Local knowledge and local knowing: An anthropological analysis of contested cultural products in the context of development

Abstract

This study shows systematically why local knowledge (often called indigenous knowledge) has a big developmental potential and why its utilization for development is ambiguous. Local knowledge consists of factual knowledge, skills, and capabilities, most of which have some empirical grounding. It is culturally situated and is best understood as a social product. The practical application in the development context is less of a technological but a theoretical and political problem, what is shown here generally and by referring to forest-related knowledge. Local knowledge is instrumentalized and idealized by development experts as well as by their critics. But it does not necessarily present itself as a comprehensive knowledge system and activities based on local knowledge are not necessarily sustainable or socially just. The use of local knowledge for development should not be restricted to the extraction of information or applied simply as a countermodel to Western science.