Harnessing Indigenous Knowledge for Development and Source of National Information Content A paper p

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Harnessing Indigenous Knowledge for Development
and Source of National Information ContentA
paper presented at workshop organized by
Ethiopian ICT Development Agency,Addis Ababa
April 19, 2007

• The role of ICT in preserving and disseminating
  Indigenous Knowledge

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Outline of presentation

• What is indigenous knowledge?
• Theory of knowledge Understanding Indigenous and
  scientific knowledge system
• Scope of utilization of IK for development
• Barriers to better utilization of IK for
  development Challenges ahead
• Rethinking IK Removing the barriers of using IK
  for developmetn

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Definition of Indigenous Knowledge (IK)

• The concept has to do with the terms indigenous
  and knowledge.
• Indigenous literally means Native to a place,
  Original, or Aboriginal people of an area.
• Knowledge Without making it too philosophical,
  knowledge is a justified personal belief that
  increases an individuals capacity to take
  effective action.

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Definition of indigenous

• Alternative terms for indigenous knowledge
• traditional knowledge, local knowledge, rural
  peoples knowledge, peoples science, indigenous
  technical knowledge, ethno-ecology, etc.

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Theory of Knowledge Understanding Indigenous and
Scientific Knowledge systems

• Culture in its broadest sense is a key source of
  knowledge system
• Knowledge system refers to four ways of knowing
  (S.A Marglin, 1990).

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Theory of knowledge

• Epistemology how do we know what we know?
• Transmission how do we go about distributing and
  receiving knowledge?
• Innovation how does the content of what we know
  get modified over time?
• Power How does a particular knowledge community
  relate to other knowledge community?

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Theory of knowledge

• There are two ways of designating the knowledge
  generated by society episteme and techne.
• Episteme refers to the scientific-western
  knowledge. Whereas techne refers to
  non-scientific non-western knowledge
• Episteme and techne are distinct ways of
  understanding, perceiving, appreciating, and
  experiencing reality.

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Episteme Vs Techne

• logical deduction
• Analytical
• Articulate
• Universal
• Cerebral
• Theoretical
• Verifiable
• Impersonal

• Intuition
• Indecomposable
• Implicit
• Contextual
• Emotional
• Practical
• Discovery
• Personal

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Theory of knowledge

• Another way of looking at knowledge is its forms
  of manifestation.
• Knowledge can be formal (explicit) or informal
  (tacit)
• Knowledge is said to be formal when it is based
  on scientific evidence, whose validity and
  reliability can be tested (positivist
  methodology)
• Informal knowledge is experiential in nature
  (experiential learning)

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Theory of knowledge

• Informal (tacit) knowledge is dominant form of
  knowledge
• By virtue, tacit knowledge is akin to indigenous
  knowledge.
• Tacit knowledge is action-oriented and has
  personal qualities that makes it difficult to
  communicate.
• Accessing tacit knowledge, therefore, presents a
  number of challenges.
• However, the two forms of knowledge are not
  dichotomous state of knowledge, but mutually
  dependent

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More on features of Indigenous Knowledge

• IK is embedded in a dynamic system in which
  spirituality, kinship, local politics and power
  are manifested.
• It is holistic contains an entire worldview
• Collective in nature, however some of its aspects
  are sacred and secret
• IK is the social capital of rural people

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More on features of

• In general, IK refers to the complete bodies of
  knowledge, know-how, practices and
  representations that are maintained and developed
  by people with long histories of close
  interaction with the natural environment. These
  sets of understanding, interpretations and
  meanings are part of a cultural complex that
  encompasses language, naming and classification
  systems, ways of use, spirituality and
  worldviews.

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More on features of

• Therefore, Indigenous Knowledge covers all facets
  of societies life-world, from crop and livestock
  husbandry, to natural resources management,
  medicine, engineering, fishing, and peace/
  conflict management, knowledge management, etc.
• Indigenous knowledge system is the forerunner of
  modern knowledge system

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More on features of

• It includes social and political relations
• Includes regulations for its use and
  dissemination (power relations)
• Managing principles 1.Stewardship
  2.Guardianship 3.Intergenerational
  responsibility
• It is encoded and disseminated through proverbs,
  stories, music, songs and other tacit forms of
  knowledge acquisitions.

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Scope of utilization of IK for development

• Indigenous has served and still serving societies
  of the world where knowledge from the modern
  sources are scarce or those people who are
  marginalized because of structural problems or
  so.
• What kind of service is expected of IK and for
  whom? What development is on the stage?
• Or there is any significant paradigm shift on
  knowledge for development?

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Scope of utilization of IK

• First and foremost, the success of IK in
  development processes depends on the extent of
  paradigm shift in development itself, for
  development is what has relegated IK to where is
  now.
• Development of the world which has now reached
  its stage of globalization, ushered by MDG,
  informed by modernization theory that is founded
  on positivist science-methodolgoy.

