A thesis submitted to the Department of Information Studies for the award of a degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Library and Information Studies, Faculty of Arts, at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2012. / Knowledge management (KM) is increasingly popularized in various societies, organizations and governments because of its confirmed importance in fostering knowledge creation, codification and transfer, and development of knowledge capital capability. Indigenous knowledge (IK), which forms part of KM, is also generally thought to have crucial functions and importance in the knowledge management process (creation or production, storage, processing or codification, transfer and utilization) and should therefore receive significant attention. The aim and objectives of the study was to map and audit the current IK environment and practices in Kenya and South Africa with specific attention to identifying the IK policies and legislation in place, exploring and analyzing the IK governance structures, examining the IK centres and systems in terms of their roles, identifying what IK programmes and activities are in existence and when are they held, determining the status, trends and types of IK research. The study used the survey method. The study was conducted in two countries, i.e. Kenya and South Africa, but was not defined geographically. It was restricted to the capital cities of Nairobi in Kenya and Pretoria in South Africa, which house the administrative governments of the two countries. Since the population of this study consisted of organizations, institutions, databases and activities, and because it was impractical to collect data from them all, the population was narrowed down to a representation or sample of the population. Non-probability sampling techniques were used to create a sampling frame through cluster and multi-stage sampling. Purposive sampling technique was applied to select centres and activities from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Gender in Kenya and South Africa that deal with IK. Both snowball sampling and purposive sampling were applied to select the key informants who headed the various IK Departments of Science and Technology in South Africa and the Department of Culture in Kenya. This resulted in a fair representation of the cultural diversity of the two countries and the various levels of knowledge, management and development of the personnel. A sample size of twenty organizations, 13 from Kenya and 7 from South Africa, was selected for this study. The sample size was different for the two countries because of the different management systems and the use of the snowball sampling technique to select xiv informants. The key informants (senior management positions within organizations) in many cases consisted of more than one person per organization. Research instruments consisted of field visits, interview guides, observation, and a document review/ critical literature review. The study used detailed interview guides with both structured and unstructured questions as the main research instrument. This was used to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data. A pilot study was carried out to test and verify the research instruments. This was done through the Department of Culture in Kenya. The study found that both Kenya and South Africa have active IK policies and management in place to ensure its sustainability. A defined institutional framework is vital for the effective management of IK. A case in point is the existence of the South African National Indigenous Knowledge Systems Office (NIKSO) under the Department of Science and Technology (DST). The functions and rationale for NIKSO are stipulated in South Africa‘s IK Policy. However, such a mechanism does not seem to exist in Kenya, especially because of the nomadic nature of the Department of Culture. Ministries that housed the department include the Ministries of Culture and Social Services, Women and Youth, Home Affairs, and National Heritage, among others. The presence of the various IK-related policy initiatives by different institutions within the same government points to lack of coordination, especially in Kenya. Examples of such duplicated initiatives include the National Policy on Culture of the Republic of Kenya, Ministry of Gender, Sports, Culture and Social Services, and the development of laws for the protection of traditional knowledge, genetic resources and folklore by the Office of the Attorney General. The importance of IK cannot be stressed enough. According to WHO, countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America use traditional medicine to help meet some of their primary healthcare needs. In Africa, up to 80 % of the population uses traditional medicine for primary healthcare. This clearly indicates that unless measures for the protection of IK are beefed up, then the Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) of indigenous knowledge may never be realized. Based on the study‘s findings, this study recommends an IK awareness program or campaign that targets those charged with the management of IK as well as the citizenry of the two countries. There should be heightened efforts to create an independent department in a vibrant ministry that deals with IK to ensure that indigenous knowledge is put to the best possible use. Further research should be done in order to find ways in which indigenous knowledge can blend with modern technology to solve current problems. Academic institutions need to play a more proactive role in promoting IK in Kenya. IK programmes and activities should also focus on all features and aspects of IK rather than capitalize on culture only. / University of Nairobi

