Nurture Learning From the Past (fwd) (Re: Indn Words for Science)

[phil cash cash]

Nurture Learning From the Past
http://allafrica.com/stories/200403120248.html

Business Day  (Johannesburg)
COLUMN
March 12, 2004
Posted to the web March 12, 2004

By Philip Nel
Johannesburg


THE concept of indigenous knowledge systems is a relatively new one in
the South African academic and scientific discourse, and is still
regarded by some as a throwback to earlier debates over relevance and
Africanisation of our education system.


However, it is far more than that. Indigenous knowledge systems are
about a reappropriation of the knowledge, practices, values, ways of
knowing and sharing, in terms of which communities have survived for
centuries. It is about accommodating and recognising displaced and
misused indigenous knowledge.


Indigenous knowledge systems span not only scientific knowledge about
plants and medicines (as practised by traditional healers),
agriculture, mathematics and geometry, but the rationality of cultural
practices and rites that brought about social cohesion (for instance,
lobola), the creativity and artistry of dance and music, as well as the
technology of fashioning hand-made tools, clothing and beadwork.


Recently, several prominent South African and overseas intellectuals
made an impassioned plea for indigenous knowledge systems to be
accorded their rightful place in the vast array of scientific and
scholarly traditions.


What they were saying in essence was that the knowledge, practices,
values and modes of thinking of communities which had been suppressed,
marginalised and exploited by the legacy of colonialism can, and
should, contribute to the creation of new knowledge and new modes of
thinking.


As pointed out by participants at the international colloquium on
indigenous knowledge systems at the University of the Free State
earlier this month, western science has regarded indigenous knowledge
as primitive not contributing to the knowledge of humankind.


In reaction, scholars of indigenous knowledge systems argue that the
need to reconstruct indigenous epistemologies is about claiming lost
epistemology.


The central challenge is to revisit the typical academic way of doing
things. Has it delivered the outcomes we all hoped for? The pursuit of
indigenous knowledge would say: let us sit down together and from the
entry point make indigenous knowledge systems part of the
methodological reshaping of the scientific agenda, recognise existing
systems of knowledge and advance them through the projects we devise
and the ethical codes we ascribe to.


At times the debate about what constitutes indigenous knowledge systems
their role in society and relationship to exogenous (western) knowledge
systems and modes of thinking can become quite heated and polarised.


Participants at the international colloquium raised a number of critical
issues which need to be addressed.


First, who and what are the practitioners and advocates of indigenous
knowledge systems? As it was put by one participant: "Are we born-again
social anthropologists, sociologists, historians or ethnographers?"


In reality, current indigenous knowledge systems scholars include all
these disciplines and more, precisely because a central feature of
these systems is their multidisciplinary nature. This is also a
reflection of the interconnectedness of human experience a key
principle of indigenous knowledge systems, which also make human
experience and the betterment of such experience their focus.


This contrasts with the western scientific tradition, in which science
has become divorced from its human roots, and tries to make the human
link in only an effort to justify some of its outcomes.


Second, the question was asked whether current indigenous knowledge
systems scholars are projecting the dominant (western) modes of
thinking and epistemologies on to particular projects and research and
calling them indigenous knowledge systems.


In other words, what is the basic difference between an indigenous
knowledge systems research methodology, mode of thinking and knowledge
generation, and dominant (western) ones?


Third, what is the role of indigenous knowledge systems in current
initiatives to transform and restructure the higher education system?
The University of the Free State is a case in point.


The institution has adopted a vision of a robust university critically
engaged with the community on the basis of academic excellence and
social justice. Surely indigenous knowledge has a role to play as a
strategy to engage the existing academic paradigms so as to better
serve the community?


Fourth, the question arose as to how to share and increase the benefits
to the community that can accrue from indigenous knowledge systems and
their application in the modern world. There are many different models,
and each one will be appropriate for any given set of circumstances.
But the fundamental point is that the unsustainable exploitation of
indigenous knowledge systems must come to an end and their benefits be
shared among their custodians.


This is a critical question and will certainly allow indigenous
knowledge systems to contribute very tangibly to the national
developmental agenda. Linked to this is the need to develop a national
policy framework on intellectual property rights which links with
indigenous knowledge systems.


But again the question was posed at the colloquium: how do indigenous
knowledge systems become intellectual property, and what is gained and
what is lost for the communities concerned when their indigenous
knowledge becomes a pharmaceutical product? What happens to the values,
culture, tradition, world view and rationality that encapsulates
indigenous knowledge in that particular community?


The hegemony of a globalised scientific system might be a threat to the
very noble outcomes that it promises. This imposition may be avoided if
community-based and locally based knowledge systems are part and parcel
of the exploratory quest for a civil society and a humanity of caring
and sharing.


Tertiary institutions, as the custodians of academia in particular, will
have to rethink the very heart of their practice if community
engagement is a value to which they subscribe.


Prof Nel is African Studies department head at Free State University.