The use of indigenous knowledge in development: problems and challenges

The use of indigenous knowledge has been seen by many as an alternative way of promoting development in poor rural communities in many parts of the world. By reviewing much of the recent work on indigenous knowledge, the paper suggests that a number of problems and tensions has resulted in indigenous knowledge not being as useful as hoped for or supposed. These include problems emanating from a focus on the (arte)factual; binary tensions between western science and indigenous knowledge systems; the problem of differentiation and power relations; the romanticization of indigenous knowledge; and the all too frequent decontextualization of indigenous knowledge

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

Changing narratives: colonised peoples, criminology and social work

Abstract: There is growing recognition in criminology and social work of the importance of Indigenous knowledges and methodologies. Yet to date there have been limited attempts (particularly in criminology and criminal justice social work) to consider the theoretical and practice implications of Indigenous understandings and approaches to these disciplines. Both disciplines have also been slow to recognise the importance of understanding the way in which colonial effects are perpetuated through knowledge control, particularly in the operation of criminal justice systems. Our paper thus begins by examining the historical and institutional factors that have contributed to the continuing subjugation of Indigenous knowledges and methodologies. A discussion of the connections between the hegemony of Western science, the construction of race, and the colonial project follows. While herein Western and Indigenous approaches are conceptualised broadly, the dangers of over-simplifying these categories is also acknowledged. The paper proceeds by examining the distinctive character of each approach through a consideration of their ontological, epistemological, axiological, and methodological differences. Whilst acknowledging the considerable challenges which arise in any attempt to develop connections between these differing worldviews, a pathway forward for understanding both theoretically and methodologically the relationship between Western and Indigenous approaches is proposed

Directions in Gender Research in American Indian Societies: Two Spirits and Other Categories

Indigenous social role categories that represent third and fourth gender characteristics, such as the Lakota (Sioux) winkte and the Dino (Navajo) n and other Native terms, mark the status of these individuals. However, they are often blanketed by the term, berdache, in social science literature. Contextualization in an ethnographic frame is essential to greater comprehension of these roles. A critical review of contemporary research and the writings of the Native occupants of these categories has resulted in an all encompassing term: Two Spirits. Coterminously, Native terms for lesbians are also emerging. However, all Native gay males and lesbians have not accepted the term. This article discusses the concerns of indigenous researchers and others or non-indigenous researchers in this discourse

Decolonising Science in Canada: A Work in Progress

This paper briefly highlights a small part of the work being done by Indigenous groups in Canada to integrate science into their ways of knowing and living with nature. Special attention is given to a recent attempt by Mi'kmaw educators in Unama'ki (Cape Breton, Nova Scotia) to overcome suspicion of science among their youth by establishing an 'Integrative Science' (Toqwa'tu'kl Kjijitaqnn, or 'bringing our knowledges together') degree programme at Cape Breton University. The goal was to combine Indigenous and scientific knowledges in a way that protects and empowers Mi'kmaw rights and lifeways

Indigenous communities, disasters, and disaster research: surviving disaster research on, with and by Maori

This paper presents insights into the impact on Maori of the Christchurch earthquakes, including the role of Indigenous Knowledge (Matauranga Maori) in disasters, and the role of Indigenous culture in the response phases of disasters. Drawing on experiences of two previous and one current project the author discusses some of the ethical, practical, and logistical challenges of working with Indigenous individuals and collectives, and challenge the assumption that ‘to be Indigenous is to be resilient’. Abstract This paper presents insights into the impacts on Māori of the Christchurch earthquakes, and draws on personal research experiences to discuss disaster research with impacted minority communities. Three topics are discussed. The first is the role of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) in disasters. If IK such as Mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) is to be ‘integrated’ with science to somehow build societal resilience, which systems are these integration processes building the resilience of, for whom? The second issue is the role of Indigenous culture in the response phases of disasters. The concern is that our culture is in danger of reification, posited as a necessary and sufficient condition for our resilience, and as researchers we are poorly equipped to deal with culture as a pedestal adornment. Drawing on the experiences of two previous and one current project, there is a discussion of some of the ethical, practical, and logistical challenges of working with Indigenous individuals and collectives and challenge the assumption, often codified by Indigenous researchers ourselves, that ‘to be indigenous is to be resilient

Just shamans and healers or indigenous medical systems? A critical discourse analysis of the categories of shamans and healers as constructed by social science texts

