Indigenous knowledge and the

politics of classification*

Arun Agrawal

Indigenous knowledge has come to occupy a vation, and have been crucial to the continuing
privileged position in discussions about how vigour of discussions about indigenous knowl-
development can best be brought about so that edge. These scholars have persistently focused
finally, it really is in the interests of the poor on the strategies that might be deployed in fav-
and the marginalised. It may be true that con- our of the indigenous, cautioned against easy
temporary research on and advocacy of indigen- dismissals of the worth and utility of indigenous
ous knowledge is founded upon the earlier, knowledge, and tried to create a greater aware-
pioneering writings of many anthropologists and ness about the indigenous even among policy
ethnographers (Conklin 1957, Lewis 1975, makers and neoliberal reformers pursuing pri-
Wyman 1964). It is also true that many of the vatisation and economic liberalisation.
questions that occupied This shift in the for-
earlier researchers who Arun Agrawal, associate professor of tunes of indigenous know-
identified themselves as political science at Yale University, con- ledge is to be welcomed. It
ethnoscientists continue to ducts research on institutional change, comes after long decades,
haunt current work on environmental politics, and development. perhaps centuries, of easy
indigenous knowledge and His research has appeared in such jour- dismissals of the indigenous
nals as Comparative Political Studies,
peoples.1 Thus, there is little Development and Change, Journal of
and what it signified. It is
consensus even today about Asian Studies, Journal of Theoretical closely allied to the advo-
issues of commensurability Politics, and World Development. His cacy on behalf of indigen-
of different forms of knowl- first book was Greener Pastures: Politics, ous peoples that is becom-
edge, nature of ownership Markets and Community among a ing a hallmark of much
Migrant Pastoral People (1999). He is
of specific indigenous prac- now writing a book entitled Environmen-
research and policy in the
tices, advisability of com- tality. environmental arena. It
pensation, and how to view Email: [email protected] occurs in consonance with
intensified cross-cultural the valorisation of allied
interactions that potentially social and conceptual for-
pose a threat to indigenous knowledge. mations such as community, locality, and subal-
It would be fair to claim that the contem- ternity.4
porary attention to indigenous knowledge is in This paper focuses on a specific advocacy
no small measure a result of its successfully strategy on behalf of indigenous knowledge:
posited connection with development and creation of databases. Databases on indigenous
environmental conservation.2 More recent con- knowledge systematically document specific
tributions from such scholars as Brokensha, elements of knowledge for later analysis. The
Brush, Chambers, Richards, and Warren,3 documented knowledge can be a piece of tech-
among others, have all attended to the important nical information: the tubers of Pueraria lobata
place of indigenous knowledge in bringing are used as a famine food among the kalam
about development and environmental conser- speakers of Papua New Guinea (Pawley 2001:

