Revisiting the "Battlefields of Knowledge"

On methods and local knowledges in montane northern Vietnam

J. Rupert Friederichsen, The Uplands Program (SFB 564), University of Hohenheim, Vietnam Office, Vietnamese-German Center, Polytechnical University, 1 Dai Co Viet, Hanoi, Vietnam

Andreas Neef, The Uplands Program (SFB 564), University of Hohenheim, Thailand Office, Faculty of Agriculture, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50100, Thailand

Abstract

"Sociologies of knowledge" have proliferated in the recent social science literature, not only in development-related research. In academic discourse on development, ideas concerning knowledge have been prominently marked by Long and Long's "Battlefields of Knowledge" in 1992 [1].
In this paper we focus on the "making-of", the "social construction" and the processual character of producing scientific knowledge through the "extraction" of rural people's knowledge. We affirm that these aspects can just as well be attributed to scientific knowledge as to local knowledge (cf. Neubert and Macamo 2002).
The main "ally" in support of our argument is interviewing. The method of interviewing is the core category of this methodological paper. Sequences of three studies carried out in the framework of a Vietnamese-Thai-German collaborative research program (The Uplands Program-SFB 564) in two northern Vietnamese districts (Yen Chau, Son La province and Cho Don, Bac Kan province) are compared as cases of qualitative data analysis. We compared and contrasted an inquiry on "local realities" against one on "local livelihoods" and thirdly a study on land degradation and "local land use history". Interviews and interview contexts and the derived data are the main focus of the analysis.
Scollon and Wong Scollon's (1995) "grammar of context" provides the main scheme for interpretation. Interviews are discussed as both a kind of "staged performance" and part of a research process that creates data. We find further components of data analysis, mainly repeated coding, steps of interpretation and display as important as the collection of data. In many ways, the idea of "codes" is crucial for the described communication situations: Coding and decoding occur involuntarily across several languages, cultures and disciplines. If "language is ambiguous by nature" (Scollon and Wong Scollon 1995:6), the data derived from talks (interviews) across several languages appear highly error-prone and imprecise. At the same time coding is a crucial part of the qualitative data analysis (in Grounded Theory terms; cf. Glaser 2002), where it is seen as the first step in the explicit interpretation of a text.
We conclude that several forms of interviews (individual, researcher group, respondent group) can contribute to recording and analyzing some of the many dimensions of local knowledge in Northern Vietnam. Furthermore, we would like to encourage researchers to consciously perform, write about, evolve and use their specific mix of methods to capture and come to an understanding of the different facets of local knowledges.
As a somewhat innovative form of data display we present this "paper" as an Internet-site. This means a number of hypertext markup language documents (standard Internet language html; the layout is centrally formatted by two"cascading style sheet files" (css) which allow for separate formats of the screen and the print versions of online documents. We hope that this makes for a more dense and integrated form of display than a traditional text on paper.

Acknowledgment

To all the "locals", here and there who made this piece of work possible. To Huyen Nguyen for her support, Claire Sutherland for editing this paper, Simon Süssegger and Rüdiger Korff for the talks in Yen Chau.

Keywords

interviews, group interviews, interview context, intercultural communication, translation, qualitative data analysis (qda), data display, html

1. Introduction

Ten years ago the oft-cited "Battlefields of Knowledge" (Long and Long, 1992) was published; since then knowledge and related issues have been treated extensively within academic development-related thinking [1]. Adding some concepts from Actor Network Theory (ANT) and from a discourse approach to intercultural communication (Scollon and Scollon 1995), we will discuss methodological aspects relating to (local) knowledge in this paper.

Situating our empirical work and texts in what Olivier de Sardan calls the "developmentalist configuration" (Olivier de Sardan 2001), we propose that today's battles for knowledge are rhetorically fought in the developmentalist configuration [2], whereas pragmatics of performance, uncertainty and negotiation/accommodation mostly rule in the research fields: The presented examples of research deal with contemporary montane, rural northern Vietnam (Yen Chau and Cho Don districts).

We will begin our argument with the perspective of a translator; her observations and experiences with "locals" and "the Germans". Then, we compare the field work of three case studies in detail. The research processes are compared with regard to their empirical and methodological basis and interpretation process. The first study is on "Local realities in Yen Chau". On the base of open interviews with K'mu and Black Thai farmers we consider the dimensions in which knowledge appears. Through coding of the field notes it is shown that knowledge is often associated to ethnicity and Kinh in-migration. The second example concerns field work conducted with Black Thai, Hmong and Tay farmers. In this study, knowledge is analyzed as an asset to pursue livelihoods (Neef et al 2002). Knowledge as socially constructed (oral) history, that is, locally found "Land Use history" is the final example. Lastly, a short sequence of field work will highlight the use of maps in a group discussion. Research on the "Ecological assessment of barren hills by using vegetation classification for subsequent rehabilitation strategies in Northern Vietnam" provides the conceptual frame of the example.

By comparing these three inquiries, we reach at the conclusion, that each configuration of research question, researcher and resource availability requires its own and specific methodological tradeoffs. However, conceptionalization, coding, reflection, iteration and openness are guiding principles we propose.

1.1 (Our) Methodology is a collective performance

Since qualitative data analysis has seen a strong rise in many disciplines, many labels have been proposed for a sociologically and anthropologically informed methodology (for a comprehensive bibliography, see Qualitative Tools for Multimethod Research). Textbooks on qualitative methods usually include a chapter on research ethics, because qualitative researchers are likely to run into ethical dilemmas (e.g. Miles and Hubermann 1995, Girtler 2001).

"[Qualitative] research is often more invasive than quantitative research, and tends to investigate more completely the identity and daily reality of informants. In quantitative work, the respondent can often simply refuse to answer questions that they find too personal. But qualitative research, with its reliance on observations, open-ended interviews, and other somewhat stealthy methods, can more easily lull an informant into being quite open with researchers. Extra care must be taken to avoid violating the confidentiality of those who make research possible."
Source: Qualitative Tools for Multimethod Research: Ethics

In the following, we will focus on the practical and underlying epistemological aspects of method. Specifically, we try to put forward methods and their application for something like "sociologically informed inquiries" which are "methodologically concerned with the local". We propose that the major domains of our methodological quest can be summarized in four dimensions. This we consider the space for "performing methodology":

- Abstraction and conceptionalization
- Resources (staff, machines, materials)
- Intensive field contact
- Intra (research) group dynamics
- Communication of results

At least two paradoxical demands arise from this list: The further we move up the ladder of abstraction (as promoted by e.g. grounded theorists), the more difficult will it become to communicate results to a broad audience (as suggested by e.g. reflexive ethnography).

A second paradox regards intensive field contact and resource use. Although we share the view that field work and thick empirical data are crucial to good research results, and that a good part of conceptualization happens during field work (Girtler 2001:XXX), we still can not generally expect prolonged stays (of weeks/months) in the referred to mountain areas as most qualitative methods actually demand (cf. Miles and Hubermann 1995:6). However, even during relatively short stays the aimed at process of "enculturation of the researcher" in our cases evolves, involuntarily but sensibly and is strongly mediated by "middle women": Mainly translators who at the same time translate and explain local cultures to us foreigners (compare paragraph 2).

The methodological works and ideas used in this paper are summarized in the following table 1. The lines of the matrix are ordered chronologically, i.e. the newest references appear at the lower end.

Table 1: Methodologies

In Law's and Urry's (2002) reality which is defined as a "relational effect", methodology is concerned with the "two-way-traffic between sociology and the social". For Law and Urry, sociological knowledge is powerful and method is performative. This means "it [method] has effects; it makes differences; it enacts realities; and it can help to bring into being what it supposedly discovers" (Law and Urry 2002).

