Anthropology's enduring interest in people's knowledge systems has recently attracted the attention of development policymakers and practitioners. 'Indigenous knowledge' has emerged with the focus on popular participation and planning-from-below. It has opened up opportunities for anthropology to engage practically as never before. How might it further contribute to, and learn from this current burgeoning of interest, which has taken it somewhat by surprise?

We have some adjusting to do to play a full part in these exciting events. They augur a revolution in anthropological method and theory in the new millennium, communities no longer research subjects but participants. We have much to contribute to, and learn from the ensuing interdisciplinary engagement. This conference will explore these opportunities and their implications. They touch upon many contemporary issues, including some difficult political ones. Do we need further to professionalise our identity and credibility to meet these challenges? When does indigenous knowledge research court unacceptable social and political interference, when do the demands of development agencies threaten to result in unacceptable misunderstanding?

The conference will challenge the stark 'local' and 'global' polarity, and question knowledge making processes that separate technology from power and politics. There is a need to investigate portrayals of 'indigenous knowledge', and the 'production of locality', as countering universalising western science. Recent anthropological concern with the cultural and historical specificity of development policy casts scientific discourse and 'global knowledge' as more contingent and 'local'. An historical/regional perspective warns against reification of 'indigenous knowledge'. Anthropology has a wealth of experience and much to offer the indigenous knowledge movement. We wish the conference to assess how it can do so more effectively by exploring a number of issues:

• What is the content of the term 'indigenous knowledge' as used in contemporary development discourse? What makes some knowledge, people and settings more 'local' than others?
  
  
• What place does indigenous knowledge have in a globalising world? The production of identity and locality in the documentation of local knowledges.
  
  
• The relation between the discourse on others' knowledge and colonial governance as well as development thinking.
  
  
• The need to critique monoliths of 'development' and explore different traditions of development, colonial experiences and regional modernities.
  
  
• The crisis of representation in anthropology, who can write with authority about whose problems in an increasingly globalising world?
  
  
• 'Indigenous knowledge' and intellectual property rights, who has the right to own and control knowledge flows?
  
  
• Is knowledge everywhere owned, or is this a western cultural construct?
  
  
• Is there a need to frame research into knowledge traditions in wider legal contexts?
  
  
• Beyond its production how is knowledge used or misused in development settings?
• The demand for action research to facilitate participation: to what extent is it appropriate for anthropologists to involve themselves in empowerment debates and politics elsewhere?
  
  
• How can indigenous knowledge research inform social development without appearing to engage in social engineering?
  
  
• How to facilitate interdisciplinary research between natural and social scientists, and new forms of collaboration in anthropological research?

The above represent a few of the possibilities that we think fall within the scope of the Conference and we are open to further suggestions.


Deadlines

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ASA Conference 2000

School of Oriental & African Studies
London

ìParticipating in Development:
Approaches to Indigenous Knowledgeî

Sunday 2nd (evening) - Wednesday, 5th April inclusive 2000

1. I am interested in attending the ASA Conference in 2000 at SOAS in London.
   
   
2. I am interested in giving a paper at the Conference:
   
   
3. Yes No (Tick as relevant)
   
   
4. If the answer to 2 above is Yes, please indicate the title of your paper or the issue under which it falls, with a short description of its contents.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Name:
   
   
6. Address: (Work or Home, plus Tel & Fax Nos. and an e-mail address):
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Institutional affiliation: