Understanding and Doing Research on Indigenous Knowledge in Africa
Johnnie W. F. Muwanga-Zake
A. Introduction
The African landscape resonates with rich diversities in language,
ethnicity, nature, environment and culture evident in the 54 independent countries
that make up the continent. Couched under diversity in languages spoken, the
indigenous knowledge systems have reigned supreme in understanding and
preservation of ethnic and natural environment of the people in terms of lived
practices, flora and fauna. These indigenous knowledge systems have attracted
the attention for research not only among Africans, but scholars from other
continents.
My work resonates with Mammos’ (1999) book about the utter disregard
for indigenous knowledge, practices and roles of local institutions by
researchers and western or westernised establishments in Africa in the context
of poverty, a phenomenon, we contend has plagues Africa yet the continent is
rich with raw materials and products that western world consume or buy such as
cash crops and minerals among others. And we contend that, indigenous thinking
and actions have cultural contradictions that are omnipresent in African
realities
This paper attempts to lay bare issues that face Africa as pertinent to
research and as informed by our experiences doing research and observing
outsiders venture into the continent, unknowingly or knowingly wearing
‘western’s assumptions of knowledge production and research conduction. The aim
of this paper is to start a debate on research in diversity, and makes
suggestions for doing research more responsibly in Black Africa. I believe that
the recognition of indigenous methodology and mechanisms of entry, as well as
problems in translations, publication ownership, and patent entitlement will go
a long way in developing paradigms by which research can be pursued in Africa,
and that this can in the long term contribute towards development that is more
suited to African people.
Despite participation in Western institutional cultural contexts, as
indigenous scholars and researchers, Africans retain a strong commitment to African
indigenous ness through utilization of perspectives and actions that uphold
‘customary practices and oral underpinnings,’ and vowing in due course, not to
uproot the pumpkin from the homestead.
B. Indigenous
Knowledge and its Importance
Indigenous knowledge is defined varyingly in the literature. Casijn,
Pirkola, Bothma and Jarvelin (2002)
calls indigenous knowledge “local knowledge” characteristic of any society and also
considers it to be “a large body of knowledge and skills outside the formal
education system” (p. 94) that allowed
people to function as a whole. Indigenous forms of knowledge have existed in
Africa independent of ‘modern’ formal knowledge establishment.
Furthermore, IK is indigenous to a community,
and is embedded in practices, relationships and rituals (Cosijn, Pirkola, Bothma, & Jävelin, 2002: 1; Bhola, 2002: 10). These
authors believe that IK is tacit and often magical, and sacred, whose content is
an integrated (holistic) form of the traditional disciplines, as we know them
in Western education. The World Bank (as cited in Chisenga, 2002: 1) defines IK
as local knowledge that is unique to every culture and society.
Demonstration of the importance of indigenous knowledge in society
covers a diversity of areas, of which this paper captures a few. For example,
indigenous knowledge on healing and folklore remedies is playing a critical
role in providing needed care and support for AIDS patients particularly in
KwaZulu region in South Africa (Morris, 2001).
Currently, farmers’ knowledge of agricultural practices is generally
acknowledged (Niemeijer & Mazzucato, 2003) in society. Among the Bete
people of Africa’s Ivory Coast, their indigenous soil knowledge and soil-land
typologies corroborated scientific views and enhanced, in relationship to
management, the local soil typologies and the use of soils and land resources
(Birmingham, 2003). Research about
agricultural practices among the Fandau Beri people of Niger indicates the
“need to maximize the benefits of indigenous knowledge [through] integration of
social and natural science [for] precision farming [to occur and] to use to
understand diversity “ (Osbahr & Allan, 2003, p. 1). Further, Niemeijer &
Mazzucato (2003) argues that local soil theories or understandings are better
for “comprehension of farmer practices required for effective collaboration
towards sustainable development” (p. 403).
Unfortunately, this knowledge is interpreted and researched using
discourses and paradigms that are foreign to it. The social anthropologists’
studies of local knowledge were and still are “framed by theoretical and
colonial-administrative concerns …” (Leach & Fairhead, 2002, p. 309) reflective of western understanding and
happenings.
I propose that it is important to consider
participatory activities paramount to many practices in Africa and that it is
of utmost importance to respect indigenous knowledge, because that knowledge
has been developed out of years of experience of specific African environments,
of which you as the researcher has no right to have access unless you
demonstrate, beyond doubt that your research is approved by the indigenous
people and will contribute, not only to their improved well being but to the
improvement of the knowledge.
