of indigenous land rights and the opportunity this creates for negotiations with mining companies regarding the terms on which indigenous landowners may support development. To evaluate the potential efficacy of negotiated approaches, this article analyses forty‐one agreements between mining companies and Aboriginal peoples in Australia. It argues that negotiated agreements do have the potential to protect indigenous cultural heritage, but only where underlying weaknesses in the bargaining position of indigenous peoples are addressed. This finding has wider implications given that negotiation and agreement making are increasingly being promoted as a means of addressing the structural disadvantages faced by indigenous peoples and of resolving conflicts between them and dominant societies.     

Ethnicity, development and gender: Tsáchila indigenous women in Ecuador

In recent decades, indigenous populations have become the subjects and agents of development in national and international multicultural policy that acknowledges poverty among indigenous peoples and their historic marginalization from power over development. Although the impact of these legal and programmatic efforts is growing, one persistent axis of disadvantage, male–female difference, is rarely taken into account in ethno-development policy and practice. This article argues that assumptions that inform policy related to indigenous women fail to engage with indigenous women's development concerns. The institutional separation between gender and development policy (GAD) and multiculturalism means that provisions for gender in multicultural policies are inadequate, and ethnic rights in GAD policies are invisible. Drawing on post-colonial feminism, the paper examines ethnicity and gender as interlocking systems that structure indigenous women's development experiences. These arguments are illustrated in relation to the case of the Tsáchila ethno-cultural group in the South American country of Ecuador.     

Ethnodevelopment: Social Movements, Creating Experts and Professionalising Indigenous Knowledge in Ecuador

Indigenous social movements have become important development actors in recent years. As the targets of "socially inclusive" neoliberal policies and protagonists in global anti‐capitalist movements, the position of these social movements in mainstream development is often ambivalent. This ambivalence reflects contradictions between economic neoliberalism and goals of social development as well as different understandings and practices in development‐with‐identity. We explore the relationship between the institutionalisation of ethnodevelopment and the creation of indigenous experts through indigenous social movements' engagement in popular training that emphasises indigenous knowledge. Drawing on Michael Watt's notion of governable spaces of indigeneity, we examine how institutionalisation is occurring in a range of ways that establish new alliances and cut across scales. Analysing the politics occurring at the development policy interface, we focus on the processes of representation, negotiation and embodiment involved in indigenous professionalisation, as activism shapes "scaled up" policy making.     

Competitive Advantage in the Irish Indigenous Software Industry and the Role of Inward Foreign Direct Investment

Since the mid-1980s, the software industry has been one of the fastest growing sectors of the Irish economy. This article examines the causes of the degree of success which the Irish indigenous software industry has attained in terms of growth and international competitiveness. In exploring the development of its competitive advantage we examine, in turn, the role of Irish factor conditions, domestic demand conditions, related and supporting industries, and firm strategy, structure and rivalry, in accordance with Porter's (1990) 'diamond' model. In doing this, we pay close attention to the role of foreign-owned transnational corporations (TNCs) in Ireland in influencing the development and competitive advantage of the indigenous software industry. This is a relevant issue in view of the simultaneous rapid development of the indigenous and foreign-owned branches of the industry, and also the strong growth among other, possibly related, TNC-dominated sectors such as computers and telecommunications equipment. This paper shows that the Irish indigenous software industry has had a strong competitive performance. There is no single outstanding reason for this; rather, causes can be found in all four of Porter's suggested determinants of competitive advantage, so that it is the combination of a range of favourable influences that has proved effective. However, the case of the Irish indigenous software industry shows how foreign TNCs can indeed have a significant positive influence on indigenous competitive advantage.     

Towards a More Critical Theory of ‘Development’ in the 21st Century

In response to the article by Horner and Hulme which opens this Debate section, this contribution argues that while the call for a shift from international to global development by Horner and Hulme is justified, their approach is confined to what has been called traditional or problem‐solving theory. On the levels of concepts, theory and metatheory, it fails to transcend orthodox approaches in development theory. Concerning concepts, it employs the traditional concept of ‘development’ without recognizing its ambiguity, referring at different times to social change, positive social change or social change according to the European model. Concerning theory, it is based on the nation state as a unit of analysis, not differentiating between different socio‐economic groups or classes, and neglects questions of power. Concerning metatheory, its knowledge interest, epistemology and methodology also remain within orthodox boundaries, for example reproducing the measurement of aggregate per capita income and its evaluation as progress. In the last section of this article, the author presents an outline sketch for a more critical theory of ‘development’.     

Magic darts and messenger molecules: Toward a phytoethnography of indigenous Amazonia

Recent scientific findings on plant intelligence are forcing anthropologists to reconsider indigenous theories of plant vitality. In this article, the authors compare original ethnographic and ethnobotanical research among two different peoples from opposite extremes of lowland South America – the Makushi of Guyana and the Matsigenka of southern Peru – and explore how somatic experiences and the chemosensory properties of plants permeate indigenous understandings of the aetiology of illness and medical efficacy in both the cosmological and microbiological domains. The authors synthesize emerging theory in ecosemiotics, embodiment, plant personhood and plant intelligence with the concept of ‘sensory ecology’ to recast multispecies ethnography as a phytochemical as well as a philosophical endeavour.     

From Herders to Wage Laborers and Back Again: Engaging with Capitalism in the Atacama Puna Region of Northern Chile

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, indigenous Atacameño society transited from an agro-pastoralist to a more diversified capitalist-based economy due to a growing mining industry in northern Chile. The puna herders engaged in the new capitalist order as wage laborers in sulfur mines and llareta (Azorella compacta) exploitation companies. In this article we show how indigenous knowledge acted as cultural capital that enabled the herders to work as laborers. This operation led to horizontal treatment among the different agents in the taskscape that those “herder-laborers” inhabited, including those incorporated by industrial capitalism.