From the field of Science and Technology Studies we will further adopt the term allies. Allies decide what is true, and hence are responsible for the crucial transformation from a "knowledge claim" to "legitimized knowledge". Here we are also back to the battle, in the form of a "battle between the allies" which each knowledge claim can unite and mobilize for its support. The allies are hybrid and consist (amongst others) of: "people, facts about the world, laboratories, scientific papers, publishers, instruments, scientific funding agencies, colleagues, referees" (Law and Singleton 2000, Latour 2001).

In order to illustrate the processes of data collection, data reduction and conceptualization, we present detailed sequences of field work from three studies. The analysis is based on transcriptions of interviews and field notes.

Typical actor-configurations can be defined for our case as researcher group vs. individual interviewee, researcher group vs. interviewee group. Most often, the researcher groups included several nationalities and one (or several) translators. Interdiscourse communication in the field in the Scollons' terms for intercultural communication.

1.2 A discourse approach to intercultural communication

One main source of primary data (quantitative and qualitative) in our work is what Northern Vietnamese farmers, or villagers, tell us. These talks, during which data are generated, are situations of intercultural communication. This implies that we can easily set up a differentiation between "us" and "them" (Others). Leaving questions about identity categories aside for the moment, it indicates the main interface and communication processes with which we are concerned, and which methodologically informed procedures should help to manage.

In order to grasp the communication situations conceptually, we chose a framework, presented by Scollon and Scollon (1995): Intercultural Communication; a discourse approach. By this we do not want to reduce intercultural barriers to language. But, through the concept of discourse, the spoken texts are interlocked with the meanings they carry. It provides a basis to interpret meanings as they arise out of the 'micro' situation of a single talk/interview, just like meanings which are the result of more long-term and 'macro' processes.

We use the ideas of "Others" and "discourse" here as heuristic tools rather than wanting to evoke postmodern or postcolonial connotations (cf. Bhaba 2001, Escobar 1998). Otherness refers to cultural difference and distance, or 'the gaps' across which we work on a daily base. The idea of otherness also emphasizes the point that mutual stereotyping is likely to occur. However, if combined with reflection stereotypes can be rendered productive and support learning (cf. Drinkwater 1992). Discourse here first of all refers to face-to-face conversations and especially those we have with local farmers.

If we accept the proposition that "language is ambiguous by nature" (Scollon and Scollon 1995:6) and given the fact that our field work involves several languages and nearly always translation, all primary data become suspect. A close look at how the data are generated and an explanatory framework are hence justified. The description of the interview situations will be structured according to the Scollons' "grammar of context of speech situations" (Scollon and Scollon 1995:21). Thereby the different situations are made comparable and the circumstances of the conversations can be related to the meaning which is generated during the talks.
The discourse approach suggests that the differences between speakers and resulting difficulties to communicate can be traced back and explained by analyzing each one's embeddedness in a discourse system (Scollon and Scollon 1995:170). A discourse system consists of a) Forms of discourse, b) Face systems, c) Socialization and d) Ideology.

Figure 1: The discourse system

Source: Scollon and Wong Scollon 1995:170

The discourse system emphasizes belonging to a "group which shares a language", or, a system of symbols and sets out to analyze it through the four components. Discourse systems can be defined according to categories, such as age group, hierarchical position, profession, gender, ethnicity, nationality, or finally and most broadly, cultures. Other ordering categories are possible, but the chosen categories have empirically proved to be of outstanding importance (Scollon and Scollon 1995:170).
However, one speaker performs within and across more than one discourse system: "[T]here is always the insoluble problem that, at any one time, one is participating in multiple and possibly conflicting discourse systems" (Scollon and Scollon 1995:250). Depending on the situation, one person might speak as a Vietnamese, a woman, a Black Thai (a local ethnic group), as Party member, or the leader of the village's Women's Union. The tensions that arise from the different identities, values and norms which are associated with each discourse system are "a perennial discourse problem to be solved" (Scollon and Scollon 1995:205).
However, we find the most significant interface or the widest gap to be between "them - the local farmers/villagers" and "us - the researcher team". In between are one or several "interpreters". Figure 1 emphasizes the central role of our interpreters. The term interpreter for sure is as appropriate as that of translator, because both interpretation and translation co-occur. The two discourse systems, us and them, their subsystems and the nexus=translator are displayed in figure 2. The figure also hints at the diversity within the two major systems. As we will try to show, what kind of data are generated is also strongly influenced by processes and relations within each group.

Figure 2: Interdiscourse communication

Source: Based on Scollon and Wong Scollon 1995

1.3 The research process

Others before us have used the metaphor of journey for the research process (de Vries 1992, Day 2002). In this paper our main questions concern how research journeys are and can/not be performed. Empirically that asks for how groups conduct research, call it research teams; how during and after their meeting, communicating and ill-communicating with local/villager/farmer individual interviewees or groups, scientific knowledge is finally constructed. Specifically, for the presented case this means "how do the first gain and represent the gained insights in the knowledges of the latter". This meeting, communicating and ill-communicating, gaining insights and, finally communicating these we define as research process.

This process has been described as a kind of theory laden 'research journey' , where one has to be "constantly in search of potentially suggestive meanings and interpretations, which could help validate or reach a better understanding of events, contradictory accounts or alternative perspectives on existing or concealed issues" (de Vries 1992:80). More formalistic, Miles and Hubermann (1995) offer a model for qualitative data analysis, on which figure 2 is based. Although the anticipatory phase has a strong impact on the whole research process we will not treat this aspect in more detail. As all presented examples are ongoing, we will focus on the "During"-phase, and mostly on data collection. Note that the component flows, which are displayed separately, interact in reality. Roughly, the 'journey of the coded bubbles' in figure 1 goes from top left to the bottom right side.

Figure 2: Flow model of qualitative data analysis

Source: Adapted from Miles and Hubermann, 1995

What can warrant then that these journeys are not arbitrary in direction, or merely a form of tourism and that they will finally be considered rewarding ones. For that to happen and new scientific knowledge being produced, we think that much depends on the interaction of the displayed flows; a conscious iteration of steps, sensitive to circumstance and new insights. Key notions in this domain are iteration and heuristics.
Documentation, however is probably the most basic precondition. Even in Girtler's (2001) "free field research" for his "Soziologie/Ethnologie" which gives researchers comparably great freedom and responsibility in the field and which reduces standardization for data collection to a minimum, thorough documentation is an initial but nevertheless essential prerequisite. Daily notes of what has been reported to, observed, experienced and felt by the researcher in the field are a core element in this approach to field work. However, she can note only what and how the researcher perceives. It follows that the experienced and theoretically informed observer has advantages. For young or novice researchers, field work which includes guidance, company and exchange with more experienced colleagues provides the chance of "learning by doing".
A property of the researcher herself is the second aspect we consider a precondition for warranted empirical studies: reflexivity (cf. Campbell 2001:387, Le Meur and BierschenkXXXXX). This means the willingness of the individual researcher/research team member to constantly observe and question her own reality, her own ways of learning and of imputing meaning. Methods (or "semiotic technologies" Haraway 1991) to perform a study on the knowledge of others, can-not be excluded from this self reflection either (cf. Martins 2000). The following examples of ongoing studies and actors illustrate typical practices of field work and our related reflections.

2. A translator and her hybrid Germans

As the interdiscourse model of figure 2 suggests, the interpreter is in a key position, as she translates both across languages and systems of meaning. When asked to write about the relation between Vietnamese and Germans, one of our interpreters, who has several years of working experience with Germans or German researchers, came up with the following:

"The views of the Vietnamese about the German people: They are cold hearted, sometimes it is very hard to deal with them. They look down on Vietnamese people and think of themselves that they have higher education and access to the most modern technologies, they never care for the people who is being around them."

This is followed by other characteristics like "punctual and very good in financial management. They are hard working and very good in organizing their work..."[4] It is noteworthy that several recurring categories are mentioned in this citation. Arrogance appears again; is it related to our "scientistic, positivist" ideology and arrogance, as Haraway (1991:187) has put it? However, the differences in status and self-esteem are linked to formally acquired, "modern knowledge" and machines. The point here is that modernity/technology, knowledge and status are recurring and recurrently related themes, as we will show in the following examples.

A second crucial point here is that language is dynamic, and that it is the process of becoming more capable of expressing and understanding which effect the quality of raw data decisively. For instance, during the period of fieldwork described in paragraph 3.1, several new terms were created. E.g. "worshipman" in the absence of a better term to label the local shaman, priest, or whichever term is scientifically appropriate. Another example concerns how both sides may learn: I learned a new expression/euphemism: "working girls" which was used as a code for prostitutes, who were said to be a major annoyance to villagers in one case. The term "ethnicity" is as an example for the subject-specific vocabulary that our translators learn through interaction with disciplinary and professional discourses.

So during conversations and discussions, the "shared lexicon" is being expanded, even if by incorrect, made-up words. How far the meanings attributed to the terms coincide across the cultures involved is another issue [5]. But, given that each (foreign) researcher starts her field work with a set of concepts in mind and that these are (often) not known to the translator beforehand, working consciously and continuously on the "shared lexicon" is, at least, helpful.

Considering the chain of translations from the respondent's end brings to light another factor: How each respondent's command of the Vietnamese language influences what can be translated and finally reach us. Expressing themselves in Vietnamese poses no or only a minor problem to the male Black Thai respondents. But, speaking in other than their mother tongues does pose a problem for some female Black Thai and most of the H'mong respondents. The effect is a tendencial bias towards male and Thai respondents as their views can best be verbalized, documented and hence analyzed.

3. Three inquiries and diverse actors

Despite being quite different studies, the following examples share several commonalities. Firstly, all cases are inquiries which are conducted under the umbrella of "The Uplands Program - Research for Sustainable Land Use and Rural Development in mountainous regions of Southeast Asia" (SFB 564). Second is a concern for accessing local actors' realities and knowledges. Drawing on Long's key concepts of actor perspectives and interfaces, we will describe actors, sequences of field work with their problems of communication and the following analysis of the primary data. Third, the present cases refer to studies in northern Vietnam (Son La and Bac Kan provinces; Yen Chau and Chod Don districts). Experiences from Thailand, the second country where the Uplands Program is active, are used for comparative analysis, but no empirical examples were included in this paper. Fourth, all presented sequences of field work involve groups of researchers, hence collective inquiries.

3.1 Talks and life-worlds

This section starts by describing how a set of data was obtained from talks with individual respondents and spontaneously formed groups. The analysis shows how and in which contexts of meaning knowledge was presented by respondents during the interviews. In this section knowledge is treated as "what defines reality". The taken-for-granted reality of everyday life or life-world [6], then is "the local".

3.1.1 Data collection

The data and many of the ideas presented in this section were developed collectively and within the frame of the "Interdisciplinary study project" under the theme "Local Knowledge and flows of Innovations in a Period of Agricultural Change". The study project was headed by H.R. Korff (University of Hohenheim) and D.C.Thu (Hanoi Agricultural University), who also guided the first visits and interviews in the villages.

The sample was drawn out of the inhabitants of two villages (chosen beforehand by the organizers) in Yen Chau district, inhabited by the K'mu and the second by the Black Thai ethnic groups. Data collection was done between June and August 2002. The group of researchers changed over time, the core group referred to in this section included two Vietnamese male students, one female translator, one male German student who collected data for his Master thesis on "Local realities in Yen Chau " and myself (JRF). The Master student was the main interviewer, I intervened sporadically during the interviews.

Data collection involved two main methods: Interviews with individuals or small groups as respondents and walks through the villages during which occasional talks were held and village-maps were drawn. We will restrict the discussion to nine interviews which we conducted with men and women.
Firstly, the overall scenes in which interviews (often around one hour long) took place shall be described. The respondents were met in their homes or in public places, like the Black Thai village's "bar", located at the village entrance near the bridge. These different locations have implications for the conversation situation. The location "bar" has the advantage, that passers-by can and did join and leave the conversation as they want, and we in turn could observe the trading activities close by and people coming home from field work while sitting and talking at that place. Hence, the conversations at that location probably came closest to what Girtler calls "research conversations" in contrast to interviews. Conversations, where the one-sided question-answer-game for the exclusive sake of data extraction is substituted by a conversation characterized by mutual exchange of ideas and informations on a more equal basis and a less controlled flow of topics. At the other extreme are cases of interviews at people's houses, where at least at the beginning, respondents' tension or disinterest was obvious, as they were sweating and showed signs of nervousness or, in another case yawning and manicuring finger nails demonstrated disinterest in the case of two female respondents. However, towards the end of the interviews, both cases turned into more relaxed and engaged conversations. By the end of the interviews we always gave the respondents the possibility to ask questions. This turned out to be helpful in that it enabled us to learn about the respondents' perceptions of ourselves and gives hints in the direction: What are they curious about? Furthermore, giving respondents the opportunity to ask the researchers questions of their choice often resulted in sequences of unstressed talk. Topics placed by the respondents included the (German) researchers' family situation; "Are you married?", "Are you/Germans faithful to your girlfriend/partner?" or "Do you have a car?" The key (mood) of the conversations was often most relaxed when it came to those topics, as it was during the conversations at the "bar". Generally, a wide range of topics was treated during interviews, with varying focuses according to the respondent's/respondents' backgrounds (social, occupational, age, gender). We did not use a written interview-guideline, although reference to several domains was made in each interview like culture, agriculture, ethnicity and markets.

Participants: On the side of the interviewers, we were usually a group of 3-4 persons, face to face with individual respondents or spontaneously formed groups between two and some six persons. The researcher/respondent encounters happened partly planned, partly spontaneously. In one case we were denied an interview: The respondent (a teacher) was asked by our translator to give us an interview which he denied, claiming that he "does not know anything". This leads directly to the distribution of roles performed by researchers and respondents. Within the researcher group, the German members were usually "in charge" of conducting the interviews: choosing respondents, formulating questions and taking field notes. The issue of separating data from interpretations was repeatedly discussed. Some irritation arose, because the German part of the group repeatedly felt that they would not get a sufficiently separated account of the respondents' but rather the translators' statements and views. The translating Vietnamese in turn argued that they were only repeating the respondents' talk, and not, as they were accused, giving their own interpretations. This points at a typical paradox within our research program concerning interdependence and power relations between the two groups: While we (Germans) are often in the more powerful position of main researcher in contrast to research assistants and translators, at the same time we most strongly depend on them, our Vietnamese colleagues and assistant staff. Not least during the many and typical instances when the translators or other Vietnamese colleagues are actually "in charge" of conducting interviews or other conversations. Much in this sense also depends on the person of the translator, her ability to relate to respondents, to establish rapport and a favorable key during a talk, in sum to converse.[7]

3.1.2 Data reduction

After the data were generated in the field, and usually still during the same day, our group met to recall and discuss what had happened during the interviews. This exercise, although time consuming (at least as long as the interviews themselves), turned out to be extremely fruitful for the following reasons: a) data/field notes turned out to be error-prone and incomplete due to the quick writing-up during the interviews and sometimes only partial translations. b) data and/vs. interpretations could be discussed in detail and thereby methodological issues could be explained and discussed. The shared knowledge about interviewing was thereby increased. c) Different context knowledges of the group members could be used to contextualize data and highlight the different theoretical/ideological backgrounds of the Vietnamese and German students. Especially the Vietnamese's background knowledge helped us to firstly grasp and later to contextualize data (e.g. beliefs/spiritual life, relations between ethnicities, administrative designs). d) The intensive cooperation facilitated a better understanding among the group members and fostered group-internal relationships. In sum, the meetings contributed significantly both to improving primary data quality and to increasing shared knowledge [8].

