Some general ideas about (local) knowledge by Prof. H.R. Korff
taken from the "Outline for the Interdisciplinary Study Project, Vietnam,
2002"
Introduction:
Local knowledge used to be regarded as a topic for anthropological research with limited relevance outside of these particular studies. Only during the last decade local knowledge has emerged as a relevant topic in agricultural and development research. Wilson (1999) maintains that "knowledge itself is a cultural construction and what one culture considers valuable, another may dismiss" (Wilson 1999:58f). Development projects not taking the local cultural determinants of knowledge into account would therefore imply misunderstandings between farmers and developers. The work of Mary Douglas explains the cultural bondedness of knowledge and why it is "local". To be able to live within a community within a local space one has to share the common knowledge and classifications. These make "a world that is reliably intelligible and predictable enough to live in" (Douglas 1986:58, 1996). It requires that a structured local knowledge is appropriated and applied to be able to make the decisions that fit. The local knowledge in turn constitutes practices, interpretations and understandings that constitute a local culture, which shapes experiences. Much anthropological work has been conducted to analyse and document local knowledge. (Hobart 1993). One finding was that local knowledge is basically practice and that the search for generalisation and synthesis of explanation remains limited. Accordingly, local knowledge is relevant, but because it is fully connected to the specific local context, it has little importance outside the local sphere. Probably due to the anthropological heritage in which local communities are described as stabile, a commonly hold assumption in regards to local knowledge used to be that it is rather conservative, lagging the impetus for innovation, due to its focus on the local context and therefore has only a limited potential to integrate and adapt to changing circumstances. Thereby local knowledge was interpreted as a form of "tradition" and hence an obstacle to development. This has drawn some critique: "Anthropologists have always been happy to see local people as producers of local knowledge, … but there was very little question of such knowledge being valorized outside the local domain. … In other words, local people produce local theories and such theories are, almost by definition, not comparative ones." (Moore 1996).
Current approaches to local knowledge:
Since the last decade, a shift in interpretation took place. Following Long (1996) agrarian development is always embedded within a local context. Therefore, one has "to examine the complex ways in which local forms of knowledge and organisation are constantly being reworked in interaction with changing circumstances." (Long 1996:50). Thus local knowledge is not fixed, but flexible and adapting to changing local circumstances. It has the potential for innovation and in fact is innovative. That local knowledge is not only reacting, but itself part of a social creativity is shown by Wilson (1999): " Contrary to the preconceptions of many 'development experts' poor people react creatively to changing livelihood opportunities. They assimilate new technologies most easily, however, when these build on prior or existing knowledge" (Wilson 1999:69). That local knowledge is applied not only to cope with given local conditions, but does play an important role for structuring the interactions between farmers and "developers" is shown in Burgess et al. (2000) study of an environmental conservation project in the United Kingdom. The farmers regarded themselves as "natural conservationists", while they were perceived by the engineers as well versed "technicians", who lag the understanding of how nature works and what has to be done for conservation. Such respective misunderstanding often result in the "cloaking" of information and activities on both sides. From her analysis of NASA engineering Vaugham (1999) concludes that misunderstandings between distinct organisations be it departments, or development agencies and local communities result in "structural secrecy, which encourages the development of distinctive local knowledges" (Vaughan 1999:916, 1996). Similarly, Nygren (1999) concludes from her study of campesinos in Nicaragua: "Local settlers proved to be very clever in using the current phraseology of sustainability. When conversing with development experts, they carefully employed the clichés of environmental consciousness, local participation and sound resource utilization. This confusing imitation of all the rhetoric of sustainability was a key to the reconstitution and redeployment of their knowledges." (Nygren 1999: 280; see as well Johnson 1999). Following this limited selection of recent studies of local knowledge, it is evident that local knowledge is not at all fixed. It obviously is dynamic and provides the means of the farmers to cope with changing conditions, and modify these, including conditions related to development projects. To be able to take local knowledge into consideration, the local classifications, interpretations, in short the local views of reality, have to be found out. This is the objective of methods like "rapid rural appraisal" and "participation" etc. (see for example Chambers 1999). These methods can be applied to gain an understanding of local reality shared by the farmers as well as the developers.