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288 Arun Agrawal

238). Or, it can be drawn from highly detailed its relevance to a wider audience. Warren
studies of particular ways of addressing a prob- argues, “By recording knowledge, and making
lem: the changing agricultural knowledge of it available to the global community, I am con-
small cultivators in West Africa (Richards fident that community-based knowledge systems
1985). Some databases catalogue “best prac- will in the near future begin to be regarded as
tices,” highlighting successful efforts by various contributions to global knowledge.”6 In tones
indigenous peoples or local communities to reminiscent of Warren’s assertion, the World
address problems related to environmental con- Bank-led Initiative on Indigenous Knowledge
servation, health, education, or agriculture. In operates on the assumption that indigenous
any case, the objective of the databases is typi- knowledge is an under-utilised resource in the
cally twofold. They are intended to protect development process, and that therefore a
indigenous knowledge in the face of myriad database of indigenous knowledge practices and
pressures that are undermining the conditions lessons should be created (World Bank 1998).
under which indigenous peoples and knowledge Presumably, as more studies become available
thrive. Second, they aim to collect and analyse and as more instances of the relevance of
the available information, and identify specific indigenous knowledge are found and archived
features that can be generalised and applied in national and international centres, develop-
more widely in the service of more effective ment and conservation practitioners will become
development and environmental conservation. persuaded of its importance. The greater
The strategy of creating databases to pre- appreciation of the benefits of indigenous
serve and spread indigenous knowledge has knowledge will lead, in turn, to greater efforts
received significant support from a large number to further the interests of those who possess
of donor agencies and international researchers, such knowledge.
among them the World Bank, UNESCO, IDRC, Based on the above assumptions, a host of
UNDP, and also many networks of scholars and international NGOs and funding agencies have
policy activists. It has proliferated especially in focused on and supported the development of
the last decade.5 In this paper, I identify the databases. The Indigenous Knowledge and
mechanics of this strategy, the epistemological Development Monitor, a periodical supported
contradictions at its heart, and the practical- and maintained by NUFFIC–CIRAN,7 counts as
political considerations because of which build- its affiliates more than 25 indigenous knowledge
ing databases of indigenous knowledge is likely resource centres scattered across countries in
to founder. The arguments in this paper are Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle
specific to the kinds of databases that advocates East, and North America. It also lists eight
of indigenous knowledge have sought to create. different institutions that maintain databases.
But they might also be relevant for attempts to These databases cover topics as diverse as fish-
create databases and catalogues for other com- eries, botanical knowledge among native Amer-
plex, dynamic social phenomena that are highly icans, and veterinary medicinal plants in
context-dependent. Africa.8
Nor are these centres the only ones
involved in the creation of indigenous knowl-
edge databases. The World Bank itself main-
The logic of database tains an online database that can be searched
creation using regional and thematic keywords.9 Other
databases can be accessed from websites main-
tained by the IDRC, Conservation International,
The popular strategy of storing specific elements and CGIAR among others.10 These docu-
of information in a database is an example of mentation- and publication-related developments
ex situ conservation of indigenous knowledge have occurred all within the last decade, and
systems. Many advocates of indigenous knowl- mark a new beginning in the abstraction and
edge believe that documenting and collecting harvesting of specific elements of indigenous
particular instances of knowledge is the prime knowledges. It would be fair to argue that
feasible means to safeguard it and demonstrate among the strategies advocates of indigenous

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Selling neem branches for dental hygiene, India, 1984. R. & S. Michaud/Rapho

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knowledge have identified, that of creating data- Scientisation

bases and sharing the information in them has
proved to possess widespread and significant Consider first the mechanics and logic of the
appeal. creation of databases. The instrumental logic of
An examination of some of the databases development that underpins the creation of these
reveals the kind of information that has been two databases on indigenous knowledge, as
documented. The Native American Ethnobot- indeed of all databases which seek to make
any Database11 provides information on spe- indigenous knowledge useful to development,
cific uses of plants and trees as food and transforms what indigenous knowledge is seen
cosmetics, for agriculture and handicrafts, in to signify. The first demand of this logic is that
medicines for humans and animals, and for useful indigenous knowledge be separated from
decorative purposes among others. Each entry those other knowledges, practices, milieu, con-
is a few lines long, and the sources for the text, and cultural beliefs in combination with
database are original research, published which it exists. Only the forms of indigenous
materials, and grey literature. Much of the knowledge that are potentially relevant to devel-
information that such ethnobotanical databases opment, then, need attention and protection.
contain is reminiscent of earlier anthropologi- Other forms of such knowledge, precisely
cal research from around the turn of the cen- because they are irrelevant to the needs of
tury on traditional knowledge. The difference development, can be allowed to pass away. I
is that the same knowledge and research is call the identification and separation of useful
now represented through the powerful, utili- knowledge the process of particularisation. Suc-
tarian idiom of indigenous knowledge and jus- cessful particularisation is the first necessary
tified on the grounds that it is crucial for step in the creation of any database. It occurs
successful development results. in conformity with the need of those prac-
Other databases contain more detailed titioners of development who see indigenous
information about their classified cases. For knowledge as a resource to be used. Outside of
example, the World Bank database on indigen- the potential role that indigenous knowledges
ous knowledge classifies cases using several can perform in the service of development, they
different keywords. Each case has a unique have no claims to mobilise powerful resources
identifying number, and is arrayed by country, in their favour.
region, and the source that furnished the infor- But particularisation takes place together
mation. The case descriptions contain infor- with other processes. The second demand of
mation about the people and their reasons for the instrumental logic of development is that
a particular practice. But ultimately, the particularised knowledge be tested and validated
description is aimed to give the reader a sense using the criteria deemed appropriate by
of the potential for generalisation and the les- science. These scientific criteria are integral to
sons that the example furnishes for develop- any particularised statement about indigenous
ment or environmental conservation. Ironically practices being considered knowledge. Thus, it
enough, most of the cases on which the data- would be quite right to say that even for advo-
base contains information are examples of col- cates of indigenous knowledge, it must first be
laboration between some international devel- recast in the image of science before being
opment agency and a local group to initiate a utilised for development (Massaquoi 1993,
development programme – as if the cases that Rajan and Sethuraman 1993). Independently,
are being documented are available only such knowledge has no existence, only possi-
because of the external support being provided bilities. The use of scientific criteria to test and
by the development agency. The information examine, and the documentation of these tests
in this database is far more detailed in com- can be referred to as validation. Once validated,
parison to that contained in the Native Amer- particular examples of indigenous knowledge
ican Ethnobotany Database. But the underlying are ready for inclusion in a database of knowl-
process that has led to the creation of these edge.
two databases and their chief objectives are Validation has a corollary: abstraction. Not
not very different. all elements of useful indigenous practices are