During these meetings, I recorded/transcribed the field notes on the computer. Those texts were then used as primary documents for further processing and analysis with the help of software for qualitative data analysis: Atlasti™. The software is designed according to Glaser and Strauss' "Grounded Theory" approach, which accordingly influences the analysis.

The analysis so far is mostly based on coding, a tool featuring prominently in many qualitative approaches [9]. Each code is connected to a sequence of primary document text, e.g. an interview text. According to Miles and Hubermann, a code can be descriptive, interpretive or refer to a pattern, or leitmotiv (1995:57). One feature of Atlasti™, called "auto-coding" shall be mentioned here. This function allows to search all primary documents for a specified term, mark the word, sentence or paragraph automatically and attach a code to it. I did this for the term "know", and then sorted the resulting codes-plus-quotations into the categories which are discussed in 3.1.3 (See also Annex 2: Field notes with codes).

Admittedly, none of these intermediary texts will serve as an acceptable and understandable form of data display, the data generated are still fragmentary and any interpretation must be done carefully and should build on other evidence besides this kind of interview data. Nevertheless, the methodological point here is that intermediate steps of analysis can be made transparent and shared. These following steps after coding are crucial to Grounded Theory methodology and include what Glaser calls "the tedium of constant comparison" (Glaser 2002:37). Mainly by this (comparison and conceptionalization), he holds, the researcher will find abstract patterns (finally one core category) to theorize about the subject under study. Furthermore, according to Glaser, it is during this process that the subjectivity of the researcher can be reduced to a minimum and which reveals researcher biases (Glaser 2002:14, Strauss and Corbin 1990). Individual researcher biases can obviously be reduced through team work. How researcher groups differentially accomplish this is described for each example and summarized in table 2.

The last step until now was to re-read the primary documents for more cases where reference was made (also indirectly) to knowledge by the K'mu and Black Thai respondents. Hence, after combining our (researcher background) knowledges with the results of the coding and auto-coding exercises, the result at this stage can be presented as follows.

3.1.3. Learning about their knowledge?

This is a provisional interpretation and a competing/complementary interpretation is forthcoming (Süssegger 2002). What we want to show is how the individual researcher's methodological choices together with his research interests and ideology influence the result. The analysis aims at highlighting how knowledge is related to different everyday lives, or life-worlds.

As a text by H.R. Korff from the planning phase of the project and minutes of a meeting at Hanoi Agricultural University are included in the primary documents, this "Western sociologist's" perspective and how he tries to convey his ideas appears through the auto-coding. Other quotations remind of instances where the lack of shared background knowledge made communication between Germans and Vietnamese impossible. Also, there is a quotation that describes how indigenous knowledge is conceived by a Vietnamese colleague; roughly cited: "Since the 1990s we have a new direction in research: Farmer Participatory Research. If you give new technologies to farmers you must respect indigenous knowledge (combine technological knowledge with indigenous knowledge). They must be interested. Researchers must discuss with farmers. Before, researchers always stayed in Hanoi; maybe the technologies were not appropriate for the uplands with their different conditions. How to combine the two knowledges? You must learn from farmers." So much for our academic battlefield, where knowledge claims and knowledge production function as the right to exist, as a stake and decisive resource.

On the villager level, it can be said that reference to knowledge was made in the most diverse contexts. The most regular pattern was to relate knowledge to ethnicity and business. First of all, a hierarchy of ethnic groups seems to exist in terms of status and knowledge that is (self-)attributed to each group. From top to bottom this list starts with the Kinh (ethnic Vietnamese), followed by the Black Thai, then the K'mu and, finally the H'mong (the list is incomplete). Hence, knowledge seems to add another item to Le Trong Cuc's (2001:205) list of issues where negative self-stereotyping occurs [9]. It was repeatedly argued that Kinh people are more skillful in doing business and arithmetic as compared to any minority group. Accordingly, the data suggest that interethnic relations and exchange are important variables for increasing knowledge and economic success.
Several statements seem indicate a trend towards more integration and "interethnicity": One example is the case of a village headman who was presented to us as an expert in medicinal knowledge (in contrast to other "healers" who were called "amateurs"). As we were told, he got hold of a book on Chinese herbal medicine during his service in the army which enabled him to become this "medicinal expert". Or a father's desire for his child to get a good education and, later a job as a nurse, that is outside of the village and the ethnic community; or the status of mixed couples. The several mixed couples we met (mostly Kinh women and Thai men) who live along the main street and who are often engaged in trade seem to support this argument (cf. Castella et al 2002). Given that these couples are integrated into two cultural and social systems - majority/Kinh and minority groups - it appears plausible to argue that they have a privileged situation due to access to resources and their familiarity with rules in both systems.

At the other extreme, the H'mong are said to be the most isolated group. Isolation is observed in geographic as well as in social terms as expressed e.g. in cases of intermarriage, in political representation and not least due to their poor Vietnamese-language skills. Our own observations and experience is similar: working with H'mong people is most difficult, due to the most severe language constraints. It is most costly too, due to the distant locations of most villages and the time needed to get there.

From a farming systems perspective however, the explanatory power of ethnicity has recently been questioned as compared to access to production means. Although recognizing the historic importance of ethnicity, Castella et al (2002:69) argue that; "It is now becoming difficult to draw clear lines between the agricultural practices and lifestyles of these two major ethnic groups [Dao and Tay] in Bac Kan Province. Instead of using the traditional criterion of ethnicity, researchers should use households' endowments of land, labor, and natural resources as the key factors for analyzing current circumstances and future rural development actions."

It is this idea of endowments or, as we call it assets, which guides the following example. This example just like the citation above expresses a stronger action-oriented, or managerial stance of inquiry, than one which aims at "local realities". Nevertheless, the first without the latter runs the danger of being ill-informed and to fail in its objectives and its claim to improve the living conditions of whichever "developees".

3.2 Sustainability and matrices

This second example explores a study on actor perspectives on sustainability. Although carried out in the same region, this study's approach yielded partly different results. In comparison to the first example this inquiry was conducted in a decidedly more deductive way: A scientific framework had been chosen beforehand and respondents' statements were then collected and fed into the frame. Therefor, we present the conceptual framework first, then we discuss the data collection and interpretation processes.

3.2.1 Perspectives on livelihoods

"To date, experience of involving rural people's perspectives and arguments in the definition of sustainability and in the search for suitable indicators for its assessment remains scant" (Neef et al. 2002:1). This is how we introduce a paper which we called 'Sustainable livelihoods in mountainous regions of northern Vietnam: From technology-oriented to people-centered concepts' (Neef et al, 2002). While sustainability has become a buzzword in the scientific community and in the 'aid industry', it has remained a rather vague concept, meaning different things to different people. Our starting point was that rural people's interpretations and concepts of sustainability have rarely been considered in the scientific and development discourse. In an attempt to go beyond the currently existing concepts and indicators of sustainability, we wanted to find out whether outsiders' concepts can be blended with local people's perceptions. We found theoretical backing for our argument in Long (1992) and Long (2001) who pointed to the relevance and analysis of the multiplicity of perspectives and interfaces, characteristic of and crucial to development research and practice. One basic observation behind Long's argument is that in such development interactions, vastly differing lifeworlds meet. Long's school of thought, however, focuses on actors' strategic behavior and points to factors as to why different perspectives cannot be brought together. Recently, here have been calls by Röling (2001) and other scholars to transform the "battlefields" into interfaces of joint learning and negotiated agreements. Before starting our research we were convinced that this perspective of 'interactive (social) science' (Röling 1996, 2001; Caswill and Shove 2001) or 'dialogic research' (Mohan 2001, Russel and Kelly 2001) brings a more constructive stance into actor-oriented sociology and provides a basis for bridging worldviews between so-called experts and local people in a sustainability dialogue.