"Just as even a single sentence has traditionally been taken to imply a whole language so a single discourse implies a whole society." Language and Power, N. Fairclough. This paper presents a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the categories of shamans and healers as they are constructed and produced by some social science texts. The CDA has three aims. First, it seeks to problematize how the categories of shamans and healers have been traditionally used to construct and produce what has been said about the medical systems of indigenous communities around the world. This is considered in the backdrop of opacity by mainstream social sciences to construct them as medical systems. Not only medical systems, they are social institutions that are part of their comprehensive cultural systems. Therefore, they are indigenous knowledge platforms that help to respond to questions of health and illness, life and death, nature and culture, science and philosophy. The categories of shamans and healers have been used as a way to state that the indigenous medical systems are not scientific systems but isolated knowledge and practices performed by individual shamans or healers. The second aim of this CDA is to examine the categories of shamans and healers in the context of the contemporary discussion on language, communication and discourse analysis and its various power relations as constructed in social science texts. The third aim is to demonstrate that there is a profound link among language, medicine and the social sciences and that it is impossible to continue in denial of this link. It is the assumption of the CDA that the constructed categories of shamanism and healers in the social sciences convey a specific bias of a logocentric and "scientificentric" worldview that could not construct a category of indigenous medical systems. It is posited that, through this CDA of the categories of shamans and healers, the local and global discursive practices that most societies hold about health and illness and body and 'mind/soul/spirit' can be understood through the ample category of medical systems

Feeling and Healing Eco-social Catastrophe: The Horrific Slipstream of Danis Goulet\u27s Wakening

Cree/Métis filmmaker Danis Goulet’s science fiction short Wakening (2013) is set in Canada’s near future, yet the film reveals a slipstream of time where viewers are invited to contemplate the horrors of ecosocial crises—future, past, and present. I argue Wakening, as futuristic ecohorror, produces horrific feelings in the moment of its viewing that are inevitably entangled with the past, inviting its audiences to experience the monstrous contexts of Indigenous lives across time. To articulate this temporal dynamism, I overlay two key conceptual understandings: Walter Benjamin’s critiques of Western progress and historicism, and Indigenous notions of a Native slipstream. When brought together in Wakening, which is inspired by the First Nations movement Idle No More, these concepts not only help expose the horror of Indigenous ecosocial crises wrought by colonial and neocolonial occupations but also draw our attention to the timelessness of Indigenous resistance in the face of such ecohorror. Ultimately, there are two significant implications in understanding Wakening as ecohorror of dynamic temporality. First, such a reading continues the important work of revisioning the theoretical and critical boundaries of Western cinema. Goulet’s play with audiences’ familiar expectations of horror’s invitations to the weird challenge us all to recalibrate our sense of generic cinematic representation and its purpose. Relatedly, such readings highlight film’s politics of emotion: its ability to generate “affective alliances” that can potentially help us all re-imagine our temporal and spatial engagements with the world at large

Analysis of representations of nature of Science and indigenous knowledge systems in South African Grade 9 Natural Science textbooks

This study analyzed representations of Nature of Science (NOS) and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) in three South Africa Grade 9 Natural Science textbooks. The textbooks were purposefully selected from a possibility of ten textbooks available on the public market and used in science classrooms in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. The aim of the analysis was to determine the extent to which both NOS and IKS were represented and to ascertain whether the representations were: naïve or informed; and implicit or explicit. The content analysis of the textbooks was based on adaptations of analytical frameworks developed by Akerson, Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman (2000) for NOS and Ninnes (2000) for IKS, respectively. For NOS the analysis focused on seven tenets, which are; science is empirical, the difference between observation and inference, functions and relations between theories and laws, the role of creativity and imagination in science, the tentativeness of scientific knowledge, the social and cultural embeddedness of the scientific process, and subjectivity of science. The analysis for IKS representations focused on four pillars of IKS which are; indigenous legends and myths, indigenous technology, indigenous knowledge of the natural world, and indigenous social life. It was found that, for the NOS, in all the three textbooks, only the empirical nature of science and observation and inference are represented to a considerable extent and mainly in a naïve and implicit manner. The other investigated tenets are either minimally represented or not represented at all. Representations of IKS in the three textbooks were also found to be very minimal and mainly naïve and implicit. It is concluded the selected science textbooks do not respond well to the NCS mandate of integrating NOS and IKS into mainstream science education. Recommendations for improving integration of NOS and IKS into the school science curriculum are suggested for textbooks authors, curriculum developers and science educators. Key words nature of science, indigenous knowledge systems, textbooks, natural science, naive, informed, implicit, explicit, positivism, constructivis