Negotiating Local Knowledge: Power and Identity in Development (Anthropology, Culture, and Society) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745320066 ISBN 13: 9780745320069

Verlag: Pluto Press, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

The contributors to this volume offer an original approach to debates about indigenous knowledge. Concentrating on the political economy of knowledge construction and dissemination, they look at the variety of ways in which development policies are received and constructed, to reveal the ways in which local knowledges are appropriated and recast, either by local elites or by development agencies. Until now, debates about indigenous knowledge have largely been conducted in terms of agricultural and environmental issues such as bio-piracy and gene patenting. The contributors to this volume break new ground by opening up the theoretical debate to include areas such as post-war traumatic stress counselling, representations of nuclear capability, architecture, mining, and the politics of eco-tourism. Their findings have important implications for anthropology, development studies and other related disciplines.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Colette Harris is a researcher specialising in gender and development, with particular interests in family relations, sexuality and domestic violence. She is currently program director, women in international development at the Office of International Research, Education and Development of Virginia Tech University in the States.

Johan Pottier teaches in the Department of Anthropology at SOAS, University of London.Paul Sillitoe is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Durham.Alan Bicker is at the Dept of Anthropology, University of Kent at Canterbury.

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Negotiating Local Knowledge

Power and Identity in Development

By Johan Pottier, Alan Bicker, Paul Sillitoe

Pluto Press

Copyright © 2003 Johan Pottier, Alan Bicker and Paul Sillitoe
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7453-2006-9

Contents

Acknowledgements, vii, 
1 Negotiating local knowledge: An introduction Johan Pottier, 1, 
2 A possible explanation for the lack of explanation; Or, 'why the master builder can't explain what he knows': Introducing informational atomism against a 'definitional' definition of concepts Trevor H.J. Marchand, 30, 
3 Explosive narratives: The articulation of 'nuclear knowledge' in Mumbai Raminder Kaur, 51, 
4 Knowledge interfaces and practices of negotiation: Cases from a women's group in Bolivia and an oil refinery in Wales Alberto Arce and Eleanor Fisher, 74, 
5 Anti-social 'social development'? Governmentality, indigenousness and the DFID approach on Montserrat Jonathan Skinner, 98, 
6 'All been washed away now': Tradition, change and indigenous knowledge in a Queensland Aboriginal land claim Benjamin Richard Smith, 121, 
7 Managing natural resources in eastern Algarve, Portugal: An assessment of the policy uses of local knowledge(s) Manuel Joao Ramos, Antonio Medeiros, Pedro Sena and Gongalo Praga, 155, 
8 Interfaces of knowledge: The revival of temples in West Hunan, China Mary Rack, 171, 
9 The global flow of knowledge on war trauma: The role of the 'Cinnamon Garden culture' in Sri Lanka Alex Argenti-Pillen, 189, 
10 Modern information warfare versus empirical knowledge: Framing 'the crisis' in Eastern Zaire, 1996 Johan Pottier, 215, 
11 Playing on the Pacific ring of fire: Negotiation and knowledge in mining in Papua New Guinea Paul Sillitoe and Robin A. Wilson, 241, 
12 From seduction to miscommunication: The confession and presentation of local knowledge in 'participatory development' Dario Novellino, 273, 
13 The still waters of the Nile Stan Frankland, 298, 
List of Contributors, 322, 
Index, 326, 

