Conserving Local Knowledge In Traditional Healing Through Knowledge Transfer

Local knowledge (LK) basically refers to the knowledge that people in a given community have developed over time, and continues to develop, through practices and based on experiences. Local beliefs pertaining to ilmu, a central concept in Malay culture that refers to knowledge, is essential among the traditional healers. The vast repository of knowledge and its relevance to locality and local situation makes the conservation of LK a necessity.However, due to the dominance of modern knowledge, diminished inter-generational knowledge transfer has led to LK being threatened with extinction. The fact that LK is practiced by only a few these days could be due to lack of knowledge transfer to the younger generations from the traditional healers who are knowledgeable in the communities. The common transfer mode of local knowledge, usually via words of mouth, may not be sustainable because the LK could vanish when knowledgeable elders die before it is transferred or during resettlements of individuals or communities. The need to conserve LK through knowledge transfer is also pertinent for the continued sustenance of their culture by recognizing, protecting and enforcing the rights of local communities to have continued access to biological resources as well as by protecting their LK, acquired over thousand of years of experimentation and experience, about the uses of these biological resources in traditional healing. Therefore, it is important to have a governance framework to effectively protect this LK of the local communities for the continued sustenance of their culture. This conceptual paper attempts to highlight the significance of conserving LK in traditional healing via effective knowledge transfer method, which should thereafter be translated into a working governance framework that protects the knowledge as well as the holders of such knowledge

Toward an Afro-Centric indigenous HCI paradigm

Current HCI paradigms are deeply rooted in a western epistemology which attests its partiality and bias of its embedded assumptions, values, definitions, techniques and derived frameworks and models.Thus tensions created between local cultures and HCI principles require us to pursue a more critical research agenda within an indigenous epistemology. In this paper we present an Afro-centric paradigm, as promoted by African scholars, as an alternative perspective to guide interaction design in a situated context in Africa and promote the reframing of HCI. We illustrate a practical realization of this paradigm shift within our own community driven designin Southern Africa.http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hihc20hb2016Informatic

NatureCHI: Unobtrusive User Experiences with Technology in Nature

Being in nature is typically regarded to be calming, relaxing and purifying. When in nature, people often seek physical activity like hiking, or meditative, mindful or inspiring experiences remote from the urban everyday life. However, the modern lifestyle easily extends technology use to all sectors of our everyday life, and e.g. the rise of sports tracking technologies, mobile phone integrated cameras and omnipresent social media access have contributed to technologies also arriving into the use context of nature. Also maps and tourist guides are increasingly smart phone or tablet based services. This workshop addresses the challenges that are related to interacting with technology in nature. The viewpoints cover, but are not limited to interaction design and prototyping, social and cultural issues, user experiences that aim for unobtrusive interactions with the technology with nature as the use context

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING AUDIOVISUAL MEDIA IN LEARNING TO WRITE INDONESIAN DRAMA SCRIPT

Abstract: This research aims to prove the effectiveness of using audiovisual media in learning to write drama scripts for students. The population in this research were students of class XII Social Science which collected 90 people from three classes. The sample was determined by purposive sampling technique in order to obtain 2 classes as the experimental and control classes. The research design was a quasi-experimental. The instrument used is a drama writing test. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive analysis and inferential analysis in the form of independent t-test. The results showed that the group using audiovisual media obtained better results than audio media. The results of the study were evidenced by a t-test which showed that audiovisual media was effectively used in learning to write drama scripts. The implication of this research is that teachers can improve students' ability to write Indonesian drama scripts using audiovisual media

Community participatory design in the information systems development process in Africa: a systemic literature review

Participatory design (PO) pertains to the different ways of incorporating ideas and acts of organisational members in designing, developing and evaluating an Information Systems (IS) artefact. The context of this study is community organisations in African settings participating in the designing and developing of an IS artefact. The study traces and synthesises findings from 95 articles on community PO in Information Systems Development in Africa. It argues that community PO consists of vast diverse constructs and implementations. This produced and reproduced concept is formulated in five major themes of: conceptualisations; ethics; standards; checks and balances and approaches; and perspectives and methodologies of PD. The themes constitute the possible ways of classifying PO research and practice in African settings. The results demonstrate that there is a wide belief that participation is one of the vital ingredients necessary for successful designing of IS artefacts for human development. However, the different elements involved in PO involve much discussion on what is known and needs to be known about PO and how to achieve the desired results by PD. The study uses Critical Research philosophy to pay special attention to the behavioural and attitudinal arguments of the different PO practices on community organisations. The researcher found Design Science (OS) principles that centre on devising an artefact as appropriate to frame this work. In sum, through the use of Critical Research and a OS lens, the researcher found that community participation is important in designing a useful IS artefact, but treacherous if misunderstood and inappropriately implemented

Moving the centre to design social media in rural Africa

Efforts to design voice-based, social media platforms for low-literacy communities in developing countries have not widened access to information in the ways intended. This article links this to who describes the relations that constitute personhood and how these relations are expressed in designing and deploying systems. I make these links oriented by critique in human–computer interaction that design continues a history of colonialism and embeds meanings in media that disrupt existing communication practices. I explore how we translated ‘logics’ about sociality through logics located outside of the rural South African community that we targeted for design and deployment. The system aimed to enable inhabitants to record, store and share voice files using a portable, communally owned display. I describe how we engaged with inhabitants, to understand needs, and represented and abstracted from encounters to articulate requirements, which we translated into statements about technology. Use of the system was not as predicted. My analysis suggests that certain writing cultures, embedded in translations, reify knowledge, disembody voices and neglect the rhythms of life. This biases social media towards individualist logics and limits affordances for forms, genres and other elements of communication that contribute to sociality. Thus, I propose oral practices offer oppositional power in designing digital bubbles to support human togetherness and that we can enrich design by moving the centre—a phrase taken from Ngu˜gı˜ wa Thiong’o (Moving the centre: the struggle for cultural freedoms, James Currey, London, 1993) who insists that liberation from colonialism requires plural sites of creativity. To realize this potential, we need radically different approaches that enable symmetrical translation.CSIR-Meraka, South Africa and partially by EPSRC Grant (EP/H042857/1).http://link.springer.com/journal/1462017-02-27hb201

