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Hybrid knowledges in development studies (sponsored by the Development
Geographies Specialty Group)

Call for paper abstracts for the Association of American Geographers
Annual Meeting, April 21-25, 2015, Chicago, Illinois

Organized by:
Paola Minoia and Johanna Hohenthal, University of Helsinki, Finland

A wide range of research has been done on the integration of local and
indigenous knowledge into Western scientific research. For example, it
has been considered a prerequisite for the functional co-management of
the common natural resources (Carlsson and Berkes 2005; Ayre and
Mackenzie 2013). Value of local ecological knowledge in environmental
planning and management has been associated not just with its
potential to provide additional information on the causes and extent
of environmental changes beyond scientific records (Baker and
Mutitjulu Community 1992), but also with its capacity to empower
building of social-ecological resilience (Folke et al. 2003; Prober et
al. 2011) and to give wider scope for environmental management and
rehabilitation through culturally-grounded, unbounded, non-Euclidean
views of places (Massey 2005; Ettlinger 2011; Mustonen 2013). Above
all, the recognition of the value of local knowledge has implications
for social justice and the identity of local communities and cultures.
Integration of local and indigenous knowledge into modern
science-based natural resource management can also be seen as a hybrid
experiment within the postcolonial scholarship than can be used to
initiate anti-colonial projects in which local people are seen
responsible and active stakeholders in place-based politics rather
than just ‘victims of neo/colonial relations’ (Coombes etal. 2012).

In this session we recognize three key issues:

1. The most common concepts used in the literature are local,
indigenous and traditional knowledge. Despite the wide usage of these
terms, or perhaps because of that, it is difficult to find a clear set
of definitions and description of their relations. Local knowledge is
often defined as a ‘safe’ umbrella concept covering both indigenous
and traditional knowledge, which have also been used as synonyms.
However, their relation is not always represented that straightforward
and local knowledge does not contain all the characteristics of
indigenous and traditional knowledges. In addition, several other
concepts, such as community knowledge, vernacular knowledge and mētis
knowledge are used in the literature.

2. In practice, many challenges are related to gathering and
presenting local and indigenous knowledge in a way that it could be
integrated into Western scientific research. This is based on the long
tradition within the Western science to displace the Indigenous voice
within it, which stems from the different appreciation regarding the
truthful representation of the world by these two epistemological
systems (Johnson and Murton 2007).

3. The binary construct between Western science and local knowledge is
problematic. Local knowledge is typically a hybrid of spiritual
beliefs, personal experiences, cultural practices and learnt
‘official’ science provided by education, media and administrative
institutions. On the other hand, interaction between cultures has led
to exchanging of ideas and assemblages of knowledge production for
thousands of years and thus Western natural and social sciences have a
tradition of reliance on the local and indigenous knowledge (Agrawal
1995, Bravo and Sörlin 2002; Grove 1995; Wright 2005; Watson and
Huntington 2008).

This session invites abstracts that address some the above mentioned
issues. The examples of potential themes include, but are not limited
to the following:

1. Conceptualization of local knowledge types. How to define different
terms and their relations?
2. Ontological and epistemic issues in cooperation between local
community/indigenous representatives and Western scientists.
3. Both theoretical as well as empirical papers based on development
research, illustrating how local knowledge can be involved, and how it
can be integrated into academic work (methodology)
4. What are the possible consequences of unpacking local knowledge
(ethical issues)
5. How local knowledge can be a pre-requisite for co-action or
co-management processes (political and governance issues)

Interested participants are asked to send a 250 word abstract to
[log in to unmask] AND [log in to unmask] by Friday,
October 31, 2014. If you have already registered for the AAG, please
include your PIN. Participation in the session will be confirmed by
Monday, November 3rd.
For further information on AAG submissions see:
http://www.aag.org/cs/annualmeeting/call_for_papers
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