Methodologically, we borrowed ideas from approaches which have been recently developed and adopted by British research teams in Uganda (Howlett et al. 2000) and Malawi (Cromwell et al. 2001). A major difference of our approach was that we emphasized group discussions rather than individual interviews. As an analytical concept we used the framework of sustainable rural livelihoods developed by Carney (1998). We especially focused on the notion of 'capital': resources on which people draw, depend, and which they use in sustaining and improving their livelihoods (see Annex 6: The five types of capital of the "Sustainable rural livelihoods" framework).

The major conclusions of our study were that " the sustainable rural livelihoods framework is in principle receptive to rural people's own interpretations of livelihood trends and sustainability. […] Hence, it is a useful starting point for contrasting and, at a later stage, accommodating scientists', local people's and policy makers' perceptions and interpretations of sustainability." (Neef et al, 2002).

The processes which enabled us to capture those farmers' statements, construct their perceptions and finally reach this kind of conclusions will be described below.

3.2.2. Group meetings and matrices

Six one-time meetings with farmers' groups in four selected villages of Yen Chau district, Son La province, Vietnam form the empirical basis of this study. Typical for the region, the Black Thai villages are located in the valleys, whereas the H'mong village visited is located on a higher altitude. Correlated with the altitude is more remoteness and less paddy rice area. Due to especially difficult communication in the H'mong case, the following is based mostly on the interviews with Black Thai villagers.

After introducing the members of the researcher group, the overall topic of the discussions was explained by the moderating researcher. The group interview then followed a relatively standardized script. (1) The respondents were asked to indicate factors determining success and failure of local farming practices. (2) As factors were named, we asked for further explanations. All factors mentioned by group members were then (3) written down on cards and arranged in the form of a two-column matrix (success vs. failure). In the next step, (4) success factors were ranked by the respondents according to their relative importance. Respondents were then asked to (5) discuss strategies they use to improve their livelihoods and to identify major constraints in this process.

The meetings were always held at village headmen's houses. We scheduled the meetings for the evening, so as not to disturb the daily working routine of the farmers, and the sessions were usually followed by a shared meal and home-brewed cassava- or rice schnapps. Offering drinks to guests/researchers is a very common custom in the area. Whereas drinking together surely helps to establish rapport, it has had devastating effects on several "interview attempts" in previous studies.

The respondent groups consisted of three to six persons who were selected by the village headmen. In three cases, the headmen were asked to select the groups stratified by age, social status or gender. Due to the limited number of repetitions, the stratification yielded no conclusive results. For example, only one group of women was interviewed by female researchers in a Black Thai village which did not allow for capturing distinctive "female perspectives" that we could classify as representative.

The methodological choice of group discussions has important implications: Diverging ideas tend to be levelled out and generalizations prevail over concrete cases. The village headman was present in almost all discussions and the respondents were often village representatives of the mass organizations, such as Women's Union or the Veteran group. The authors are divided regarding to what extentt the decision as to who participates in the group is a result of power relations within the village. And hence, in how far such exercises are biased towards village elites. Regardless of whether this results in the promotion of elite perspectives and interests or participants' performance as spokespersons, the composition of the respondents' group is likely to influence the respondents' behavior during the interviews.

Our observation that controversy among respondents was virtually absent and that consensus was aimed at during most of the meetings, lends itself to several interpretations. It can be interpreted (i) as an outcome of power relations within the group, which suppress divergent opinions, (ii) as a result of the homogeneity of the groups, or (iii) as the effect of the "one-shot" character of the group discussions, where villagers will hardly show disagreement and a lack of internal unity when confronted with a group of outsiders in meetings which they perceive as public and formal events (cf. Mosse 2001).

Equally, characteristics of and processes within the group of researchers deserve attention for their impact on the results. The multicultural composition of the group, differing context knowledges and interpretative schemes allows at least to compare our researcher interpretations and guarantee a degree of inter-observer agreement. This "investigator triangulation" (cf. Campbell 2001:386) however, rests on the assumption that the individual observers have complementary knowledge. Here again, the juxtaposition of our (foreigner) perspectives with those of the Vietnamese colleagues and one female Thai researcher proved to be effective in exposing quite divergent interpretations and value attributions of e.g. state activities or with regard to conceptions of ethnic minority groups etc. At the same time, the size of the group at times became a problem. Coordinating activities within the researcher group, mainly through the distribution of roles (moderator, translator, observer) and tasks (writing of cards, documentation), was not always successful. The coordination within the researcher group also comprises differing agendas. As each researcher has a different area of special interest, related issues and hypotheses are treated preferably. This sometimes led to too fast changes in topics and hence confused sequences during the interviews.

3.2.3 And what did we learn about methods?

One major lesson learned from the case study on sustainability was that a single method (in this case a matrix) is not enough to cover concepts with multiple facets. However, we think that doing this particular matrix exercise in a group meeting rather than interviewing individuals was the right approach. Confronting individual respondents with a research team of 4-5 people would have overwhelmed and even intimidated them. We also believe that 'sustainability' is more a 'collective concept' than an individual one. Focusing in such a group meeting on the farm household system as the major reference unit, however, bears the risk that factors affecting the sustainability of the whole village community or certain subgroups are not considered. Therefore, aspects of social capital (e.g. local networks) and physical capital (e.g. infrastructure) which certainly have an influence on sustainability of livelihoods were underrepresented in the villagers' responses.

The composition of the respondents' group is a decisive factor for the success of the group meeting. While heterogeneous groups carry the risk that influential people dominate the discussions, 'homogenized' groups might lead to a lack of dissent and therefore reduce communicative action among the participants. In the socio-political setting of Vietnam where selection procedures of respondents are strongly formalized it is important to clearly formulate the selection criteria that corresponds to the objectives of the study. It would also be necessary to monitor whether the selected persons match the given criteria, a step which we did not follow in a systematic way.

We also found that it was difficult to confront villagers in a one-shot exercise with such a complex and ambiguous concept as sustainability. There were phases within almost every meeting where communication between respondents and research team reached an impasse which had to be overcome by new attempts to motivate the participants to respond to the questions. Thus, the character of the group meeting was much more extractive then we originally intended having had in mind a more dialogic form of research. However, after the sometimes sluggish collection of factors of success and failures in farming, the ranking of those factors by the group always was a lively exercise and added new information. This leads us to the conclusion that introducing some variety into the usual 'question-response' pattern of group interviews can be beneficial for both the research outcomes and the atmosphere between interviewers and respondents. During the study we tested another method taken from the PRA 'toolbox', namely the resource flow diagram which indicates the level of differentiation and integration of a farm household system. This method opened up other dimensions, for example which activities within the farming system have the highest priorities for the farmers. Another method that could add additional dimensions are individual life histories reflecting how people cope with external shocks like droughts or dramatic declines in product prices.

Finally, we felt that it was difficult to avoid that villagers link this exercise with certain expectations. At the end of the sessions we usually asked the respondents whether they had questions to ask us. In contrast to the case study described above, the questions revealed mostly the expectations that villagers tend to have vis-à-vis foreign research teams. "Will the German government help us in getting new technologies?" and "Could you influence the local authorities to broaden the road and to connect our village to the electricity network?" While a 'development' bias in the preceding matrix exercises was not particularly evident to us, we cannot exclude that these expectations resulted in sometimes strategic responses. A longer term presence in the area would make the researchers' agenda more transparent to the villagers, level out too high expectations and could eventually pave the way towards a more 'interactive' approach.

3.3 Degraded land and local history

This last example is from a cooperation of two subprojects within SFB 564. One of the authors is currently involved in supporting a landscape-ecological study in order to facilitate one component of this study: Data collection and analysis of "indigenous knowledge". The problem stated in this study is that vast areas of hillsides (called "barren land") have been degraded through overuse in the past. The basic rationale is that the degradation status of the sites can be defined by soil parameters and plant societies. Furthermore, the plant societies (species composition and abundance) serve as a means to classify sites according to their degradation. In order to delineate subsequent rehabilitation strategies for these degraded sites, a characterization and classification of the sites is the aim of this ongoing Ph.D. study. Local knowledge is of interest to the study in two main regards: (1) The land use history of the plots where bio-physical/chemical properties are measured has to be known in order to explain the history of degradation. (2) How wild plants are used by villagers for medicinal, food, fodder or other purposes.