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Indigenous knowledge and the politics of classification 291

necessary for development. Only the strictly edge useful to development must run the gamut
useful elements need be abstracted for of these three processes. Scientisation of
maximum effect. Rituals, words, movements, indigenous knowledge helps it emerge as fact.
gestures, and actions that may be the concomi- Take the example of neem (Azadirachta indica).
tant of the administration of a herbal medicine Over the past 5 years, more than 500 papers
or drug in an indigenous practice can be on the uses of neem have appeared, a level and
divested and discarded as not being part of the rate of publication far higher than in the past
crux of the usefulness of the herbal medicine two decades. But although farmers in India have
or drug. They can form no part of interest from been using various parts of the neem tree for
the point of view of development. Only those generations as feed, pesticide, and for human
elements of indigenous practices need be consumption, the vast majority of neem pro-
retained that can more easily be transplanted ducts marketed by corporations have been
into other contexts. The stripping away of what unsuccessful because of the relative instability
seems to be non-essential also facilitates the when exposed to sunlight (Gupta 1996). Thus,
next stage of the process through which although hundreds of different uses of neem
indigenous knowledge is made ready for devel- can be identified as indigenous practices,12 the
opment. number of patents and scientific papers on neem
Once knowledge is particularised and vali- was minuscule in comparison until the 1980s.
dated (abstracted), it needs to be catalogued, Only in the 1990s, with burgeoning scientific
and archived, and then circulated before it can research and patent requests on neem has the
be used more widely. This can be termed the indigenous knowledge on the tree begun to be
process of generalisation. Only insofar as a investigated more intensively. But the explo-
particular element of indigenous knowledge is ration of this knowledge occurs together with
capable of being generalised is it really useful questions about the extent to which it has
for development. If suitable only for an individ- remained indigenous and about who benefits
ual and particular context, indigenous knowl- from the scientisation of this knowledge (see
edge need not be studied at all – not at least below).
by those interested in development. Statements that are successfully particular-
At one level, the very process of being ised, validated, and generalised become knowl-
included in a widely accessible catalogue of edge by satisfying a particular relationship
knowledge renders indigenous knowledge between utility, truth, and power. The process of
potentially generalisable. But the process of scientisation helps instantiate a division within
generalisation does not end with the inclusion of indigenous knowledge systems so that only use-
a validated piece of information in a catalogue. ful indigenous knowledge systems become wor-
Cataloguing of knowledge in a database only thy of protection. Whatever the truth value of
prepares it for generalisation. Whether the gen- other indigenous knowledge systems, their lack
eralisability inherent in this process will be of utility makes them unsuitable for inclusion
realised depends on the future actions of others into databases that possess instrumental power
regarding that piece of knowledge. Who refers in development initiatives. By being left outside
to that knowledge, in what fora, for what pur- of even the imperfect mechanisms of protection
poses, and with what effect are some of the that activists for indigenous knowledge have
factors that will determine whether the knowl- devised, those pieces of indigenous knowledge
edge will actually be generalised (Latour 1987). that are deemed without any use cannot be used
I use the term scientisation to refer to the to advance salvage claims. They become neither
three processes of particularisation, validation, true nor false; they are simply unnecessary to
and generalisation. In the context of indigenous those engaged in the important task of develop-
knowledge, these three processes can collec- ment and environmental conservation.
tively be seen as the basis for establishing the On the other hand, once useful knowledge
truth content of a particular indigenous knowl- is isolated and documented, the machinery of
edge-based practice. In this sense, scientisation development can crank into action. The poten-
can also be seen as being identical to “truth- tial utility of knowledge becomes the criterion
making”. All efforts to make indigenous knowl- that will lead to any efforts in favour of protec-

