This is 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 knowledge 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. This collection breaks 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.
Johan Pottier is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at SOAS, University of London. He is the author of Anthropology of Food(Polity Press, 1999), Re-Imagining Rwanda (Cambridge University Press, 2002), Negotiating Local Knowledge (Pluto Press, 2003) and the co-editor of Researching Violence in Africa (Brill, 2011).
Alan Bicker is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent at Canterbury. He is co-editor of Negotiating Local Knowledge (Pluto Press, 2003).
Paul Sillitoe is Professor of Anthropology at Durham University and former Shell Chair in Sustainable Development at Qatar University. He is co-editor of Negotiating Local Knowledge (Pluto Press, 2003).