C. The issues
Often
in Africa, researchers investigate on a community, whose culture, language and
context they hardly relate with or understand, using discourses and paradigms
they come with. These cases fit Dreyfus & Rainbow's (as cited in Lather,
1991: 10) observations thus:
In
terms of the relationship between researcher and researched, ‘the Great
Interpreter who has privileged access to meaning’ plays the role of adjudicator
of what is ‘really going on’, while insisting that the truths uncovered lie
outside the sphere of power. Willis (1980: 90) terms this claim of privileged
externality, this assumed politically neutral position, a ‘covert positivism’
in its tendencies toward objectification and distanced relationship between
subject and object.
According to Pinkus (1996), discourse is
related to, or is a function of, historically specific contexts, and we think
is a function of specific epistemological systems, such that discourse would
change with social contexts, each of which might have an own paradigm. Thus,
Pinkus (1996) worries about discourses that have acquired ‘international’
status, dominating the world, shaping and creating meaning systems that have
the status and currency of ‘truth. I.e., How could a discourse be specific to a
particular context and yet work universally, leading to world or
'international' truths and paradigms? A similar worry about truths in research
on HIV –AIDS was expressed by South African President Mbeki (SABC FM 105.2 broadcast,
5th, May 2000) – Mbeki complained that such truths had acquired
sacred status that shut up minority views (often rejected by the academic
establishments as dissidents). Shutting up anybody requires power. It is the
power controlling research, which concerns Mbeki and Mphahlele.
The clash of values originates from
institutions or establishments, which control researchers. Mphahlele (1996:
239) states that
the researcher's desire to be
unrestricted and the institution’s desire for control constitute discourse, and
that the latter happens through the application of rules and regulations, which
delimit field, and methods of study.
For example, universities and funding
agencies structure proposals and theses, and in effect structure the
researcher’s pattern of thinking. Weedon (as cited in Pinkus, 1996) sums up
Foucault’s views thus “ …Power is
exercised within discourses in the ways in which they constitute and govern
individual subjects”,
which Mphahlele argues makes it difficult to think outside rules and
regulations. Mphahlele further believes that to think outside rules and
regulations, is to lack the ability to satisfy the requirements of the
discourse, and eventually of the qualifications, recognition or funding a
researcher desires. Thinking outside rules and regulations would probably
require alternative discourses and paradigms, which, according to Pinkus
(1996), have hitherto been marginalized and subjugated by the powers that
control discourses. From our experience, it appears that African discourses are
among those marginalized.
Thus, it appears that foreign-based
discourses have been means of control, and currently compromise the validity
and reliability of research in African contexts. Institutional discourses
control choices of paradigms, methods, style of writing and interpretation of
findings, which, as a result, of their foreignness, wipe out some of the
indigenousness of data and perpetuate certain truths, albeit distorted, in
favour of foreign research paradigms. Since, discourse determines the way
knowledge is produced, organised and interpreted, we propose transformation in
research towards locally evolved discourses to enable research that is valid
for African contexts.
Clash
of values
I
think that the use of foreign-based discourses and paradigms erodes the
authenticity of findings to the extent that such findings are contestable. This
lack of authenticity might account, to a great extent, to the subversion of the
voices of the local or indigenous people and of their values, and consequently
to the failure of research to contribute positively towards improving the lives
of Black Africa.
Misunderstanding
a culture of the people might lead to collecting the wrong data and to
misinterpreting data. For example, information obtained from a commoner might
differ from that obtained from a chief, yet in Western paradigms, these are
individuals with equal say.
Therefore, most of the problems with research in
Black Africa relate with the discourse and paradigms researchers and
institutions use to do research there. 'Western' discourse control most of the
academic research and inadvertently can lead to cultural genocide of Black
Africans.
However, both Mphahlele and Pinkus
believed that discourse at the same time offers possibilities or sites for
criticising, challenging, resisting, and contesting powers that control it.
Such possibilities may offer opportunities for transforming research, with the
hope of developing alternative discourses. This belief is in agreement with
Englund (1996: 17) thought that any given discourse is always struggling with
other potential and possible discourses. Our experiences in research seem to
show struggles between 'western' discourses and paradigms against those in
African value systems.
C. The
discourse and paradigms
Michel
Foucault analysed discourse in terms of knowledge production and power:
Ways of constituting knowledge,
together with the social practices, forms of subjectivity and power relations
…. Discourses are more than ways of thinking and producing meaning. They
constitute the ‘nature’ of the body, unconscious and conscious mind and
emotional life of the subjects they seek to govern’ (Weedon in Pinkus, 1996).
… a
form of power that circulates in the social field and can attach to strategies
of domination as well as those of resistance’ (Diamond & Quinby in Pinkus,
1996).