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292 Arun Agrawal

tion. Once a particular piece of knowledge is many subtly differing situations. All practical
deemed useful, that is, once the truth value of knowledge, although the application of some
some useful knowledge is ascertained, it can familiar or unrecognised principle, is useful pre-
become the object of further action. The power cisely because of the experience gained in the
of joint international development initiatives can use of that knowledge. An unthinking, strict,
be used to stamp that knowledge as indigenous bookish application of a known principle of
knowledge. Utility becomes a necessary con- knowledge likely fails to take into account the
dition before procedures of truth-making can be many, small, almost imperceptible variations
initiated. Use value in combination with scien- that a constantly changing context creates. Thus
tific validation invokes the power of protection. workers on factory floors, operators of old
But the valid doubt that should assail one pieces of machinery, doctors and surgeons, con-
at this point is whether there is anything parti- tract farmers, and many other workers con-
cularly indigenous about knowledge that has stantly make small adjustments and changes in
undergone the sanitisation implicit in the move- applying specified procedures for a task. It is
ment from particularisation to generalisation. In these small and minute adjustments, gained
the very moment that indigenous knowledge is through experience and impossible to enunciate
proved useful to development through the appli- as a matter of principle, that make the differ-
cation of science, it is, ironically, stripped of ence between success and failure of a task being
the specific characteristics that could even pursued by a practitioner.
potentially mark it as indigenous. There is an important resonance between
The objective of those who advocate the Scott’s argument about metis and the processes
creation of databases and catalogues of indigen- of particularisation, validation (abstraction), and
ous knowledge is admittedly twofold. They seek generalisation that advocates of indigenous
to develop local capacity to “capture” indigen- knowledge deploy. It is easy to see how the
ous knowledge (World Bank 1998). They are process of creating databases of indigenous
also interested in developing mechanisms of dis- knowledge is in error precisely in stripping
semination and exchange of such knowledge. away all the detailed, contextual, applied aspects
But instead, the creation of databases to capture of knowledge that might be crucial in producing
and disseminate indigenous knowledge gener- the positive effects claimed for that particular
ates effects that for all their unintendedness are piece of indigenous knowledge. The process of
strikingly apparent. I examine these effects particularisation readies knowledge about a
along three dimensions: practical, epistemologi- particular indigenous practice for validation on
cal, and political. scientific criteria. But it limits the examination
of the contextual factors that might be respon-
sible for the effects being claimed for a parti-
Indigenous/practical cular indigenous practice.
A database depends for its efficacy on the
In his recent book, Seeing Like a State, Scott homogenisation of elements that constitute it.
(1998) makes a strong argument about the perils The tabular form of the database implies that
of a marriage between powerful states and high all cases that become its members will contain
modernism: when strong states undertake mod- information on the variables that the makers of
ernising projects, the basis for their planned the database consider relevant. Furthermore, all
reconfiguration of the world is typically a highly cases must also be fully describable precisely
simplified version of a complex reality. By ign- in terms of those variables. Information on all
oring multiple, crucial, little noticed details, important aspects of a particular entity should
they prepare the way for disasters to unfold. be anticipated in advance by the makers of a
Scott adapts this central thesis of his book to database, and the aspects included in a database
what he calls practical knowledge, or metis. should completely describe an included entity
Scott’s thesis in favour of practical knowl- in all its essential features. Even prior to the
edge is that its successful use depends upon examination of a particular piece of information
the intimate familiarity that practitioners gain about an indigenous practice, the maker of a
in numerous applications of the knowledge in database should be able to specify those factors