Participatory Watershed management
1. Scientific knowledge and indigenous knowledge in the context of participatory watershed management: Although scientific and indigenous knowledge represent different knowledge systems, these are neither dichotomous, nor from themselves ordered hierarchically. Furthermore, these are just two of many other knowledge systems like expert knowledge, administrative knowledge etc. In general, scientific as well as indigenous knowledge represent knowledge in the double sense of firstly understanding and explaining reality and thereby defining reality, and secondly, as a base for practical acting. The hierarchization of knowledge and most of all, the selection of what information and aspects of different knowledge system is relevant, the valuation of knowledge and its authorization as "valid" or true analysis of reality that can be applied in planning practices is not intrinsic to knowledge systems, but results out of political processes and the involvement of groups (with their respective knowledge) in these political processes. In general, through a political process available knowledge from highly diverse sources and backgrounds is selected, authorized as valid and transformed into "applied knowledge", i.e. knowledge used as base for practices. In so far, as these practices transform reality in the sense of for example land use, water-rights and uses, farming systems, marketing etc. the practices generate new knowledge among those interacting within a watershed. The new realties brought about by development efforts have to be taken into consideration and interpreted within the given knowledge systems, which is modified to take these new phenomena into account. As a consequence, the recognition of indigenous knowledge requires the recognition of indigenous groups within the political process of watershed management and beyond this. Similarly, the knowledge applied by for example the public administration is not based entirely on scientific knowledge. The basic problem thus is not primarily one of knowledge, but of the valuation of knowledge through a political process in which social, economic and political power differentials are central.
2. Globalization and Localization in relation to watershed management:
Globalization and localization can be described as different realities constructed by particular groups, based on their experiences and practices that get linked to each other. This is most apparent in watershed and river basins. Within a watershed and even more so, a river basin, several different actors and communities are involved, like villagers in upland and lowland communities, state administrators, planners, scientists etc. The different realities and their respective representations and visualizations differ in a far reaching way. This has been amply shown by visualizations created by the subgroups of villagers, scientists and planners/policy-makers within the working group: Villagers: The villagers create a map of their watershed pointing at their lands and the lowland villagers. The map of the watershed ended with the neighbouring villages. This does not mean, however, that the world beyond this space is ignored. It has been integrated through forest reserves and other creations resulting from planning and state policies. It was strongly an "analogue" representation. Planners: The representation of the planners consisted of the usual "ZOP-Cards" arranged under certain categories. They indicated problem areas, related policies and possible measures to cope with the problems, and how to implement plans. From the cards one could gain an understanding of the whole representation. Scientists: Somehow, the representation of the villagers and scientists had several similarities. Both did not use cards and required explanations from "insiders", what the symbols used meant. They required "initiation" from a "learned insider". In difference to the map of the villages, the scientists had created an abstract model of relations. From the three very obviously highly different representations of respective realities, the basic problem became clear, namely communication across boundaries of knowledge systems. How can the different groups (in our case limited to only three) involved within a watershed can communicate, when they do not share a common reality and furthermore have very different understandings of the reality of the watershed?
3. Participatory watershed management across borders and cultures:
How can the different groups involved within a watershed communicate with each other and how can participation be achieved in view of far reaching difference and in particular power differentials? Two basic models or rather poles were differentiated:
a) Watershed management: Managing a watershed like and enterprise. In this model the stakeholders are understood as "shareholders" and the management aims at increasing the shareholder/stakeholder value of the watershed. Through economic incentives, investment of resources and ownership of shares in the watershed, participation is achieved.