3.3.1 Cooperation and field work

The cooperation was initiated in March 2002 and so far consists of several meetings in Hanoi, where research questions, joint activities and field work procedures were discussed. Two periods of field work in Bac Kan province have since been carried out. During the first stay in Bac Kan, between April 26th and May 5th, I (JRF) had the possibility to get to know the sites and experience working in another cross cultural setting. The researcher group this time consisted of three Vietnamese men (one professor of botany, two technical staff for soil sampling and the main researcher's husband), the main (female) researcher, a female Yugoslav M.Sc. student (whose topic is similar to the Ph.D. described) and myself. Contrary to what I had expected, there was no time for interviews or group meetings during this week. Instead, we spent the days climbing up and down the steep hill sides (sweating lots), taking soil samples and recording the vegetation. The point here is simply, that despite having planned the trip together, my expectations concerning this piece of field work were quite different from what I actually got. This is an experience I share with many German colleagues, which I attribute primarily to miscommunication. More precisely, the assumptions concerning "what has to be given, so that it is justified that I spend a week in the field" differed but were not outspoken and clear enough in advance. However, accompanying a Vietnamese research team at work was a valuable experience in its own right, and the time spent and hardship faced (thorns, leeches, steep slopes and heat) together did improve the relationship and increased mutual familiarity. Not least, coincidental encounters and talks with villagers "in the fields" provided hints at issues which came up during the second visit to the village. E.g. the complaint about another research project, active in the village (see 3.3.3).

3.3.2 First nature, then people

The example I want to elaborate on in the following is one group meeting we held with five women, belonging to the Dao ethnic group. It took place during our second joint field trip, when we also conducted some individual interviews with farmers. More pronounced than in the preceding examples, disciplinary boundaries between researchers were shown here to constitute yet another gap which had to be bridged. In the interdiscourse model, this might be treated under "inter-professional discourse". The paragraph's headline does not want to denounce the study's approach, which follows primarily natural science questions and concepts and includes local knowledge as one, rather marginal component. But the headline is intended to point to two problems which arise from it. First is the limited time and resources that can be allocated to a subordinate part of a study. This, in the specific case adds up to constraints which are due to occupational obligations and to being a mother. The second is that it is an ongoing and difficult task to find common ground, when it comes to conceptual and methodological questions concerning knowledge, qualitative data and the like. The following illustrates what field work can look like under these conditions.

3.3.3 A meeting with maps

The group interview was held in a house, constructed by and belonging to a different research program which has been active in the village for several years. The interview participants were contacted and selected by a technical staff of the project. Here again, at least two of the participants held leading- or elite positions in the village; one being the leader of the Women's Union, the second being married to the village's biggest forest-owner. After an introductory round, the purpose of the meeting was explained and the map-drawing exercise began. The two female main researchers had decided to draw one map each and one after the other. Although their research topics are similar, each one refers to a different site (i.e. toposequence of a hill).
The Yugoslav researcher started and sketched the area of interest. Taking houses, paths, creeks, fields and forest land as a reference, the map could be sketched readily. Shared knowledge over the terrain existed, as the researcher had spent several weeks on the site for taking samples. Apparently, her observations of the stage of succession at certain spots also coincided with the local women's account of its land use history. Thanks to a herbarium and the presence of the project staff, individual plant species and their (botanical) names could also be translated and discussed. The villagers' observations of certain species diminishing, while the abundance of others increased coincided with the researchers' concept of indicator plants. In some cases however, causal relations such as "plant is bad for soil" (villagers) vs. "plant is indicator for bad soil"(researcher) remained unclear. In one case the claimed attribute "plant grows after clearing the forest" (villagers) was in direct contradiction to the textbook characterization "plant grows on degraded soil".
Meanwhile, the second researcher got increasingly impatient, because the first mapping exercise seemed to be endless. The "performing researcher", after being reminded of the time, finished the first map and the procedure could start once again; for the second site, and with a different focus. The Vietnamese researcher was at that point primarily interested in finding out the owners of the different plots within her site. This information she needed in order to trace back the land use history.
Remarkable in this session was how frequently answers referring to points in time ("when did you move here", "when did you leave that field fallow") were in the first instance given, then discussed among respondents and finally corrected.
During the whole session, a quite lively key prevailed and most of the respondents engaged in the conversation. No difference with regard to engagement as a function of age or social position could be observed except for the sequence when an elderly woman entered the room and, standing at the back, commented and interfered regardless of other people talking. Also noteworthy is one participant, who repeatedly criticized the researchers: "You should have started drawing in the left top corner, then you would still have space" and, later "the map is not correct, you could not hang it up like this; people would not agree". Still later, the same woman complained (as she had done in an earlier meeting in the field) that due to the spraying of herbicides, promoted by the research project, her chicken were skinny and her husband got sick. Also her buffalo would not eat the newly introduced grass species. These accusations of course could not be left uncountered by the project staff present, who replied that the husband had problems with his lungs and spinal column before already and that the chicken were skinny was also not a fault of the project.
However, there are two reasons for this anecdote here; first, it is a common situation that other research or development projects have been in a village before we get there. This can have the implication that statements are strategic with regard to this former experience and that expectations are attached to researchers which they cannot fulfill. Or that respondents' statements are biased simply towards "what outsiders usually want to hear". The second reason for the anecdote is that, despite the usual consensus-seeking behavior mentioned in paragraph 3.3.2, this should not be seen as generally applying to all group interviews.
In sum, we argue that an initial "time/space-referencing" could be obtained during this meeting, for which the mapping exercise is useful. Similarly, herbarium species can serve as a means to focus the conversations. A major weakness of the described session was the lack of preparation. Although discussed and planned beforehand, the sequence was not clear enough within the researcher group.

4. Comparison of the three examples

In what precedes we tried to show how different disciplines, research topics and approaches search and hence bring to light differently conceived forms and aspects of local knowledge. The comparison is possible though, as the described data were generated during interviews. Coming back to the Scollons' "grammar of context", we compare central features of the three cases in a matrix. If comparing the given examples with regard to triangulation, in example one we probably find the most "observer triangulation". Example two could be considered "theory triangulation"; if the locals' statements concerning sustainability are granted the label theory. "Data triangulation" is best demonstrated by example three. The very different data sets (soil parameters, vegetation composition, interviews) fulfil the precondition for meaningful triangulation: Namely that the blinders of one technique/theory/observer/data set are compensated by the other (cf. Campbell 2001).

Table 2: Summary of interview contexts:

Comparing the described group- with the individual interviews, one observation concerns the introduction of topics. In the group meetings, a relatively closed range of topics was always given from the researchers' side. In contrast, individual interviews allow to discover and follow topics which are brought up by respondents. While the first yields more focused and concrete data, the latter is surely more rewarding in terms of the diversity of dimensions and presumably produces a more "realistic" representation of local realities.

Note that the ideal types are taken from Miles and Hubermann (1995:28) and that all presented samples are also the result of "opportunistic" considerations, or a "take what you can get now" strategy.

5. Where are the battlefields to come?

Considerable amounts of quantitative data have been accumulated within the Uplands Program. Qualitative data are being collected mostly by means of group exercises and with visualization tools (PRA-tools). We see a major challenge in the future methodological triangulation between quantitative and qualitative methods. Blinders of both methodologies could thereby be highlighted.

Standardization of data recording will be a necessity in order to improve the methodological rigor of the qualitative methods used. The grammar of context discussed offers one possibility to systematically document interview situations and hence explore strengths, weaknesses and analyze co-occurrence patterns.