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Indigenous knowledge and the politics of classification 293

about the practice that make it effective. Such elimination of that very difference that advo-
an implicit affirmation of the objectivity of the cates of indigenous practices seek to build and
structure underlying the database is not qualitat- defend becomes the preoccupation when they
ively different from Lévi-Strauss’s “objective focus on creating a database of indigenous
fieldworker” who reasons “on the basis of con- knowledge. Those who seek to change the for-
cepts which are valid not merely for an honest tunes of the powerless and the marginalised
and objective observer but for all possible instead come to submit to the power of science.
observers” (1967: 361). They do so precisely because they focus on
Such specification of indigenous practices knowledge and its epistemological status rather
could work in the case of the more technical than on interests and politics. But this focus
aspects of indigenous knowledge, although even on epistemological commensuration comes at
in these cases doubts must remain. But it should a cost.
be clear that the creation of databases discrimi-
nates against all those forms of indigenous Time and indigenous knowledge
knowledge for which no practical use can be
perceived, and which cannot be stated as direct Ultimately, the effort to document, and then
cause and effect sentences. To this extent, the particularise, validate (abstract), and generalise,
practical effect of databases of indigenous and finally to disseminate, misapprehends and
knowledges must be to flatten precisely that works against the very characteristics of
diversity of knowledge supposed to be a charac- indigenous knowledge that are believed to ren-
teristic of indigenous forms. der it indigenous. But in such commensuration
between indigenous and scientific knowledges
there is a deep irony. Its nature is best
Indigenous/epistemological appreciated by appealing to Fabian’s concept of
“distancing”. Fabian suggests that ethnographic
Initial studies of indigenous knowledge (and its discourse, “rests upon personal, prolonged inter-
analogues such as local, practical, or traditional) action with the other” but ethnographic knowl-
sought to underline its difference from scientific edge “construes the other in terms of distance,
knowledge (and its analogues such as western, spatial and temporal” so that “the other’s
rational, or modern) along a variety of methodo- empirical presence turns into his theoretical
logical and contextual criteria. But most schol- absence” (Fabian 1983: xi). Fabian’s argument
ars have now come to accept that there are no can be extended to studies of indigenous knowl-
simple or universal criteria that can be deployed edge that seek to produce catalogues and data-
to separate indigenous from western or scientific bases. His concept of distancing helps uncover
knowledge.13 Attempts to draw a strict line some of the assumptions undergirding the use
between scientific and indigenous knowledge on of a conceptual-classificatory, tabular space in
the basis of method, epistemology, context- which to locate and fix indigenous knowledge.
dependence, or content, it is easy to show, are It usefully illuminates the political consequences
ultimately untenable (Agrawal 1995). of scientising indigenous knowledge.
Indeed, it is easy to see that the use of The methods of learning firsthand about
scientific criteria to identify and classify certain indigenous practices require a shared time and
forms of knowledge as indigenous knowledge a shared conception of time between the
is a concession to the idea of direct commen- “indigenous” and the researcher. It is in field-
surability between science and that which is work that knowledge about the “indigenous” is
included in a database. The identification of first gained, before it becomes reified as
valid scientific elements in the host of practices indigenous knowledge. Writing about that
that are termed indigenous is no more nor less research transforms the “indigenous” into a cat-
than any other scientific pursuit. It is scientific egory that is more conceptual-theoretical than
not because there is anything self-obviously true intersubjectively constructed. The objective of
about it, but because it conforms to the pro- this conceptual-theoretical move, especially in
cedures whereby science is reproduced and the context of development and database con-
some statements are termed knowledge. The struction, is to construe the “indigenous” only