‘Dagucho [Podocarpus falcatus] Is Abbo!’ Wonsho Sacred Sites, Sidama, Ethiopia: Origins, Maintenance Motives, Consequences and Conservation Threats

This thesis addresses six main objectives answering questions on the origin, nature and social organization of SNS and their custodians; motivations for, and BCD conservation consequences of, their maintenance; threats SNS and ancestral institutions face and existing governance and protection instruments, with focus on local perceptions among the Wonsho of Sidama, Ethiopia. The study employs anthropologically-oriented, but interdisciplinary, conceptual framework and mixed methods to collect and analyse data. A year of fieldwork (July 2012-June 2013) was carried out using six major data collection methods (including interviews, BD inventory and HHS). The data were analysed using NVivo 10 and SPSS 20/21. The results are presented and discussed in seven key thematic areas and six chapter headings. The main findings are summarized as follows: 1. Forty-eight SNS (whose sizes ranging from a site of a single tree to a 90.6 ha and ages from 28 to ca 375 years) were identified in seven PAs. Three criteria were used to identify a typology of Wonsho SNS: spatial-clan structure, function and protection status. SAR was identified as the core of the origin, social organization, governance and geography of SNS and other BCD protection areas. Twenty-two of SNS were protected by SAR practitioners and four by Protestant Christians. The rest were either lost or transformed. 2. Answers to the question of why SNS are maintained are interpreted as linked to ancestral conceptions of the natural world, knowledge about, and practice relating to, it. The people valued SNS and native trees as ‘life’, ‘beauty’, ‘ancestor symbolizers’, ‘temples’, ‘wealth’, ‘shade’, ‘healing agents’, ‘food banks’, ‘place and name identifiers’, and ‘tribunal courts’ among others. Certain salient norms and practices, supporting tree biodiversity, are identified and interpreted as the foundation of the motivation for the maintenance of SNS. 3. 154 floral and 33 faunal species were documented for their reported and observed past and present existence in 26 of the 48 SNS and other informal protection areas. A partial inventory identified about 133 flora and some fauna, including two locally endangered species, Colobus guerezza and Tauraco ruspoli in various SNSs. Twenty-two locally reported endangered native trees were found here, of which ten were reportedly found nowhere. Eighteen major woody species were identified as extractively conserved in various informal protection areas, notably agroforests. 4. Forty-three types of uses of trees were identified. Eighteen woody species were identified as playing crucial socio-economic role; seven of these being culturally important and Podocarpus falcatus was identified as a truly ‘cultural keystone species’. The maintenance of SNS and native trees has important role through provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural ecosystem services. 5. Maintenance of SNS and other botanic landscapes were found to contribute positively towards community health, herbal medicine and conservation of medicinal plants. SNS are perceived as key resources for health and wellbeing. Sixty-two percent of surveyed HHs accessed medicinal plants from SNS where 48% of the identified plants (including nine that were reported as locally endangered) were found. 6. The SNS and ancestral institutions faced threats. Fourteen SNS were lost, eight severely degraded through other land uses and the existing 26 also threatened in seven studied PAs. Twenty-two important native trees were reportedly threatened; ten of these exited only in the SNS. Twelve native woody species were reportedly lost. SAR is threatened (e.g. declined from 13.6% in 1994 to 2.7% in 2007). Eroding factors, especially external ones, have been intensifying since the 1890s, but momentum added over the past 50-60 years, salient drivers being introduction of cash economy, modern religions, modern education, misguided state policies, rapid population growth and resultant socio-economic pressures. 7. The SNS have for centuries been protected through ‘spirit agency and policing’ in a structure that gave supreme place to ancestors who influenced and guided governance. Some key principles of SNS management were identified, including ‘spirit-policing’, dreams and oracles in decision making, protecting entire habitat, protecting species, etc. In recent years, protection efforts have improved, with emerging collaborative governance, but these suffered from poor resourcing, coordination and fragmentation; and the future of SNS, native tree species and the SAR seemed uncertain despite some locals were optimistic. The study concludes the SNS and associated institutions of Wonsho have resiliently existed as ‘guardians of Sidama biocultural diversity’ and are showcases for the mutual adaptations of tree biodiversity and ancestral traditions. The study discusses a set of implications and recommendations for further research and action. The contribution of the study lies in the following areas which appear to be under-represented in the current literature: (a) qualitative analysis of the ontology, nature, structures, functions, geography and dynamisms of SNS and custodians, demonstrating that Wonsho SNS are not relics from static past but dynamic socio-ecological systems; (b) in-depth discussion of the role of SNS in conserving both biodiversity and cultural diversity; (c) a nuanced analysis of why and how the SNS are maintained, (d) local perceptions and parameters of the values and roles of, and threats facing, SNS and related local institutions; (e) our understanding of what constitutes ‘biocultural diversity’ and the indicators for cultural diversity when this concept is applied at a local scale; (e) interdisciplinary conceptual and analytical tools to understand the socio-ecological and biocultural systems embodied in sacred sites, combining concepts from a range of social and natural sciences, notably anthropology and conservation biology