This thesis is a study of rural development resulting from ethnographic research carried out in the villages of Mediriya, Therrapahuwa and Walamatiara in Moneragala, Sri Lanka. As rural villages are being drawn into increasingly complex relations governed by forces of globalisation, this study develops an understanding of the significance of these interactions within the context of development. In Sri Lanka, current (worldwide) concerns for 'sustainable’ development based on 'participation' in order to alleviate 'poverty' and 'empower' local people, must be examined against a historical backdrop in order to appreciate the significance of rural intervention today. I examine issues of knowledge and power emphasising how a variety of stakeholders negotiate, manipulate and form relationships in order to gain access to resources. This thesis tackles development issues on multiple levels. As part of a DFID (Department for International Development) funded natural resources project, focussing on the high density intercropping of banana with rubber, my role was to provide an in-depth study of livelihood strategies and factors influencing farmer decision-making within home gardens and smallholdings. I reflect on the advantages of Indigenous Knowledge Research, which provides a greater insight into how local people identify and tackle problems than previous 'top- down' efforts. However, the fine line between involving local people in development and 'extraction' are also highlighted. My experiences of working within a multidisciplinary team prompted me to reflect on the whole context surrounding the research process and consider the role of anthropology in development. It is argued here that while the involvement of anthropologists in development is not without its dilemmas, anthropology can usefully contribute using a holistic approach to examine the processes of development, placing natural resources research within a wider social and political context and highlighting the difficulties involved in trying to understand something about Others.

The foundation of this research was to establish a framework based on ceremonial work, gathering around fires of the longhouse to honour our ancestral wisdom. As a Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Coast Salish researcher and social work practitioner, I noticed an absence of specific west coast Indigenous and Coast Salish knowledge that would help inform social work practices, experiences and understanding in order to be good helpers and relatives within Indigenous community. I applied the Tl’áḵtax̱an longhouse model as a research methodology framework that guides an approach of traditional story-telling and place- based Coast Salish teachings and weaves together a cedar basket of knowledge. The intention of this study was to explore traditional knowledge that may offer pathways to build relational practice for social workers to form a deeper understanding of how to be good helpers and relatives in community. Respectful practice that is foundational to restore harmony, dignity and repair from colonial harm. / Graduate