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Scope of utilization of

• One typical example is the Green Revolution that
  was initiated on the following assumptions
• First, that these of the west development
  planners know what the people in the
  developing countries want second, that what
  they want is what we have third, that they
  are not yet advanced enough to be able to fully
  indulge themselves without repercussions and
  forth, that discipline, prudence and forbearance
  are some of the qualities necessary to success.
• Any good evidence if this was changed???

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Scope of utilization of

• The World Banks experience has shown diverse
  areas of IKs for development that include
  agriculture, education, gender equity, family
  planning and health, including HIV/AIDS,
  environmental sustainability, etc.,
• Apart from this experience, there are numerous
  multilateral and bilateral initiatives around the
  world where IK has proved success.
• On the other score efforts were made to establish
  international centers of IK and other networks

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Scope of utilization of

• Otherwise IK has made, and can still make a
  significant contribution to resolving local
  problems.
• Recently (2004) the World Bank has published its
  five years accomplishment in IK mainly in Africa.
  
• But, has there been enough work done so far?

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Institutionalization of IK and Networking

• The notable ones are
• The Center for Indigenous Knowledge for
  Agricultural and Rural Development (CIKARD) at
  Iowa State University, established in 1987 at
  part of ISUs Technology and Social Change
  Programme.
• The Center for International Research and
  Advisory Networks (CIRAN), The Hague

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Institutionalization of IK

• There are now 19 formally established global,
  regional, and national centers two with regional
  roles--the African Resource Centre for Indigenous
  Knowledge (ARCIK) and the Regional Program for
  the Promotion of Indigenous Knowledge in Asia
  (REPPIKA)--and 14 with national roles-- GhaRCIK
  (Ghana), INRIK (Indonesia), RIDSCA (Mexico),
  KENRIK (Kenya), Phi RCSDIK (Philippines), SLARCIK
  (Sri Lanka), and VERSIK (Venezuela), BURCIK
  (Burkina Faso), SARCIK (South Africa), BRARCIK
  (Brazil), NIRCIK (Nigeria), URURCIK (Uruguay),
  CIKO (Cameroon), and MARCIK (Madagascar).
  Seventeen other centers are in the process of
  being formally established.

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Barriers to better utilization of IK

• In my view the biggest obstacle in the
  utilization of IK is the attitude of scientists
  who are committed to the western science only,
  without any yielding flexibility to accommodate
  IK.
• Other obstacles are many but there are the
  off-shorts of the very fundamental- paradigmatic
  one.

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Barriers to IK

• Lack of institutional frameworks to protect and
  promote IK for collective utilization (IPR
  issues)
• Win-lose desire of national and transnational
  companies to exploit IK in the absence of
  adequate legal framework.

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Barriers to IK

• Emergence of digital divide, following and also
  re-enforcing the socio-economic gaps
• Lack of basic infrastructure for the provision of
  rural ICT services internet connectivity and
  efficiency (finance, electricity, know-how,
  politics-power, culture)

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Barriers to IK

• Lack or inadequate ICT environment that promotes
  IK on the one hand, and lack of agreement among
  practitioners on the extent of ICTs use in IK on
  the other.
• To what extent are ICT professionals free from
  the Scientific bias towards indigenous
  knowledge and its contents?
• What is the knowledge and skill of ICT
  professionals to design relevant ICTs for IK?
  (culturally sensitive, technical accessible and
  sustainable)?

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On the Challenges of using ICT

• Owning to substantive, methodological and
  epistemological, and contextual differences
  between IK and SK, some practitioners disagree
  with ex-situ preservation of IK that negatively
  affects the full use of ICTs.
• Unique characteristics of IK- dominance of tacit
  knowledge in IK proves challenging for its
  management.

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Rethinking IK Removing the barriers of using IK
for development

• Challenges are there, but there are middle
  grounds to overcome them
• Promoting the notion of knowledge interface in
  order to bridge the gaps between different
  knowledge system

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Rethinking IK

• Social Interface defined
• A social interface is a critical point of
  interaction between life-world, social fields or
  levels of social organization where social
  discontinuities, based upon discrepancies in
  value, interests, knowledge and power, are most
  likely to be located (Long, 2001).

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Rethinking IK

• Knowledge interface can be seen both as a cause
  and consequence of interaction between two
  life-worlds.
• Knowledge interface is created and promoted
  through communication process between different
  actors
• lack of interface or links between LK and SK is
  mainly due to poor communication system
  methodological pluralism.

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Rethinking IK

• In order to link knowledge and information with
  ICTs
• Building enabling environments through support
  for policy and regulatory frameworks for use of
  ICTs
• Initiate capacity building mechanisms to
  establish a critical mass of ICT experts with
  indigenous knowledge application
• Local capacity building creating space for
  indigenous people
• Enhance the capacity of local to national, to
  regional IK networks