According to Pinkus, Foucault interprets
discourse as a tool that controls the production and structure or constitution
of knowledge (the way we view the world and reality); knowledge systems (or
‘epistemes’, according to Foucault); social dynamics, and strategies (i.e. the
organisation of our social world and ourselves, including our thinking and
emotions and how we fit in society); as well as acceptable, permissible or
desirable practices. Mphahlele (1996: 239), Foucault believed that the
production of discourse is selected, controlled, organised and redistributed by
a number of procedures. Hence, discourse appears to be the medium or power used
by institutions to convey rules and regulations to define what knowledge is,
and how and by whom knowledge must be produced and disseminated.
Assumptions in
research are described by ‘paradigms’, thus, the choice of a paradigm appears
fundamental in research discourse. The concept of paradigm
in education has been used in varying ways and it is important to note that,
“paradigms are not theories” (Gage, 1963, p. 95) but are ways to contemplate
possible formulations of reality.
Paradigms “influence the way we think, how problems are solved, what
goals we pursue, and what we value” (Gablik, 1991).
According
to Breton & Largent (2000), the word "paradigm" has undergone
many changes of meaning and has acquired prominence. Among many references,
(e.g. Maykut & Morehouse, 1997), the definition given by Guba & Lincoln
(1994: 107) seems clearer:
A
paradigm can be viewed as a set of basic beliefs that deals with ultimates or
first principles. It represents a worldview that defines, for its holder, the
nature of the world, the individuals’ place in it, and the range of possible
relationships to that world and its parts, as, for example, cosmologies, and
theologies do. The beliefs are basic in the sense that they must be accepted
simply on faith (however well argued); there is no way to establish their
ultimate truthfulness.
Further, Guba & Lincoln believe that
any given paradigm represents simply the most informed and sophisticated view
that its proponents have been able to devise, given the way they respond to: i)
The ontological question - What is the form and nature of reality and,
therefore, what is there that can be known about it? ii) The epistemological
question - What is the nature of the relationship between the knower or
would-be knower and what can be known? iii) The methodological question - How
can the inquirer go about finding out whatever he or she believes can be known?
Schwandt (1994: 118) pointed out that meanings of paradigms are also shaped by
the intent of their users. Since discourse controls all aspects of paradigms
listed above, it follows that discourse controls research.
It is important to emphasise that
paradigms are human constructions or inventions based on faith, and are
therefore subject to race, politics, economics, gender, religion, culture, etc.
This lends paradigms to speculation and to specific contexts. For example,
assumptions underlying a paradigm must be as closely matched as possible to the
context in which it is used. Thus, it may be difficult to find a paradigm that
can work all over the world or in varied contexts, unless there are
generalisations that relate such contexts (implying some leaning towards
objectivity and value-free approaches such as positivism).
A researcher is responsible to see that a paradigm is
suitable in a particular context, and so it is assumed that the researcher
understands the context (including the people) he/she is researching, and the
paradigms operating in that context. Problems are likely to arise when the
researcher, the people, and paradigms are foreign to each other, such as is the
case with research in Africa, particularly regarding research on imported
concepts such as science and education.
C. Indigenous knowledge and African discourses
Bhola (2002: 10-11) refers to the production of IK
as involving revelation, intuition, insipiration, and experience.
Furthermore, it is additive and its validation is in its usefulness, by
metaphor rather than by deduction or causal relationships.
This implies that IK might not fit the methodologies
of Western education.
2. Issues of concern in Africa
It
is often the case that if you are 'White' or perceived to hold the white man's
culture, you will receive data reserved for whites because of the colonial
past.
i.
Taboos
Researchers sometimes ask questions
that probe information regarded as taboo or sacred. Again, this shows how
foreign the researcher is to that society. For example, one of the reasons that
AIDS data is difficult to obtain in Africa is because it is taboo to talk about
sex to a foreigner or a person one considers younger. Researchers hardly known
in a village or to the family have raided homes with microphones and video
cameras. Many tribes have a cultural way of discussing sex – it is not as is
often stated in literature that Black Africans do not talk about sex! They do,
but with people they recognise as responsible for that topic.
ii. Spiritual
or religious conflicts
It is quite clear that westernised
researchers tend to look down upon Black religious beliefs. It is common for
example, to find a phenomenon dubbed 'witchcraft' simply because someone prayed
for it through traditional religion.
iii.
Who gains from the research?
It is rarely indicated how local
participants, who actually own the data, gain from it. For example, research
has been carried out on the Baganda cultural system but then for whose benefit
is that knowledge? The Baganda know their culture well and perhaps
re-interpreting it for them can be perceived as an insult.
The other has been unprecedented
research into traditional medicine. Researchers have gone to many parts of
Africa to research on medicine. They publish findings without agreeing with the
indigenous people from whom they obtained that knowledge on the dissemination
of that knowledge.
iv.