Includes bibliographical references / The South African policy document of the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) for Natural Science (Department of Education, 2002), the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) for Life Science (Department of Education, 2003), and the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) for Natural Science and Life Science (Department of Education, 2011) recognises and affirms the critical role of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) in science education. These policy documents expect the science teachers to integrate indigenous knowledge in their lessons. This study strove to establish how selected high school science teachers in the Western Cape Province responded to the inclusion of indigenous knowledge in their teaching. The present study employed a multi-method approach, involving different research methods used in parallel or sequence but are not integrated until inferences are made (Johnson, Onwuegbuzie & Turner, 2007). This study took place in two main sequential data collection phases, namely, the quantitative data collection phase ((QUAN) and the qualitative data collection phase (qual). This contemporary approach was employed in order to provide credible and trustworthy answers to the following research questions, namely, 1) To what extent are the science teachers in the Western Cape Province integrating scientific and indigenous knowledge, as required by the Department of Education? If not, what are their reasons for this? 2) What are the teachers' views about and understanding of the nature of science and indigenous knowledge as well as their views on how the two worldviews can be integrated in the classroom? 3) How effective was the treatment in enhancing the teachers' ability to integrate science and indigenous knowledge in the classroom? 4) To what extent can the model of Snively and Corsiglia (2001) be useful for measuring change as the teachers implement the integration of indigenous knowledge in the science classroom? For the QUAN phase, the researcher adapted a questionnaire and a new questionnaire, the Nature of Indigenous Knowledge Questionnaire (NOIKQ), was developed. The purpose of this questionnaire was to obtain a detailed description of high schools science teachers' understanding of scientific and indigenous knowledge, as well as the problems the teachers encounter in their implementation of Learning Outcome 3 of Life Sciences and Natural Science. After the pilot study of the questionnaire and subsequent modifications to it, data were collected. Convenience sampling and purposeful sampling characterised the samples of respondents and schools. This sampling strategy ensured a total sample of 370 high school science teachers in 80 public schools, represented by urban and township schools in the Western Cape Province. The results of the QUAN phase indicated that the teachers did not receive training on how to integrate science and indigenous knowledge, and that they did not have sufficient knowledge of indigenous knowledge to teach this aspect confidently to their learners. An inquiry was embarked on in order to train the science teachers in how to integrate indigenous knowledge in the science classrooms. A workshop was chosen as an intervention to improve the teaching skills of the teachers and to develop new methods of teaching. A quasi-experimental design was chosen to establish how effective the intervention was. In this quasi-experimental design, one group of five teachers was assigned to the intervention, whilst the other group of six teachers received no intervention at all. This intervention was based on the model of Snively and Corsiglia (2001) for integrating IK in the science curriculum. These teachers had participated in the survey and were selected for their particular interest in the research study. Classroom observations and three teacher and six learner interviews were used for collecting qualitative data to establish the effectiveness of the intervention. A finding from this study is that the worldviews that the teachers bring into the classroom have implications for approaches they take to include IKS in their lessons. The results of the qualitative phase indicated that, given the teachers background (i.e., cultural, political and social), teachers interpreted and implemented IKS in different ways in the curriculum. The teachers who attended the workshop and were trained to integrate indigenous knowledge in the science curriculum were more confident than those teachers who were not trained to integrate IK in the science curriculum. This increased confidence resulted from the workshop which enhanced the teachers' IK content knowledge and made them less dependent on the learners for examples of IKS. The study offers important implications and recommendations to teachers and policy- makers regarding the implementation of the integration of IKS in the science curriculum, as well as fruitful avenues for further research.

Abstract This article is a presentation of a brief cultural glossary of Northern Sotho cooking terms. The glossary is mainly composed of names for utensils and ingredients, and action words for the processes involved in the preparation of cultural dishes. It also contains names of dishes tied to some idiomatic expressions in a way eliciting cultural experiences that can lead to an under-standing of indigenous knowledge systems. The article seeks to explore ways of capturing cultural glossaries to feed into the national dictionary corpora by using a case-study approach to investigate the processes that led to the generation of this specific school-based project. A number of issues that surfaced in this project, can possibly serve as models for the collection of authentic glossaries that can support dictionary making in African languages.

This thesis is a study of knowledge practices in contemporary eastern Tibetan villages, where indigenous knowledge, the modern state's rationality and modern science intermingled. The place is rich in the interplay of forms of knowledge. Based on ethnographic observation and reading in hydropower archives, I focus on local knowledge controversies, where there were clashes between the claims of villagers on the one hand, and local officials and visiting scientists on the other. Through the collection of controversies, I observed how different knowledge claims came into contact or conflict with each other, how these conflicts were resolved either in acquiescence or in coordination, and how a conclusion about knowledge was reached in each particular case. In challenging some common assumptions about knowledge production, the thesis makes a contribution to knowledge studies. When researching this subject, scholars have generally studied either the suppression of folk / native knowledge by modern science, or the pure local forms of knowledge as a means of resistance against scientificization. The thesis argues that in contrast to this standard presumption, an alternative form of knowledge production exists. Suppression or resistance are not the only options, hybridization can also be a procedure to produce knowledge, where the outcome is not necessarily purely scientific or purely folk. The case studies I examine do not show either a ruthless plunge into the universe of modern science or an eradication of the modern side and a return to entirely local knowledge. Although modern meteorology prevailed in the face of Tibetans' claims for compensation for destruction of crops by a storm, villagers on the wind-impacted farmlands deconstructed and re-legitimized the science of weather, they did not merely face a simple choice between science and the folk. In another case, villagers clashed with one another on how to delimit the mountain boundary in legal documents, and the state officials took a passive role in these controversies: the geographical entity was not born through suppression, but through villagers' free intellectual movement on the knowledge landscape, from state forestry archives, to local foraging histories, to personal biographies. A controversy over activities related to hydropower manifests the absence of suppression most clearly. Villagers clashed with scientists over seismic damage to local houses, with each side seeking to prove that the damage was or was not caused by a hydropower explosion experiment. The resulting memorandum of understanding that resolved the controversy does not certify scientific explanation nor the folk claim, but is rather a hybridization of incompatible elements from both sides. In this way, the outcome of knowledge-formation through controversies in these Tibetan villages did not fit straightforwardly with the 'logics' of either side. Nevertheless, they were made intelligible and valid as a knowledge in place, in time, and as produced by local groups of people. Simple suppression does not explain local knowledge formation, knowledge derives from complex interplays between scientific, indigenous and administrative practices and narratives.

This thesis investigates how Māori knowledge and language articulate with current discourses of Pūtaiao education, and possible alternative articulations. A Kaupapa Māori version of critical discourse analysis methodology is developed and applied to discourses relevant to Pūtaiao, or Māori-medium science education. This topic represents an intersection between language, science, education, and culture - fields which are all highly politically charged. Therefore, it is essential that a politically robust Kaupapa Māori position be taken in relation to the research topic. Not only the issues being investigated but the underlying research paradigm must be interrogated using Kaupapa Māori theory at each stage of the project. The goal is to study the range of possible meanings for the notions of 'Pūtaiao' and 'Māori science' by exploring the relevant dialectical issues, critiquing the assumptions and positions taken on language, knowledge, identity and ethos, in order to inform further Pūtaiao curriculum development. The research project is a narration of the larger story of Pūtaiao education: what is the current situation, how did it come about, what theoretical issues have been influential in this process, and what possibilities are there for further development of Pūtaiao curriculum and pedagogy? The thesis research consists of a series of discourse analyses of varying levels of focus and intersection with Pūtaiao: Wāhanga 1: Translated NCEA L1 science and mathematics examinations, and a traditional Taitokerau oral text; Wāhanga 2: Māori science curriculum policy; Wāhanga 3: Multicultural science education research; Wāhanga 4: Curriculum politics, preventive linguistics, language of science; Wāhanga 5: Mātauranga, rationality, philosophy of science. Each analysis takes the form of a narrative history, based on a selected corpus of previously published scholarship (in Wāhanga 1, including numerical data and oral tradition) on the issue under examination, from a Kaupapa Māori perspective. Mainly in the first two chapters, analysis at times also draws on 'personal narrative' accounts of previously unpublished details relating to Pūtaiao. Additionally, an investigation of various qualified notions of 'science' is undertaken, beginning in Wāhanga 2, concluding in Wāhanga 5, in order to explore the nature and boundaries of science as a system of knowledge, and its relationship to other types or systems of knowledge. Synopses are included of the following concepts and theoretical issues impacting on the discourses under analysis: Wāhanga 1: Ethnicity, 'race', critical theory, Kaupapa Māori theory. Wāhanga 2: Science, scientism, science ideology and anti-science. Wāhanga 4: Identity, linguistic purism, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Informed by this research, in Wāhanga 5 an original model for the relationship between mātauranga and science is proposed, and the notion of Kaupapa Māori science/epistemology is explored. An analogy between the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and multicultural science is used to draw together the cultural debates in language and knowledge, which are surmised to intersect at the level of discourse. The final chapter presents a re-articulation of Pūtaiao as the notion of Kaupapa Māori science education, and some recommendations for language and content knowledge in further development of Pūtaiao curriculum policy.

