Here are some highlights from this paper – in which Agrawal attempts to deconstruct our interactions with and conceptions of “indigenous knowledge” as we attempt to “save” their information in our archives to adopt into “western” databases for one reason or another.
pg. 413 Why we are doing it : “Because indigenous knowledge has permitted its holders to exist in “harmony” with nature, allowing them to use it sustainably, it is seen as especially pivotal in discussions of sustainable resource use”
pg. 415 (excerpt from Warren, et. al) What do we want from this “knowledge”? : “Ten years ago, most of the academics working in the area of indigenous knowledge represented anthropology, development sociology, and geography. Today…important contributions are also being made in the fields of ecology, soil science, veterinary medicine,forestry, human health, aquatic science, management, botany, zoology, agronomy, agricultural economics, rural sociology, mathematics,…fisheries, range management, information science, wildlife management, and water resource management.”
pg. 418 How it is separated knowledge? : “We must consider three chief dimensions: 1) substantive–there are differences in the subject matter and characteristics of indigenous vs. western knowledge; 2) methodological and epistemological–the two forms of knowledge employ different methods to investigate reality, and possess different world views; and 3)contextual–traditional and western knowledge differ because traditional knowledge is more deeply rooted in its context.”
pg. 419 / 428 How are academics interacting with this “knowledge”? : “According to this editorial in this journal, just as scientific knowledge is gathered, documented and disseminated in a coherent and systematic fashion, so too should indigenous knowledge be handled. As more case studies explain the utility of indigenous knowledge, its relevance to development planning will become self-evident.” “…they undermine their own assertions about separability of indigenous from western knowledge in three ways: 1) the want to isolate, document, and store knowledge that gains its vigor as a result of being integrally lined with the lives of indigenous peoples; 2) the wish to freeze in time and space a fundamentally dynamic entity — cultural knowledge; and 3) most damning, their archives and knowledge centres privilege the scientific investigator, the scientific community, science, and bureaucratic procedures…they also cast it as an object that can be essentialized, captured in archives, and transferred.”
pg. 420/422 Why do we care now? : “[Indigenous peoples] disappearance, in turn, constitutes an enormous loss to humanity since they possess the potential to remedy many f the problems that have emasculated development strategies during the past five decades. Greater efforts must, therefore, be made to save, document, and apply indigenous strategies of survival.” “…indigenous knowledge is not just about immediate technical solutions to everyday problems (Juma, 1989; Marks, 1984; Norgaard, 1984; Richards 1985), but that is also contains ‘non-technical insightss, wisdom, ideas, perceptions, and innovative capablities which pertain to ecological, biological, geographical, or physical phenomena’ (Thrupp, 1989: 139).”
Pg. 425 A key differences in knowledge systems : “Unlike modern knowledge, which bases its claim to superiority on the basis on universal validity, local knowledge is bound by time and space, by contextual and moral factors.”
pg. 427 The main point : “Instead of trying to conflate all non-western knowledge into a category termed ‘indigenous’, and all western knowledge into another category, it may be more sensible to accept differences within these categories and perhaps find similarities across them.”
pg. 431 Major complications : “Using a new perspective, they attempt the development of the underdeveloped…It is inattention to how power produces knowledge, and the acceptance of the rhetoric that ‘knowledge is power’, which perhaps explains the advocacy of archives for indigenous knowledge.”
I’m realizing that I am having trouble “figuring out what to do in our lives” because we are trying to put one label on our interests, thinking that if we go to school long enough, or wait long enough, we will be able to find one compartment to make a living out of, that we can find one “career” that embodies all of what we are passionate about. I am having a hard time compartmentalizing my interests and ideas of individual career because I do not fit into one category, I guess. There is now speak of “interdisciplinary fields” so that students are getting a range of “knowledge” from different academic departments, but they do not emphasize this enough for what happens outside of college. Or I guess I just can’t put a label on my ideal career because I feel as though I want to work across disciplines which, when I express, I am deemed a little too scattered and in time I can “narrow my focus” but we will see.
“Colin MacCabe (1988: xvii) puts it: ‘any one world is always, also, a radical heterogeneity which radiates out in a tissue of differences that undoes the initial identity'” (pg. 421).
Jessie's High Horse 