Rapport, or in Girtler's (2001:108) imperative "gain confidence!" can hardly be achieved during one-shot meetings of whichever (visual) type. We expect that longer term interaction and the creation of shared knowledge among the groups discussed rather than popular communication props (PRA- or visualization tools) can facilitate bridging the gaps of understanding , reduce ambiguity and hence improve the validity of data. Prolonging field research periods, however has its limits. Researchers' willingness to stay in the field for an extended time can not be taken for granted, just like institutional time frames can be prohibitive to extended field work.

The preparation of field work is obviously crucial for successful group interview performances. The size of both respondents and researcher groups is one main factor which determines the demands on the moderator. The bigger the group of researchers gets, the more internal moderation work is necessary. As much data collection is done collectively, group moderation deserves more attention as a part of method. According to Legewie and Böhm (1999:2), the following aspects are crucial in team work: a) Group dynamics and participants' responsibility, b) Role and tasks of the moderator, c) Techniques of visualization. As we have tried to show, it depends on each case. It importantly depends on the persons, on communication between them, on planning and serendipity which creates each group performance anew. So, besides the desirable use of visualization tools, anticipatory planning and training of researchers, each interview situation will have to be creatively solved by the group.

From what has been said above it should also have become obvious that our access to the local ethnic groups depends strongly on and is mediated by Kinh Vietnamese co-workers. So, improving our understanding of the local reality demands a prior understanding of the Kinh perspectives. Even more so because state institutions and the official discourse are Kinh-dominated and valid interpretations of minority-related issues presupposes understanding the Kinh/Minority interplay.

Assuming that intra-gender communication is easier also across cultures, the resulting recommendation would be that researchers and respondents should be of the same sex where possible. As we generally face comparably greater problems to access women's perspectives, we would like our practice of promoting local-women/women-researcher encounters to be seen as a worthwhile, still inconclusive and open-ended methodological experiment.

The previous discussion has shown the multidisciplinary reality of research work. This is appropriate for the topic of knowledge, which by definition disregards disciplinary boundaries and blinders. So the question is not whether or not but rather how and to which degree interdisciplinarity is feasible and desirable. However, between disciplines as between cultures, or "epistemic communities" (Knorr-Cetina 1999) the greater the interaction, the more likely we are to provoke discipline-internal conflicts. Well aware of this, Castañeda calls for "antidisciplinarity" (Castañeda 1999) and a "a serious consideration of seemingly disparate kinds of knowledges". Reiterating this call for pluralism may seem a poor conclusion and poor methodological advice, yet the several "inters" of this paper - interculturality, interdisciplinarity, interdiscourse - urge us to be modest. At a very basic level, working across disciplines and cultures brings us back to the shared lexicon mentioned-earlier, or the "formulation of a uniform, discipline- [and culture-; JRF/AN] transcending terminology" (Mc Neill 2001). Basic but essential: Expanding a shared language will continue to be a major methodological issue. How uniform this language needs to be remains an open question?

The last word shall be given to the oldest methodological advice which we came across while writing this paper. Thucycides' (404 BC) experience stems from documenting the war between Athens and Sparta, yet field researchers which attempt to give accounts of literal or metaphorical battlefields may still today find the advice timely. The citation is taken from Kwa Chong Guan (1998:19), who discusses "The value of oral testimony: Text and orality in the construction of the [Singaporean; JRF/AN] past". Thucycides' advice concerns the still persisting methodological problems of subjectivity and producing valid field diary data out of anecdotes and stories:

"And with regard to my factual reporting of the events of the war I have made it a principle not to write down the first story that come my way, and not even to be guided by my own general impressions; either I was present myself at the events which I have described or else I heard of them from eye-witness whose reports I have checked with as much thoroughness as possible. Not that even so the truth was easy to discover; different eye-witnesses give different accounts of the same events speaking out of partiality for one side or the other or else from imperfect memories."

6. Endnotes

[1] Recent European contributions, which just like Long and Long (1992) influenced this paper come from scholars we might want to subsume under "Long's school of thought" about knowledges in development and the related research scene can be accessed at: Agency, knowledge and power - a workshop in Wageningen. 2001.

[2] See for emblematic examples on Vietnam: www.worldbank.org.vn, www.undp.org.vn, or Le Meur and Bierschenk XXXX

[4] Provocatively we might call "scientific prejudice" the concept of "cultural standards" as used by Thomas (1994, 1996, 1999). Thomas holds that German professionals in a Chinese-German joint venture cooperation are stereotyped with the following characteristics: (1) Orientation towards issues/things (2) Orientation towards rules (3) Directness/Truthfulness (4) Interpersonal differentiation of distance (5) Orientation towards hierarchy and authority (6) Time planning.

[5] The question behind is that of semantics: What makes a physical matter of fact (signified) a sign (signifier)? In the case of intercultural communication, besides the limited shared lexicon, the culture-dependent schemes for coding (speaker) and decoding (receiver) must be expected to overlap less than within one culture. For an introduction (in German) see: Legewie 1998

[6] Following Habermas (as cited in Legewie 1998), the concept of life-world denotes the space of social action from the perspective of acting subjects. It is composed of: (1) the material base, living and dead nature and man made environment and (2) the communicated symbolic components of culture, society and personality

[7] For an introduction to the psychology of conversations (in German) see Legewie 1998. Employing Schultz von Thun's (1989) notion of "communicative styles" (e.g. helping-, aggressive-devaluing-, self-distancing style) to the translator/respondent/researcher configuration highlights significant dimensions of the translators' task, which often is to mediate between the different communicative styles and to prevent ill communication (characterized by not-understanding, disappointment, frustration, aggression).

[8] For comprehensive analyses concerning computer-based qualitative data analysis see e.g. Miles and Hubermann, 1995, Dicks and Mason (1998) 'Hypermedia and Ethnography: Reflections on the Construction of a Research Approach' or Coffey, Holbrook and Atkinson (1996): Qualitative Data Analysis: Technologies and Representations or Moes (2000) for practical issues concerning hypertext analysis .

[9] The main issues named in this list of self attributed negative stereotypes are: Ignorance, superstition, backwardness and tradition-boundness. The emphasis of and combinations of these characteristics differ between ethnicities; generally the highest percentage of persons self-ascribing the negative characteristics to themselves is found among the H'mong (Le Trong Cuc 2001:205).

7. References

Bhabha, H. 2001: The Other question: Stereotype and the discourse of colonialism. pp. 388-402 in Seidman, J. and Alexander, J.C. (eds.) The new social theory reader: Contemporary debates. Routledge, London.

Bierschenk, Le Meur XXXX

Bierschenk, T. and J.-P. Olivier de Sardan (1997) ECRIS: Rapid collective inquiry for the identification of conflicts and strategic groups. Human Organization. Vol 56(2), pp. 238-244

Campbell, J.R. 2001: Participatory Rural Appraisal as Qualitative Research: Distinguishing Methodological Issues from Participatory Claims. Human Organization, Vol. 60, No. 4

Castañeda, C. 1999: Author Meets Critic Panel: Donna Haraway, Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium, Working paper, University of Lancaster, URL: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/scistud/working_paper5.htm (10,07,02)

Caswill, C. & Shove, E. (eds.) 2000. Interactive social science. Special issue of Science and Public Policy, 27(3)

Clegg, S. 1990: Modern organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage as cited in Lewis M. W. and Kelemen,M. L. 2002: Multiparadigm inquiry: Exploring organizational pluralism and paradox. Human relations, 55(2) pp. 251-275

Coffey, A., B. Holbrook and Atkinson, P. 1996: Qualitative Data Analysis: Technologies and Representations, Sociological Research Online, vol. 1, no. 1, URL: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/socresonline/1/1/4.html.

Cromwell, E., Kambewa, P., Mwanza, R. & Chirwa, R. 2001: Impact assessment using participatory approaches: 'Starter pack' and sustainable agriculture in Malawi. Agricultural Research and Extension Network (AgREN) Network Paper No. 112. Overseas Development Institute (ODI), London.

Dicks, B. Mason, B. 1998: Hypermedia and Ethnography: Reflections on the Construction of a Research Approach. Sociological Research Online, vol. 1, no. 1, URL: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/socresonline/3/3/3.html

Howlett, D., Bond, R., Woodhouse, P. & Rigby, D. 2000: Stakeholder analysis and local identification of indicators of the success and sustainability of farming based livelihoods systems. Sustainability indicators for natural resource management & policy. Working Paper 1. Department for International Development & University of Bradford, UK.

Knorr-Cetina, K., 1999: Epistemic Cultures, Cambridge Mass. London: Harvard University Press

Knuuttila, T. 2002: Signing for Reflexivity: Constructionist Rhetorics and Its Reflexive Critique in Science and Technology Studies [52 paragraphs]. Forum: Qualitative Social Research [On-line Journal], 3(3). Available at: http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/fqs-eng.htm [10,15,02].

Korff, H.R. 2002: Local knowledge between thick description, ideology and science. Keynote paper for the conference on XXXX Bayreuth November 2002

Korff, H.R. 2002:Annex 5: Study Project: Local Knowledge and Flows of Innovation in times of Agricultural change

Korff, H.R. 2002: Annex 5: Knowledge for "Participatory Watershed management"

Korff, H.R. YEAR?? Lokalitäten in der WissensgesellschaftXXXXXXXXXXX

Kwa Chong Guan 1998: The Value of oral testimony: Text and orality in the reconstruction of the past. In P. Lim Pui Huen, Morrison, J.H. and Kwa Chong Guan (eds.) Oral history in Southeast Asia: Theory and Method. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Latour, B. 2001: Das Parlament der Dinge. Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp.

Latour, B. forthcoming: Good and bad science: the Stengers-Desprest’ falsification principle, in: Bodies on Trial: Performances and Politics in Medicine and Biology. URL: http://www.ensmp.fr/~latour/Articles/77-BERG.html

Law, J., Urry, J 2002: Enacting the Social, Centre for Science Studies and Sociology Department, Lancaster University at: http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/soc099jlju.html

Legewie, H. 1998: Hermeneutische Diagnostik. Lecture materials, URL: http://www.tu-berlin.de/fak8/ifg/psychologie/legewie/VL-Skripte/Dokumente/downloads.htm

Legewie, H. and Böhm P. 1999: Short English version of "Moderation“ in: Böhm, B., Janßen, M. & Legewie, H.: Zusammenarbeit professionell gestalten. Praxisleitfaden für Gesundheitsförderung, Sozialarbeit und Umweltschutz. Freiburg: Lambertus 1999.

Le Trong Cuc and A.Terry Rambo. Bright peaks, dark valleys, A comparative analysis of environmental and social conditions. 2001. Washington D.C, The national Political Publishing House.

Long, N. & Long, A. (eds.) 1992. Battlefields of knowledge: The interlocking of theory and practice in social research and development. Routledge, London.

Long, N. Development Sociology: Actor perspectives. 2001. London, Routledge.

Martins, J.S. 2000: Reforma Agraria: O impossivel Dialogo. Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo

Miles, M.,B.; Hubermann, A.M. 1994: Qualitative Data Analysis: an expanded sourcebook. Second edition, Sage, Thousand Oaks

Moes, J. 2000: Von der Text- zur Hypertextanalyse: Konsequenzen für die qualitative Forschung [15 Absätze]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research [On-line Journal], 1(1). Access at: http://qualitative-research. net/fqs (15,07,02)

Mohan, G. 2001. Beyond participation: strategies for deeper empowerment. In: Cooke B. and Kothari U. (eds.) Participation. The New Tyranny? Zed Books, London, New York, pp. 153-165.

Mc Neill, D. 2001: Interdisciplinarity and sustainable Development Policy: what have we learnt?
http://www.sls.wau.nl/crds/seminar2001/McNeil%20paper.pdf Paper presented at the Workshop on "Agency, knowledge and power: New directions in the sociology of development, Wageningen, 14-15 December 2001.

Neef, A., Friederichsen, J.R., Chapika Sangapitoux, Nguyen Thi Tac 2002: Sustainable livelihoods in mountainous regions of northern Vietnam: From technology-oriented to people-centered concepts. Paper presented at the MMSEAIII conference, 25 - 28. August 2002, Lijang, Yunnan, China.

Neubert, D., Macamo, E. 2002: Wer weiß hier was? "Authentisches" lokales Wissen und der Globalitätsanspruch der Wissenschaft.

Olivier de Sardan, J.P. 2001: The three approaches in the anthropology of development. Paper presented at the Workshop on "Agency, knowledge and power: New directions in the sociology of development, Wageningen, 14-15 December 2001.URL: http://www.sls.wau.nl/crds/seminar2001/Sardan%20paper.pdf (05,07,02)

Qualitative Tools for Multimethod Research. no date: Division of Social and Community Psychiatry, Neuropsychiatric Institute UCLA, Los Angeles. URL: http://www.npi.ucla.edu/qualquant (10,21,02)

Röling, N.G. 1996: Towards an Interactive Agricultural Science. European Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension, 2, No. 4, pp. 35-48.

Röling, N.G. 2001. From arena to interaction: blind spot in actor-oriented sociology. Paper presented at the Workshop on "Agency, knowledge and power: New directions in the sociology of development, Wageningen, 14-15 December 2001.

Russell, G.M. & Kelly, N.H., 2001. Research as interacting dialogic processes: implications for reflexivity. Forum Qualitative Social Research (On-line Journal), 3(3). Available at http:/www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/fqs-eng.htm [10-15, 2002].

Schulz von Thun, F. 1989: Miteinander reden Bd. 2: Stile, Werte und Persönlichkeitsentwicklung. Differentielle Psychologie der Kommunikation. Rowohlt: Reinbek

Scollon, R. and Scollon, S.W., 1995. Intercultural communication: A discourse approach. Blackwell, Oxford and Cambridge

Strauss, A., Corbin, J. (1990): Grounded Theory Research - Procedures, Canons and Evaluative Criteria; Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 13, No. 1

Thomas, A. 1994: Ist Toleranz ein Kulturstandard? Sonderdruck in Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache, Bd. 20, pp. 153-175.

Thomas, A. 1996: Psychologie interkulturellen Handelns. Göttingen: Hogrefe.

Thomas, A. 1999: Interkulturelles Lernen. In G. Pollak & R. Prim (Eds.), Erziehungswissenschaft und Pädagogik zwischen kritischer Reflexion und Dienstleistung pp. 402-423. Weinheim: Beltz.

Thomas, A. & Wagner, K.H. 1999: Von der Fremdheitserfahrung zum interkulturellen Verstehen (I). Kulturpsychologische Grundlagen für den Einsatz interkultureller Trainingsprogramme. Praxis des neusprachlichen Unterrichts, Vol. 46 No. 3, pp. 227-236.

Torres, G. 1992: Plunging into the garlic: Methodological issues and challenges. in Long, N. & Long, A. (eds.) 1992. Battlefields of knowledge: The interlocking of theory and practice in social research and development. Routledge, London.

Vries de 1992: A research journey: On actors, concepts and the text. in Long, N. & Long, A. (eds.) 1992. Battlefields of knowledge: The interlocking of theory and practice in social research and development. Routledge, London.

8. Annexes

Annex1: Internet links to sociology, development and participation

Annex 2: Field notes remodelled: Knowledge and codes in field diary data

Annex 3: A seven element grammar of context of speech acts

Annex 4: Sociology and Anthropology definitions

Annex 5. Rüdiger Korff's Local knowledges

Annex 6: Five types of capital

Annex 7: Constructing a lexicon