The cultural context of biodiversity conservation - Oapen

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The cultural context of biodiversity conservation
With emphasis on the geographical factor, the term local knowledge has been widely applied
synonymously and is characterised by Escobar in a broader sense as »a mode of
place-based consciousness, a place-specific [...] way of endowing the world with meaning«
(2001: 153). From the perspective of an anthropology of local knowledge, he questions
how other societies represent the relationship between human and biological worlds,
what distinctions and classifications of the biological are made, in what languages (including
oral traditions, myths and rituals) such distinctions are expressed, through
what practices these distinctions are effected, whether there is a place for ›human nature‹
in native representations and cognitive maps and what the relationship is between
cultural constructions and production relations and between meanings and uses
of biological entities (1999: 9). Sillitoe prefers the term local knowledge as the simplest
acronym of widest currency. With reference to the development context, he asserts
that local knowledge may relate to »any knowledge held collectively by a population,
informing interpretation of the world« (1998b: 204). Elsewhere he provides a working
definition of IK as »a unique formulation of knowledge coming from a range of
sources in local cultures, a dynamic and ever changing pastiche of past ›tradition‹ and
present invention with a view to the future« (2002b: 113).
In contrast to indigenous, the term local knowledge has the advantage of not excluding
non-indigenous knowledge-holders, whose extensive notions on the natural milieu are
also the result of resource-based livelihoods extending across many generations. Nakashima
and Roué (2002) draw attention to this aspect, but assert that the major
weakness of the term is the lack of specificity, as most knowledge can be labelled local.
Although rooted in particular local settings and in this sense to be understood as »situated
knowledge« (Nygren 1999), indigenous knowledge is not to be seen as exclusively
local, but rather as a result of complex negotiations linked to knowledge interfaces.
Therefore, it should be approached as a dynamic and fragmented »plurality of
local knowledges«, rather than a unitary concept of knowledge, as mentioned by Pottier
(2003). In the same way, Ellen (2003) argues that there are diverse »indigenous
biological knowledges« that have a number of broad common characteristics. Likewise,
Banuri and Apffel Marglin (1993 : 9) refer to definitional questions by conceptualising
the expression »systems of knowledge« to signify that there exist manifold ways
to define reality. The term »indigenous knowledge systems« is employed by Nakashima
and Roué more precisely as
the complex arrays of knowledge, know-how, practices and representations that guide human societies
in their innumerable interactions with the natural milieu: agriculture and animal husbandry; hunting,
fishing and gathering; struggles against disease and injury; naming and explaining natural phenomena;
and strategies for coping with changing environments (2002: 315).
Despite the absence of a widely accepted terminological and conceptual framework, it
has been largely asserted by anthropologists that indigenous knowledge needs to be
understood as an integral part of the respective cultural system and cannot be disembedded
from the local context it has been developed in.