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II. How can we make scientists listen to those
with local knowledge?
Marja-Lisa Swantz 2
There is a credibility gap between local knowledge and scientific knowledge
as the latter is based on the idea that science proves the truth-value of
its knowledge while the experimental and experiential local knowledge
does not use the same systems of evidence. When local knowledge is even
partly based on a belief system, which to the scientist is not rational, he/she
dismisses it as a curiosity, an object of study but not useful knowledge.
Scientists have conveniently prefixed ordinary people’s common knowledge
with the prefix ethno-. We have ethno-science, ethno-botany, ethnotechnology,
etc. signifying different forms of local knowledge or indigenous/
endogenous knowledge, knowledge of the people. Ethnology and ethnography,
on the other hand, are recognised as branches of social science signifying
scientific research done on ways of living and material culture of an
ethnos, a people. They depend on people’s knowledge but do not promote
it nor do they even always give credit to the owners of the knowledge.
There is an ethnological school promoting ethno-methodology, and that
gives credence to everyday knowledge. It bases its method and substance of
study on the claim that also scientific knowledge builds on everyday knowledge,
and thus there is no break between the two – they are part of the same
continuum.
What changes scientists’ attitude toward local knowledge? A simple answer
is that their attitude invariably changes when scholars take the local
people seriously, whose life situation they study, and turn them into partners
and actors in the study instead of dealing with them as objects of study. This is
the cardinal factor in research, which in fact requires a change of paradigm in
research methodology. Action research and participatory action research have
this basic factor as their starting point. When people whom scientists ordinarily
take as objects of their research become research partners their knowledge
becomes an integrated part of the scientific work. The truth-value can
then be found in dialoguing with those who test the value and usefulness
of their knowledge in everyday life. The partners also learn through experience
the weaknesses and gaps in their knowledge and thus their need for
new knowledge too.
2 Marja-Lisa Swantz (Finland), PhD from the University of Uppsala with long experience as a
missionary and researcher particularly from Tanzania is now Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
at Helsinki University.