b) Watershed as a political process: Regulating the watershed In this model, those involved within the watershed are political representatives of respective groups and they influence a political in difference to an economic process. Participation is in this case resulting from political representation and participation in decision making, i.e. defining regulations. While both models are based on participation (economic through "shares", politically through representation and decision making) they reflect poles and processes that always play a role within a watershed. In any case, a watershed has economic aspects towards which the first model is biased, and political aspects, which are the bias of the second model. As both poles tend to imply exclusion of issues relevant within a watershed and groups, a mixture is necessary. Scaling problem: The relation between economics and politics as well as participation differs in regards to the level of how the watershed is treated. On the local level these are organized in a way different from the level of the watershed or even more so a river basin. Thus scaling up or down cannot be made in a linear way, but requires transformations. Accordingly, what is viable and sustainable on as local level can hardly be generalized for larger levels and vice versa. This results in complexity and consequently, the impossibility of full scale planning and control. As a consequence, the attempts to regulate watersheds could be compared with attempts to plan larger cities. In that context it has been pointed out during the Istanbul Habitat conference, that city planning faces far reaching obstacles and that the best (if not the only) solution is to leave the local level under local self-control, as it is anyway impossible to excersise real control on this level. Planning has to be understood as a more or less wide frame in which the different actors find their own solutions and arrange their relations themselves. This requires though a consensus on basic rules and regulations. However, this consensus can not be substituted by "plans", particularly, not by centrally drawn up plans.
4. Problems:
Communication and political processes:
The points that came up regularly in the discussion were related to communication across groups and levels, and the political process. Obviously both are linked. The political process in which different groups should participate requires a common form of communication, which, however, presupposes already advantages and disadvantages, or in other words, improved access or more difficult access to information and decisions making procedures. Partly, these problems especially of communication and in how far the terminology used implies valuations, have been discussed briefly based on a few terms:
Planning:
The usage of planning implies in its connotations the ability to control development processes and even more so to instigate development. Reality indicates, that planning most often remains and illusion. It is even more illusionary, when it deals with complex issues like city planning or planning a watershed. The reality of the limits of planability should be reflected in the terminology.
Management:
Management has become a popular term substituting "administration" and "planning". However, management connotes economic issues. Enterprises are "managed". Does this model fit other contexts?
Training:
Often it is pointed out that villagers need training. This implies that they lag knowledge. This certainly might be, and in fact quite often is the case; however, one should be careful when using "training" and its implication of at least partial incompetence of those who have to be trained.
Similarly, "empowerment", as political correct as the term seems to be, implies a lag of power. In both cases outsiders compensate deficits of those to be developed. An attitude which was wide spread during the sixties and seventies (then, however, in regard to capital, capacities and techniques) and should be taken more critically in the new century.
Die Untersuchung lokalen Wissens steht vor einem grundlegenden Problem: Wie kann begründet werden, dass Wissen "lokal", also räumlich begrenzt ist, und diese räumliche Begrenzung einen definierenden Einfluss auf Wissen hat? Lokales Wissen und Wissenschaft zu trennen führt in eine Sackgasse. Die Verwischung der
deutlichen Differenzen zwischen beiden in Bezug auf Inhalte und Institutionalisierung durch einen Relativismus ist ebenfalls keine Lösung. Die Actor-Network Theory bietet einen Ansatz, lokales Wissen und Wissenschaft als im Rahmen hybrider Netzwerke produziertes Wissen (und damit auch Wirklichkeit) zu behandeln, was es erlaubt, einerseits die Unterschiede herausarbeiten und andererseits lokales Wissen nicht nur zu beschreiben sondern auch in theoretische Kontexte zu integrieren. Danach wird sowohl lokales Wissen als auch Wissenschaft in Netzwerken generiert. Beides unterscheidet sich durch die Form der Netzwerke (lokal-zentriert bzw. objekt-zentriert) in denen Wissen produziert wird. Aus einer Perspektive differenter aus Netzwerken sich ergebender "epistemischer Kulturen" und Wirklichkeiten lassen sich Artikulationen zwischen lokalem Wissen und Wissenschaft erfassen. Die Netzwerk-Perspektive erlaubt darüber hinaus Lokalitäten im Sinne lokal zentrierter Netzwerke mit einer globalen Netzwerk Gesellschaft zu verknüpfen.