TRADITIONAL MEDICINES AND LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

The panel developed a reflection on the relations between the so-called systems of “traditional” healing, ‘western’ medicine and the health policies and interventions of international aid implemented at the different scales. The discussion revolved around the following questions: what are the multiple characters of traditional medicines, which role do they play and how are traditional medicines transforming themselves? What are the tools, practices, strategies of international organizations in the field of traditional medicines? What are the national policies implemented in different countries? What is the role of international aid? What is the possible role of academic research? The projects of development cooperation which aim to improve access to the right to health confront themselves with different concepts of illness, care, health which coexist, conflict and dialogue. How to meet and interact with these dynamics? How to protect traditional knowledge at the different scales, and ensure the recognition of intellectual property rights in the hands of indigenous peoples?

The use of photo-elicitation in field research

This paper examines the use of visual methods in geographical field research, and in particular photo-elicitation. The technique involves photos, videos and other forms of visual representation used in an interview, with informants asked to comment on the images. The aim is to promote more direct involvement of the informants in the research process and to encourage and stimulate the collection of quantitatively and qualitatively different information to that obtained in conventional interviews. The potential and limitations of this technique in the field are investigated, describing and discussing photo-elicitation data collection in the Maasai village of Mkuru in northern Tanzania to explore the use and preservation of natural resources. Results and methodological insights from the fieldwork are presented and discussed

How to find and share community owned solutions

The main aim of this handbook is to promote community owned solutions by proposing approaches that respond to current and future challenges to sustainability, natural resources management and biodiversity conservation. The handbook introduces key concepts and techniques which underpin a participatory and systems approach to community engagement. It helps a community build up practical skills for exploring, recording and disseminating their own community owned solutions

The COBRA Project: a community-based approach to public engagement in science.

Scientific research and communications is dominated by a command-and-control approach which lacks the ability to engage the public in managing and adapting to surprises and rapid change. These initiatives emerge from higher-scale structures e.g. national institutions, which are not always compatible with the realities and perspectives of communities. The failure of top-down, 'deficit model' approaches to science communication have encouraged communities to support an alternative, bottom-up, culturally and ecologically sensitive approach to communication for addressing complex socio-ecological problems. This paper explores the development and promotion of a 'community-expertise' model of public engagement through the COBRA Project, a participatory project involving indigenous communities of South America. The project’s aim is to significantly scale up the sharing of indigenous expertise and knowledge through photography, video and online platforms. We will present the results of how this expertise is identified, recorded and shared with national and international scientists and policymakers. We report on the conflict between the principles behind participatory community engagement and the demands of policymakers for scientific, empirically validated data, which clearly require an imposition on the type and process of data collection, analysis and modes of communication. We argue that participatory methods that engage local indigenous communities are empowering for these involved, but it is in the end up to the scientific and policy-making establishment to accept the validity of these ‘non-standard’ forms of science communication

From resilience to viability: a case study of indigenous communities of the North Rupununi, Guyana

'Resilience' is a term that has achieved significant prominence in scientific circles and now within popular discourse. However, its practical application is often unclear or confused because it can mean different things to different people: To resist? To adapt? To transform? In this paper, we propose a framework - System Viability - able to coherently engage with six distinct properties of all systems, from ecosystems to communities, allowing the identification of trade-offs and synergies for maximising the chances of systems persistence. We apply and evaluate the System Viability framework through participatory visual methods within three indigenous communities in the North Rupununi, Guyana. This paper highlights how the framework allows the measurement of community survival strategies in a consistent and theoretically corroborated way, with implications for national and international policy-makers aiming to promote resilience and sustainability