Event — Seminar

Local Knowledge Seminar

01/10/2008 - 15:00

 

Local Knowledge Seminar

1 October 2008
15.00 - 17.00 hrs

Seminar on the importance of local practices, theories and materials for their current or future research.

 

A seminar on Local Knowledge Traditions organised in collaboration with the Amsterdam Masters Medical Anthropology (AMMA), ETCNetherlands/Compas, the branch office Amsterdam of the International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS), and the Amsterdam School for Social Science (ASSR). The seminar aims to inform MA en PhD students of the University of Amsterdam as well as fellows of the IIAS. 

Venue: University of Amsterdam, Bushuis, Kloveniersburgwal 48, VOC-room
Format: two presentations of 30 minutes followed by a Q&A-session of 45 minutes

Local Knowledge consists of theories, practices and materials, and their linkages. Local Knowledge can be either the primary or secondary focus in social-cultural research. An example of local knowledge as the primary focus is the research on Thai health practices employed in combating HIV and Aids. Local Knowledge can also be included as a secondary focus, for example in research dealing with the way local social-cultural and economic realities transform global ideas and practices.

Local Knowledge and its propagation can be analyzed from various perspectives:

  • a cultural system that invests the lives of people with direction and meaning. The study provides insights into the ethos of the people under search.
  • a means to empower people in material and immaterial ways.

The seminar wants to address the following questions:

  1. What is Local Knowledge (indigenous knowledge) and what is its role in processes of change in fields such as medicine, livelihood, governance, and education? Is Local Knowledge a means to guarantee development from within and make people the agents of their own processes of change?
  2. Does Local Knowledge in the form of beliefs, practices and materials contribute to development? Why is Local Knowledge so popular in development circles? Is Local Knowledge at the margins of mainstream development marked by westernization, rationalization, professionalization, standardization, commercialization, and objectification, or does Local Knowledge offer a viable alternative to modernization as westernization and therefore promotes ‘development from below/within'?
  3. What is the link between the reinvention and revitalization of Local Knowledge in certain localities such as India and Africa and the promotion of indigenous trajectories of modernity? Do modern ‘things' such as agricultural rationalization and biomedical diagnostics rework local practices, materials and notions? Are these subordinated to global science, technology and the market, or does Local Knowledge transform these global forms?
  4. What kind of analytical tools in the form of research methodologies and techniques do we have that can guide the documentation, analysis, validation and application of Local Knowledge?
  5. Is Local Knowledge also relevant in the North?

Program:

15.00 - 15.05: the chair introduces the seminar and both speakers

15.05 - 15.30: Maarten Bode PhD, Medical Anthropology & Sociology Research Unit, Foundation for the Revitalization of Local Health Traditions, briefly introduces the theme of local knowledge and presents the case of marketing Indian medical knowledge (Ayurvedic) products. The marketing discourse on Indian medicine provides a space for discussing the articulation of tradition and modernity in contemporary India. Ayurvedic branded medicines are offered as remedies against the venom of Westernisation such as stress, impotence, environmental pollution, fast food, alcohol consumption and the taking of western medicines. Ayurvedic manufacturers promise consumers that their medicines make people effectively modern, i.e. make them stronger in a spiritual, mental and somatic way.

15.30 - 16.00: Katrien van ‘t Hooft, MSc, ETC Netherlands/Compas programme, discusses the cross-cutting elements of the documentation, evaluation and implementation of Local Knowledge in the South and the North. In what way can they learn from each other in guiding a process of development that implies both local and modern elements? ETC Netherlands is an NGO that works in close collaboration with partners in the South: universities, farmers'organisations and NGO's. The Compas programme documents, evaluates, and implements local knowledge in fields, especially agriculture, natural resource management, and (animal) health. ETC Netherlands also has a programme in the Netherlands, working towards sustainable systems with Dutch dairy farmers.

16.00 - 16.15: tea break

16.15 - 17.00: discussion in which the prepared questions of the participants will be addressed. AMMA and PhD-students are asked to mail two local knowledge related questions to both speakers (m.bode@uva.nl; katrien.hooft@etcnl.nl). Preferably questions and concerns related to previous work experiences and/or current or future reseach projects. The deadline for mailing the questions is Monday 29 September, 13.00 hrs.

For inspiration and preparation the seminar participants are invited to look at the following websites:

http://www.unutki.org (United Nations University Traditional Knowledge Initiative)
http://www.who.int (look for ‘traditional medicine' on this site of the World Health Organization)
http://www.giftsofhealth.org (look for ‘traditional antimalarial methods')
http://www.compasnet.org (Compas programme) 

Recommended reading: Gerard Bodeker & Gemma Burford (eds.), Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Policy and Public Health Perspectives, Imperial College Press, London, 2007