Integration Of Indigenous Knowledge Research Articles

Participatory technology development for incorporating non-timber forest products into forest restoration in Yunnan, Southwest China

Indigenous knowledge has become a topic of considerable interest within the research and development environment. Incorporating indigenous knowledge into state-led ‘top-down’ conservation and development programmes, however, is still a great challenge. This paper presents a case from Yunnan, Southwest China, in which indigenous knowledge has been integrated into the development of an agroforestry model with non-timber forest products for the Sloping Land Conservation Programme (SLCP) by using a participatory technology development (PTD) approach. This approach was adopted to increase the likelihood that technologies developed would be suitable for resource-poor households. It is expected that integrating indigenous and scientific knowledge, will lead to positive ecological and economic outcomes. Finally, the paper argues that the integration of indigenous knowledge in both forestry policy formulation and implementation is important in the context of sustainable forest management in mountain areas.

The Indigenous Knowledge of African Traditional Health Practitioners and the South African Science Curriculum

South Africa's new and revised National Curriculum Statement implicitly suggests the integration of indigenous knowledge (IK) into the science curriculum so that learners can, inter alia, learn within the context of their cultural knowledge. Unfortunately, teachers do not necessarily know about the various indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) within South Africa. We therefore decided to identify the ideas of traditional health practitioners (THPs) concerning what children need to know, and then to obtain science teachers' responses to these ideas. In this pilot study in the Western Cape, we used a qualitative approach and conducted in-depth interviews with a small group of THPs, with a follow-up questionnaire and discussion with a larger group. We then shared the THPs' ideas with both experienced science educators and high school science teachers. Our results show that THPs think that South African learners need to know about and respect their heritages, especially African IKS. They emphasized the importance of learning about health and freedom from disease, particularly HIV/AIDS. The THPs believe that both science and IK are important in the education of learners, and that they could co-teach their IK in conjunction with science topics. They suggested how they could do this. They believe that science teachers need to learn about IK, and suggested that THPs could learn some science. Both groups of science teachers were interested in, and strongly supportive of the THP suggestions. They also emphasized that IK needs to be standardized and validated by an indigenous organization.

Marginalized Knowledge: An Agenda for Indigenous Knowledge Develop-ment and Integration with Other Forms of Knowledge

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine Indigenous Knowledge (IK) in order to suggest an agenda for its development and integration with other forms of knowledge. The paper discusses what marginalization of IK mean, examines the challenges of integrating IK in the mainstream of other forms of knowledges and sug-gests agenda for IK development. The suggested agenda focuses on mapping and auditing IK capacity in Africa, legal and ethical issues, IK management, IK education and training, integration of IK and KM, IK brain drain. The paper recommends that information on IK be widely shared for evaluation, use and further devel-opment.

Ethnosciences––A step towards the integration of scientific and indigenous forms of knowledge in the management of natural resources for the future

Integration of indigenous knowledge and ethnoscientific approaches into contemporary frameworks for conservation and sustainable management of natural resources will become increasingly important in policies on an international and national level, both in countries that are industrialised and those that have a developing status. We set the scene on how this can be done by exploring the key conditions and dimensions of a dialogue between ȁ8ontologiesȁ9 and the roles, which ethnosciences could play in this process. First, the roles of ethnosciences in the context of sustainable development were analysed, placing emphasis on the implications arising when western sciences aspire to relate to indigenous forms of␣knowledge. Secondly, the contributions of ethnosciences to such an ȁ8inter- ontological dialogueȁ9 were explored, based on an ethnoecological study of the encounter of sciences and indigenous knowledge in the Andes of Bolivia, and reviewed experiences from mangrove systems in Kenya, India and Sri Lanka, and from case-studies in other ecosystems world-wide, incl. Australia, Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Nepal, Niger, Philippines, Senegal, South-Africa and Tanzania.

The Community within the Child: Integration of Indigenous Knowledge into First Nations Childcare Process and Practice

The Community within the Child: Integration of Indigenous Knowledge into First Nations Childcare Process and Practice