CHAPTER 1

NEGOTIATING LOCAL KNOWLEDGE: AN INTRODUCTION

Johan Pottier

Two decades ago, social anthropology became interested in 'indigenous knowledge' as a possible antidote to the failures of externally driven, transfer-of-technology focused, top-down development (UNESCO-Nuffic 1999: 11; Warren 1998). Underpinned by some deeply rooted assumptions, for instance, that local knowledge was bounded, static, consensual, non-reflective and unscientific (Howes and Chambers 19 79), the initial search for indigenous knowledge convinced both anthropologists and developers that it was legitimate to look for and extract local knowledge elements for use in science. If local knowledge had anything to offer, it was because science could make use of it. The presumed consensual character of local knowledge, moreover, resulted in the further assumption that local knowledge 'systems' applied uniformly over extensive regions and time zones. Concretely and positively, the 'discovery' of indigenous knowledge demanded that development practitioners be receptive to the technology, skills and accumulated knowledge of people everywhere (Brokensha, Warren and Werner 1980; Richards 1985). On the negative side, the enthusiasm for local knowledge data produced some exaggerated claims about its value. Thus in agricultural research, correcting the bias against local knowledge sometimes resulted in the erroneous view that peasant farmers were collectively rational, even super-rational, everywhere (Fairhead 1993).

But the neat distinction between science and local knowledge did not last. First, under scrutiny, local knowledge began to reveal itself as the multifarious, contestable product of an ever-evolving syncretistic process (Scoones and Thompson 1994; Mundy and Compton 1995; Sillitoe 1998). The unitary concept 'local knowledge' fragmented into a plurality of local knowledges. Second, science came to be viewed as less universal and more particularistic than hitherto assumed (Agrawal 1995; Gardner and Lewis 1996). These new understandings prompted anthropologists to rethink the dichotomy. Increasingly, the blurring of this grand divide made researchers more conscious of the political economy of knowledge-for-development; that is, more aware of the risk of intellectual (and material) hegemony and more aware that a degree of local autonomy is required if sustained development is to emerge.

The post-modern challenge, however, also problematised the concept of hegemony: the exercise of power was complex business. At the Fourth Decennial Conference of the ASA (Association of Social Anthropologists of the Commonwealth), a short decade ago, there was consensus that 'the bounded' needed to be replaced by 'the relational' – and that this substitution, this moving away from ontological categories towards interwoven patterns, meant that from now on anthropologists would regard 'knowledge' as simultaneously local and global (Moore 1996). The conference called for a better appreciation of 'the complexities and techniques of knowledge production within and between societies, groups and regions' (1996: 14; emphasis added). Today, the intersection of power and knowledge remains fraught with uncertainty and contradiction. While there is much to be said for a perspective that views transnational hegemonic power as too fragmented to shape local conditions uniformly (Long 1996; Arce and Long 1999), it is also clear that powerful processes of disempowerment are at work, most notoriously through the patenting of life forms (Shiva 1992; IDRC 1994; Pottier 1999). Processes of disempowerment beg the question whether the optimistic, relational approach to understanding hegemony can be sustained.

Set in the broad context of global change and planned development, this volume explores knowledge as embodied practice and addresses the negotiated character of knowledge production with reference to the knowledge interfaces (Long and Long 1992) between local communities (their practices and discourses) and external agents of change, who have their own practices and discourses. No clear-cut distinction between 'local community' and 'external agents' must be assumed, however. Contributors recognise that the production of knowledge, in both development and non-development contexts, is acutely political, because 'what is excluded and who is qualified to know involves acts of power' (Hobart 1993). Knowledge production, we maintain, is embedded in social and cultural processes imbued with aspects of power, authority and legitimation; the act of producing knowledge involves social struggle, conflict and negotiation. Detailed attention to knowledge interfaces allows us to study what happens when 'local knowledge' – which means different things in different places, and different things to people who share the same space – is translated for the purpose of national or international use. And, vice versa, the interface approach throws light on what happens when international policy discourses are invoked for use in specific local settings. There are implications here for anthropology's role in development. We argue that an empirically grounded understanding of how knowledge(s) is (are) produced through the mediation of unequal power relations and processes of translation is a prerequisite for any serious attempt to instigate dialogue and make all stakeholders benefit from development initiatives.

The volume's focus on how knowledge for development is negotiated through processes of translation demands that we reflect on...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Pluto Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2003
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0745320066
• ISBN 13: 9780745320069
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 344
• Herausgeber: Pottier Johan
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar