| generated and put to practical use. Fairhead and Leach [1994] make a similar point when they observe the ways in which specific utilisation patterns are separated into isolated parts for the purposes of scientific analysis. Research and extension workers thus isolate knowledge into studies of geographical differences, specific crop species and their uses, or particular practices - agro-forestry, hunting, fishing, and so on - disregarding the entirety of circumstance which surround these practices. While we are not suggesting that Alcorn herself is guilty of depersonalising and immobilising local knowledge systems (she provides references to more detailed documentation of farming systems), the outcome of such a general analysis nevertheless suggests the existence of a definable body of knowledge independent of the contexts in which it arises. One of the problems with this approach is that it removes people’s agency, facilitating the appropriation by non-local agents of these practices and techniques, only to be imposed as ‘top-down’ development. Not only does this defeat the objectives of participatory development and local empowerment which an IK - oriented theory expounds, but it also establishes and legitimates itself in the same way as previous western-centred development theories have done, thereby presenting neither an effective nor radical alternative to the present development crisis. Furthermore, as local knowledge is analysed and documented for use it undergoes changes which necessarily result from the specific orientations, strategies and agendas of those using it, as well as the transformations which inevitably occur through translation. Hobart [1993: 14] underlines some of the potential problems for agency that can occur when knowledge is collected, codified and decontextualised using an example from Croll’s [1993] study of the post-revolutionary period in China. He notes how people’s agency was diffused and depersonalised by attributing knowledge to ‘the masses’ in 25 |
| a government attempt to reverse the idea of a vision of knowledge stemming from the elite and educated. He describes the result: As problems inevitably emerged in putting this reworked and decontextualised knowledge into practice, local populations came progressively to be defined as backward and ignorant...they became presented not as agents but as objects to be changed. Similarly, Zerner [1994] discusses the introduction of an awards scheme by the Indonesian government for villages who observe idealised sasi customs in the central Moluccan islands. Sasi are ritualised arrangements for controlling access to natural resources on a temporal and spatial basis, including closed seasons for particular species - often those of commercial value - enforced through traditional sanctions. Zerner [1994: 1104] notes that the effect of this is to put villages in the public eye, and under the direction of local officials who are now able to get villagers to make changes regarding the management of their resources. In the same way, support groups and NGOs have been set up to observe and ensure that sasi law is adhered to. Village councils, for example, now have to submit annual reports to the provincial Environmental Studies Center at Pattimura University. While it is not in the scope of this paper to examine in depth the political implications of the reorientation in development towards indigenous people and their knowledge and practice, it is nevertheless an important issue which has a direct bearing on the indigenous people themselves and needs to be considered carefully for the future of indigenous knowledge in development projects. Indigenous knowledge as it stands emphasises the personal, the specific and the contextual. To some extent, we would suggest that it too, is in danger of becoming a depersonalised, objectivized concept which, if used as a top-down 26 |
| approach to development, may inevitably lose its agency and efficacy once a new trend is established. Should this happen, it is doubtful whether our western images of ‘tribal’, ‘indigenous’ peoples who require western aid will change, thereby guaranteeing us a continued role within development enterprises. Much depends on the many indigenous groups and alliances which are active in advocating political rights for and over indigenous knowledge. Indigenous knowledge from within the context of non-Western traditions So far in this paper, the conceptualisations of IK which we have offered have been implicitly those of western (or western-trained) professionals, even if they do claim to be acting with the authority, and in the interests of, indigenous peoples themselves. However, the status of such knowledge, from the point of view of indigenous peoples themselves or from their non-western compatriots and political leaders may be rather different. In Asia, for example, what counts as indigenous knowledge is certainly more problematic than it is for those operating from the West. Thus, For European and Asian elites alike, IK is variously that of some great tradition (e.g. Ayurvedic medicine), or more often that of local myriad little local traditions. These great Asian `scholarly ways of knowing’ were a combination of epistemic and gnostic knowledge, respectively dependent on an agreed shared authority and the personal authority of a practitioner. They were often grounded in written texts, and resembled the European scholarly traditions already discussed. Galenic, Chinese and Ayurvedic traditions of medicine differed from each other, but each had in common scholarship: `the foundational knowledge of each could only be acquired by careful study under teachers relying on ancient texts’ [Bates 1995]. Where the great and the 27 |
| little traditions merge is unclear, and as in the European case there is historical evidence to suggest, for example, that the great Asian herbalist traditions have been systematically absorbing and then replacing local folk knowledge. Indeed, traditional Chinese medicine is increasingly influenced by the work of medical scientifizers who seek to produce a body of internally consistent, uncontested and impersonal knowledge that can be called `Chinese medicine’ [Farquhar 1995: 273, n27]. Thus, we see here something very reminiscent of the codifying and simplifying processes which accompanied the incorporation of European folk knowledge into the early modern scholarly traditions. In the modern period, Asian reliance on indigenous knowledge has been a combination of economic necessity and tradition. Many Asian scientists, decision-makers and administrators have internalised an essentially Western model in frequently rejecting IK as backward, something which has to be replaced. Others have always recognised the efficacy of some kinds of IK but seen it as strictly complementary knowledge, which has little to do with science-driven development. In recent years, however, the state sector and NGOs in many countries have moved from colonial hegemonic denial towards the positive acceptance of the utility of local knowledge in medicine and sustainable development, partly for political and partly for economic reasons. IK is being rediscovered and `reinvented’. A classic example is the sasi institution of the central Moluccan islands of eastern Indonesia, to which we have already referred. These arrangements for ritually protecting resources by imposing prohibitions on harvesting at a critical period in the growth or reproduction of the resource, which in many areas had become moribund by the nineteen-eighties, experienced a revival through endorsement by NGOs, were integrated into national development plans, celebrated at a national level in the discourse on development, linking ancestral culture with historic resistance to 28 |