Indigenous Knowledge and Importance

1. Indigenous Knowledge and Importance Presented By: Kailash Soni PGP-2, IIMA

2. Agenda • What is Indigenous knowledge • Difference with Scientific/Western Knowledge • Threats to indigenous knowledge • Biases with the bottom of the pyramid • Ways to improve these biases • Conservation of Indigenous knowledge

3. Indigenous knowledge • Traditional Knowledge • Related to a community or a culture • Respect for the earth • Contemporary knowledge is also sometimes a part of Indigenous knowledge • Decreasing number of traditional group/societies

4. Indigenous knowledge Vs Scientific knowledge • Methodological and epistemological grounds • Contextual grounds • Substantive grounds

5. Threats to indigenous knowledge • Prior informed consent considered not necessary • Pressures of modernization and cultural homogenization • Macro-level problems are supposed to be solved by global pool of knowledge • Continued neglect of international institutions of ethical and professional rights of local communities • Very few Institutions supportive of grass-root innovations and traditional knowledge

6. Biases with bottom of the pyramid • Low confidence • Improper knowledge of their rights • Lower Savings • Lesser planning to achieve goals • Apply indigenous knowledge personally, but very less options of taking them ahead

7. What can remove these biases • Education • Formation of institutional windows (like NIF) of opportunity to carry ideas and traditional knowledge • To ignore people’s knowledge is almost to ensure failure in development (Brokensha et al. 1980)

8. Conservation of Indigenous knowledge • Documentation, storage in international, regional and national archives • Formation of more foundations like NIF which can carry grassroot level innovations ideas forward • To ignore people’s knowledge is almost to ensure failure in development (Brokensha et al. 1980)

9. Thank You