Dialogue in Pursuit of Development - Are you looking for one of ...

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In the Participatory Action Research in 1975–1980, a team of Tanzanian
and Finnish researchers (of whom I was one) worked with the pastoralist
Parkuyo Maasai in the Bagamoyo District of Tanzania. The problem the government
requested the researchers to study was how to get the people to
send their children to school. The people had threatened the education
officer with spears, who had come to their kraal to register the children, and
the government asked us to communicate with them on their behalf.
We had shaped our research from the start so that the people were active
partners in our research. We were totally dependent on them for any knowledge
about their life, cattle, social relations, etc. Our researchers were young
and had only elementary knowledge about pastoralist life in comparison
with the people with whom we started sharing life. To live together, not
coming to people as experts, as scientists, as people from another class, is
essential in getting into a dialogue with any group of people.
The Maasai had very little prejudice about us outsiders, the men communicated
with men and we women shared life with the women. The overall
outcome was that the men who in the beginning swore that their girls would
never go to school (only one, the Christian chairman of the village did send
his girl to school) now did send most of both the girls and the boys. The
main problem was that the government was unable to meet the requests of
the people. The cattle people feared that their daughters would no longer
remain with the cattle if they went to school. They requested that the local
school, to the building of which they had contributed, would also teach
modern cattle practices. They would have provided the cows and a man to
take care of them. The government did not even consider such a possibility,
although I personally worked very hard on all levels to to draw attention to
the problem of the cattle keepers. Both other Tanzanians and the scientists
see the Masaai as a curiosity, not as a source of knowledge in relation to
cattle and pastures. We, nevertheless, managed to get a real dialogue going.
It so happened that the veterinarians who were regional livestock officers,
held a seminar for the Maasai, made them sit at desks, and wrote Latin names
of medicines etc. on the blackboard. I happened to come for a visit just
then. But the Maasai men managed to turn the situation around. They started
asking the veterinarians whether their way of castrating was right. In doing
so, they were able to get real help for their real questions. Information that
the officers got from the Maasai men came by the way, accidentally. This
could have been a real chance to learn from the Maasai. In such a situation a
wise officer, and correspondingly, a wise researcher would have had a real
opportunity to activate people’s own knowledge.
However, very often when a researcher in such a situation obtains new
knowledge, he/she turns it into his/her knowledge and does not give credit
to that source.
There are also many examples of knowledge, which we do not consider
useful, but which is important to the people. We tend to set our research