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294 Arun Agrawal

in terms of its possible utility for development. and useless knowledge bear the unfortunate bur-
In itself, development is a project that seeks to den of condemning knowledge that is not use-
transform the temporal experience of indigenous ful. Once the knowledge systems of indigenous
peoples by affirming the universal validity and peoples are separated from them and saved,
desirability of a single experience of time: the there is little reason to pay much attention to
experience that societies classified as developed indigenous peoples themselves.
have undergone. The creation of databases of The efforts to document and scientise
indigenous knowledge also affirms the univer- indigenous knowledges can, thus, be doubly
sality of a physical time within which the prac- unfortunate. One, they channel resources away
tices of indigenous peoples can be located. The from the more vital political task of trans-
commensuration between the “indigenous” and forming power relations. Two, they provide a
the scientific is established, in other words, by means to more powerful social actors to appro-
denying culturally produced ways of experienc- priate useful indigenous knowledges. In the
ing time; ways of sharing and experiencing time absence of real efforts to change the relations of
that underpinned the initial awareness of spe- power that define interactions between different
cific indigenous knowledges and practices. social groups, weaker groups seen to possess
valuable knowledge can be studied, and once
their knowledge is in the public domain it can
Indigenous/political be refined and privatised through the existing
system of patents and intellectual property
Even if a scientific logic can be identified within rights. Located in asymmetrical relations of
the indigenous, even if particular indigenous power and conditions of poverty, poorer and
practices can test true on the criteria of science, weaker groups would be ill equipped to resist
there is no reason such evidence should help such appropriation. The history of colonialism,
those from whom indigenous knowledge is replete with examples of unequal exchanges,
abstracted, then catalogued and archived. The should warn against any easy consolation that
instrumental logic of converting the indigenous the strong, when coming in contact with weaker
into the scientific can certainly further the per- groups who have valuable possessions, will
ception that indigenous knowledge is worth sav- bolster the interests of the weak.
ing. But the prevalence of such perceptions Even if we keep our field of vision con-
might do little to modify prevailing relations of fined to the role of indigenous knowledge in
power among different social groups, especially development – i.e., the development of those
since it is these same relations of power that who are supposed to possess indigenous knowl-
lead in the first place to social changes that edge – the question of power, how it is exer-
disadvantage indigenous groups. There are evi- cised, and the effects it produces must remain
dent gaps in the argument that once the value central. The very defences that scholars of indi-
of indigenous knowledge becomes obvious, geneity and indigenous knowledge offer in fav-
efforts to channel greater resources and power our of their enterprise show that those who
to indigenous populations will begin to take possess indigenous knowledge have not pos-
place. sessed much power to influence what is done
By their own efforts, conforming to an with their knowledge. Indigenous peoples have
instrumental logic of development, advocates of remained, for the most part, in positions of
indigenous knowledge make clear that there is localised resistance to effects of power produced
no necessary unity between indigenous peoples by those who possess and apply scientific
and their knowledges. By scientising, knowledge, including the builders of databases
(particularising, validating (abstracting) and and cataloguers of best practices. In this sense,
generalising), they realise (in the sense, “make one distinguishes between different forms of
real”) the possibility of separating “useful” from knowledge on the basis of particular insti-
“useless” indigenous knowledge. If the useful- tutional inscriptions, themselves products of dif-
ness of knowledge possessed by indigenous ferentiated relations of power and its exercise.
peoples is the justification for pursuing their If knowledge derives its potency from the
knowledge, the strategies that demarcate useful many ways in which it is practiced, the effort

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Indigenous knowledge and the politics of classification 295

to pin it down in a classificatory-taxonomic sustained by different forms of knowledge. A