Interest in indigenous knowledge (IK) research has grown since the 1980s, and more recently the topic has drawn attention in information sciences research. At the same time, the evolution of electronic information and communication technologies (ICTs), most notably development of the Internet, has profoundly influenced information sciences research. This study explores perceptions of community members involved in the creation, development, and use of digital libraries with indigenous knowledge materials. Research methods used in data collection include a quantitative survey distributed to community members involved in the creation, development, and use of digital libraries with indigenous knowledge materials and qualitative analysis of the research process. The study proposes a framework of guidelines to conduct future research on digital libraries with indigenous knowledge that includes: acknowledging the reality of the community involved in creating, developing, and using digital libraries with indigenous knowledge materials; developing appropriate research methods for this community; and identifying specific actions for such research.

A chasm exists between science curriculum offered within K-12 and post-secondary education systems, and the needs of national and international decision-makers with respect to the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges within processes aimed at protecting global biological diversity. World governments seek to protect biodiversity through the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and consideration of Indigenous knowledges has emerged in governing texts. Yet, sustaining Indigenous knowledges as global wisdom will not be possible if young people lack opportunities to learn Indigenous traditional environmental knowledge as an integral part of their education experience. Métis traditional environmental knowledge can be a modality of science education that will engage learners in understanding relationships with the natural world and the importance of developing sustainable lifestyles within holistic lifelong learning.<p> In advancing this contention, a series of interviews were conducted with Métis traditional land users from North West Saskatchewan. The interviews provided data in 17 thematic areas including: balance, economic, environment, harmony, health, Indigenous knowledge, political, social, spirituality, values, land, language, people, self, imagination, tradition, and learning. Results were used to respond to the four primary research questions: According to traditional land users in North West Saskatchewan, what is Métis traditional environmental knowledge? How does Métis traditional environmental knowledge in North West Saskatchewan align with established theories of Aboriginal epistemology and supporting principles? What evidence and arguments exist that support the development of Métis traditional environmental knowledge as a modality of science education? How can Métis traditional environmental knowledge be developed as a modality of science education?<p> Findings support development of holistic education processes that comprise a broad scope of knowledge integral to understanding our environment. Métis traditional environmental knowledge requires learners engage in activities outside the classroom, participating in experiences that facilitate an understanding of holistic thinking in intellectual, physical, affective and spiritual domains. Traditional environmental knowledge and practices of Métis People can inspire learners in science education, improving their engagement, understanding and decision-making abilities concerning the natural environment.

This study explores the meaning and value of Basotho traditional farming practices and Indigenous knowing using Indigenous methodology. The study sought to 1) understand the core tenets of Basotho traditional farming practices that involve Indigenous knowledge and sustainable land care; 2) investigate the implications of these practices, and how they may inform school curriculum in ways that promote food security and reduce child hunger; and 3) examine the role of gender in food practices in Lesotho. I collaborated with women Elders who knew oral traditions or traditional farming practices by working with children on a school farm. I used Basotho ways of knowing and communication to gather data including storytelling and observation. I complemented my observation data by utilizing photographs and field notes. The Elders shared their farming experiences, oral traditions, and knowledge including the cultural and survival significance of selecting, preserving, and sharing seeds, how to grow diverse, healthy, and nutritious food and how to be food self-sufficient. They spoke of and demonstrated ways to gather people together as a community to plant, harvest, and share food while caring for the land through culturally respectful practices. The Elders further shared ways to think about and relate to the land as a gift, as 'a being' from Creator, to be respected and cared for in the same way humans care for themselves. The Elders underscored the need to promote food security and land care through a food curriculum that embraces traditional farming practices steeped in Indigenous knowledge. Farming practices such as letsema (community collaborating in fieldwork), hlakantsutsu culture (diversified mixed cropping), koti (minimizing tillage), use of animal dung and ash fertilizers, selecting and preserving native seeds and molala (allowing land to rest after harvest) can constitute a desired curriculum. The Elders taught me what I understood as, and call, the principles of Re seng (we are all related): all humans and non-humans alike, rootedness, letsema (community collaboration), interdependence, connectedness, reciprocity, respect and care for the land. Reflection on these principles continuously shaped the study's theoretical framework with consequent implications on the participatory action methodology, which I characterize as the Basotho Indigenous Participatory Action Methodology.