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

Are Household Production Decisions Cooperative? Evidence on Pastoral Migration and Milk Sales from Northern Kenya

Market-based development efforts frequently create opportunities to generate income from goods previously produced and consumed within the household. Production within the household is often characterized by a gender and age division of labor. Market development efforts to improve well-being may lead to unanticipated outcomes if household production decisions are noncooperative. We develop and test models of household decision making to investigate intrahousehold decision making in a nomadic pastoral setting from Kenya. Our results suggest that household decisions are contested, with husbands using migration decisions to resist wives' ability to market milk. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.