structure can only help in separating knowledge satisfactory reading of how power operates in
from practice and power. Ultimately, the irony conversations on indigenous knowledge needs
involved in the scientisation of indigenous to consider not only the points at which differ-
knowledge is driven by a particular relationship ent forms of knowledge connect with nodes of
between development, science, and power. power. It also needs to consider how indigenous
Development is founded on the conceit that knowledge becomes necessary for development.
scientific knowledge can help transform social In this context, Foucault’s Nietzschean insight
processes. Because the current attention to is critical: “knowledge is not gained prior to
indigenous knowledge finds justification in the and independently of” the uses to which it will
claim that it is useful for development or some be put to gain power (Hoy 1986: 129). In the
similar broad social aspiration, scientific criteria case of indigenous knowledge, we need to think
for the production of knowledge are inevitably how its postulated relationship with develop-
invoked in the making of indigenous knowl- ment leads its advocates to inscribe a series of
edge. Once indigenous knowledges test true on practices that convert indigenous knowledge
these criteria, they can be deployed to into an instrument of scientific progress, devel-
accomplish development – in ways that are opment, and the institutions that claim to control
likely to undermine the very conditions that both development and the knowledge needed
have facilitated the continued existence of to develop.
indigenous peoples. In enunciating a critique of the utopian
nature of particular attempts to strengthen the
position of indigenous peoples vis-à-vis others,
Conclusion I insist on the need to keep in the foreground
the ways in which power works. Without
The arguments in this paper are not aimed to explicit and continuing attention to how power
suggest the necessity of a pure state in which structures knowledge, it will remain impossible
the indigenous must, even less should, exist. to achieve the aim of working in the interests
Rather, they indicate the impossibility of escap- of indigenous or other marginal peoples. Atten-
ing a particular instrumental logic of science tion to power relations would necessitate that
and development once claims about the signifi- advocates of indigenous knowledge use the
cance of indigenous knowledge begin to be strategy of documenting and archiving knowl-
made in the context of development. The paper edge as only one of the elements in their arsenal
also highlights some of the dangers that of weapons. They must, simultaneously, follow
accompany efforts to keep in the foreground other courses of action – among them lobbying
knowledge rather than people or their social and governments, questioning science, channelling
political context. It is important, if investi- resources towards more independent processes
gations of indigenous knowledges are to serve of decision making among indigenous peoples,
the interests of the poor and the marginalised, and mobilising and organising indigenous
to bring to the fore the institutions and practices peoples.

Notes

*I would like to thank Rebecca 2. One only need undertake a the more critical contributions on
Hardin, Ajay Skaria, and Shiney cursory examination of the more the subject derive their justification
Varghese for their comments and recent writings on indigenous from this initial connection
corrections during discussions knowledge to witness the validity (Agrawal 1995).
centring on some of the ideas in of this assertion. These writings
this paper. explore and justify their interest in 3. For some recent writings by
the indigenous because of its these scholars, see Brush and
1. See for example the discussion
suggested relevance to the politics Stabinsky (1996); Chambers,
in, and following, Brown (1985).
of sustainable development. Even Pacey, and Thrupp (1989);

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296 Arun Agrawal

Warren, Slikkerveer, and the Netherlands Organisation for 10. Given the large number of such
Brokensha (1995). International Cooperation in Higher websites, it is possible only to give
Education and the latter is the a flavour of the menu available
4. Careful examinations of terms Centre for International Research even to someone only casually
such as community, local, and and Advisory Networks. The interested in indigenous knowledge.
subaltern that are key in current specific initiative they have See, as examples,
writings on the environment and launched on indigenous knowledge http://www.idrc.org,
development are available in Li is similar to the “Management of http://www.conservation.org, and
(1996), Moore (1998), Raffles Social Transformations (MOST) http://www.ipgri.cgiar.org.
(1999), and Sivaramakrishnan Programme” that UNESCO has
(1996). created on “Poverty and Social 11. See http://www.umd.umich.edu/
Exclusion.” See http:// cgi-bin/herb. Accessed on
5. This strategy of creating www.unesco.org/most/welcome.htm. November 18, 2001. This web page
databases to document particular Accessed on November 19, 2001. had received more than 171,000
examples by recording their hits in less than 2.5 years since
common features has also been August 1999.
8. For more information about
used by students of common
indigenous knowledge-related
property, decentralisation, resource 12. For various uses of neem, see
activities of NUFFIC–CIRAN, see
management, and social services http://www.neemfoundation.org.
http://www.nuffic.nl/ik-
among others. Accessed on November 25, 2001.
pages/index.html.
6. See Warren (1996). 13. The essays in Ellen et al.
9. See http://www.worldbank.org/ (2000) offer striking evidence of
7. NUFFIC–CIRAN are two afr/ik/datab.htm. Accessed on this consensus in the critical
separate organisations; the first is November 18, 2001. literature on indigenous knowledge.

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