Design for the contact zone. Knowledge management software and the structures of indigenous knowledges

This article examines the design of digital indigenous knowledge archives. In a discussion of the distinction between indigenous knowledge and western science, a decentred perspective is developed, in which the relationship between different local knowledges is explored. The particular characteristics of indigenous knowledges raise questions about if and how these knowledges can be managed. The role of technology in managing indigenous knowledges is explored with examples from fieldwork in India and Kenya and from web-based databases and digital archives. The concept of contact zone is introduced to explore the space in which different knowledges meet and are performed, such as indigenous knowledge and the technoscientific knowledge of the database. Design for the contact zone, this article proposes, is an intra-active and adaptive process for in creating databases that are meaningful for indigenous knowers. The meta-design approach is introduced as a methodology, which may provide indigenous knowers tools for self-representation and self-organisation through design

Researching in cross cultural contexts: a socially just process.

In this paper, we explore culture and its relationship to cross cultural research. The context for this research is Vanuatu, a small South Pacific Island nation. The action research process used was a collaboration between two New Zealand academics, two Ni Vanuatu women researchers and 13 participants over a two year period. The focus of the action research was the design and delivery of a culturally appropriate educational leadership development programme for women. The collaborative research process raised a number of ethical and methodological considerations, for example, the importance of mutually respectful relationships, working in partnership, collaboration, capacity building, transparent communication and consideration of the local context. Using stories from the Vanuatu context, we illustrate how we navigated culture to be able to research in socially just ways. Being involved in socially just, cross cultural research calls for a thoughtful, well-designed and culturally informed approach throughout all stages of the research process, from initial planning through to follow up and capacity building and finally, the sharing of research findings

Young people's leisure and risk-taking behaviours: changes in gender patterning in the West of Scotland during the 1990s

Until the 1990s, the literature on youth leisure characterized that of females as home-based, passive and largely absent from male-dominated subcultures. Contrasting with this, over the course of the 1990s, evidence emerged of increasing public visibility, reduced restrictions on activities and relatively greater increases in health-risk behaviours among females, together with suggestions of a domestification of leisure among males This paper uses data from two cohorts of 15 year olds in the same geographical area (the West of Scotland), separated by 12 years (1987 and 1999) to examine changes in the gender patterning of young people's leisure, use of public space and risk taking (as represented by substance use) over this time period. Gender differences in 'street-based' (previously more males) and 'conventional/safe' (previously more females) leisure disappeared over this period while male excesses in watching sports and playing computer games increased. At the same time, female levels of drinking and experience of illicit drugs reached, and those of smoking overtook, their male counterparts. Additional analyses showed that changes in leisure activities over time accounted in part for the changing gender patterns in substance use. The paper discusses how greater public visibility and increased risk-taking behaviours among females have resulted from the lifting of constraints of respectability on young women's life- styles. These changes have been rapid and have significance in both social and health terms