Communication
Language is undoubtedly one of the
serious problems facing research in Africa. The basic problem is that there are
no direct translations of certain English terms or alternatively, one English
term can mean so many things in vernacular.
3. Suggestions
The
decision of what is good and what is bad in indigenous and modern knowledge
must be left to the community of knowledge users (Bhola,
2002:11). As with other knowledge systems, IK will change by its owners. They
might need to be assisted, but not forced. We differ from Bhola (2002: 11) and
Cosjin et al. (2002) on institutionalising the processes and the
knowledge – it matters who does the institutionalising.
In
research, the fundamental benchmark is to make sure that data represents as
much as possible a true picture of the context and the people providing data.
This is in concert with Eisenhart & Howe's (1992: 657 – 662) and Heron's
(1996: 159) who advise that it is important to be clear about the grounds of
validity and to be critical about the extent to which those validities have
been reached. This requires a revision of the research discourse used in
Africa.
i. Accessing
and incorporating into the research process the participants’ values
iv.
So, Ubuntu ameriolates power struggles
in the discourse of the research and essentially calls upon researchers to come
down to the level of the people they are researching – greet them, understand
them, sit with them, and if possible eat with them. In short become Umuntu.
Then may be they will tell you their secrets.
v.
Empowering the people (value criteria)
Research ought to be beneficial to the people (as
it is to the researcher). People will participate more genuinely if it is made
clear to them how they benefit (Martin, Hawkins, Gibbon & McCarthy, 1988:
185; James, 1988: 189). Furthermore, Heinecke et al. (1999), LeCompte et
al. (1993: 316-321), and Greene (1994: 533) argue that the questions and
values that are addressed and promoted are important in determining the
framework and methodology.
- This consideration is
linked to '2 (i)' in the above, in that such skills and empowerment are
part of, or are supposed to fit into the participants' value system. One
way of incorporating these values into the research process is to design
it in such way that people drive the research and you facilitate. This is
not difficult if the research is addressing the people's concerns. Take an
example of AIDS. People would participate if the aim is to help them get
cured as opposed to a pharmaceutical company wanting to develop drugs
which it ends up selling to the same people at exorbitant prices.
In the long term, the research should contribute
towards personal and social transformation of participants (Heron, 1996: 170;
Elliot, 1991: 231; LeCompte et al.,
1993: 326). Hence, the research might have to incorporate training through
workshops or dialogue, and has to grow partnerships between the researcher and
the participants. Introducing the research, the training, and the collection of
data happen simultaneously. Training during research is widely supported
(Myers, 2000: 3; Heinecke et al.,
1999; LeCompte et al., 1993: 316-321;
Hitchcock & Hughes, 1995: 31; Guba & Lincoln, 1989: 44; Kuiper, 1997;
Kasalu, Doidge, & Sanders, 2002).
vii. A need for Technical and Instrument
validity
The
fit between research questions, data collection procedures, and analysis
techniques or the suitability of data collection techniques or instruments with
the type of data required and research questions formulated is known as
technical or instrument validity (Eisenhart & Howe, 1992: 657 – 662;
Hitchcock & Hughes, 1995: 105-106). One has to make sure that participants
understand the research instruments and descriptions of findings (Eisenhart
& Howe, 1992: 657 – 662; LeCompte et al., 1993: 322-349; Huysamen, 1994;
Hitchcock & Hughes, 1995: 105-106; Heron, 1996: 159-170; Reeves &
Hedberg, 2003: 34). Of course the nature of instruments or methods are inter alia related to the kind of data required. As alluded to earlier, questions
on issues considered taboo or embarrassing ought to be avoided – such questions
would in fact attract wrong answers.
viii. English language is problematic even to
graduates. Language problems sometimes imply that a researcher has to go
through the instruments with participants and to make sure that participants
understand the way s/he wants them to. This sometimes means resorting to
simpler English language, using familiar accents of English, or where
necessary, to translating statements into vernacular. Triangulation, that is
using different methods to extract data from the same experiences, can improve
these validities.
ix.
The importance of participant's views
One consideration that should come
through data clearly is the voice of the people rather than the researcher's
interpretations. Participants have views, however uneducated they might look.
This is important especially if your research one way or the other is going to
be used to design policy affecting those people. LeCompte et al. (1993: 315-316) who argue that … kinds and degrees of truth are held … differentially for different
audiences and constituencies, support this advice. That is, the epistemological position that the participants'
realities are paramount, and therefore, the ontological position that knowledge
is primarily subjective to the holder and secondarily objective only when the
subjectivities lead to an agreed meaning, should be considered.
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