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- Convenors:
-
Michele Fontefrancesco
(University of Gastronomic Sciences)
Andrea Pieroni (University of Gastronomic Sciences)
- Formats:
- Panels
- Location:
- Sackler B
- Start time:
- 10 June, 2012 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
TK is often considered a precious local heritage to be preserved, and a resource to be commodified for local development. In front of this dynamic, this panel aims at reflecting about meanings and aims of TK studies in this ambiguous context.
Long Abstract:
The public and academic debate is increasingly interested in Traditional Knowledge [TK], and this became the fulcrum of complex cultural and economic dynamics that see in the bio-cultural heritage a resource for possible local development. During the last decades Ethnobiology and Anthropology have undertaken an intense work mainly aimed to record and (re)-evaluate TK. This effort has produced many research outputs and it has also activated many political and cultural initiatives, both at the local and global level.
However, the globalisation processes and the different perceptions within the societies of the values embedded in TK are generating also contradictory trajectories: local communities enthusiastically refer to "traditions" as models for local development -often (re)inventing traditions on the basis of contemporary understanding of rural ways of life; at the same time, these communities seem also to be fascinated in "modernity", and direct their development towards a model of urban consumerist lifestyles. In this context, TK appears at the same time a fundamental aspect of the "local" that must be preserved intact, and a powerful economic resource that must be marketed to allow local development.
In this process, the researches originally aimed at collecting and preserving TK have become resources for its commoditization, betraying the original motivations and casting researchers into an ambiguous ethical position.
This panel would like to address these phenomena in order to foster down-to-the-earth approaches in applied environmental anthropological studies and reflections beyond the academia about meaning and possibility for TK studies in this context of exploitation of traditions.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Ajay Pratap (Banaras Hindu University)
Paper short abstract:
Amongst the archaeological materials that have been produced by prehistoric humans, the place of the rock paintings, at the Wyndham 1 Site, located by us during a field survey conducted in October 2008 (Antiquity URLhttp://antiquity.ac.uk/antiquityNew/projgall/pratap321/), as situated well-within the Vindhyan Ranges, South of the Varanasi District; has been very well documented (see our project website URL http://www.rockartofindia.webs.com), and, therefore secure. We would propose to discuss the issue of the prehistoric rock paintings of the WYN 1 Site, as the discussion, of Vindhyan Rock Paintings, as contemporary material culture, and the possibilities of its proposed Intellectual Property Right, has not been made until now.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper we propose to discuss the issue of the proper conservation of the prehistoric rock paintings, at WYN 3 and 4 Sites, found by us in the course of an Indian Council of Historical Research funded research project, The Documentation and Analysis of the Rock Art of Mirzapur (2009-2011), of which I am the Director. This is so as a discussion of Indian rock paintings as contemporary material culture and its intellectual ownership and appropriation has not been discussed until now.
It is thus, and therefore, that this paper proposes to consider the pros and the cons of the the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958, under the Indian Penal Code, to consider how as academic Indian archaeologists we may even begin to define a concept of Intellectual Property Right with regard to Sites and Monuments of India, and how it may be safeguarded, in the Indian Context, and this is all well within the particular ambit of the Indian prehistoric past.
Gabriel López Martínez (Universidad de Murcia)
Paper short abstract:
The article deals with the idea of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, focusing this concept on the figure of the artisanal fisher as a part of the Inmaterial Cultural Heritage. From a local level and a cultural point of view, we analyse how fishermen in Murcia (Spain) understand this knowledge. This knowledge is transmitted within generations, showing the clear differences between artisanal fishery and industrial fishery. Moreover, this Ecological Knowledge in fishery, is related to enculturation processes, so it is connected to individual and group identity and socialization processes. We also try a slight approach to the particular artisanal fisherman life-mode: as a self-employed, in contrast to wage earners and industrial fishing, and its particular mode of production co-existing in a dominant capitalist mode.
Paper long abstract:
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in artisanal fishery consists of techniques and values transmitted withing generations. We understand this as a cumulative knowledge that provides or create an enriching 'corpus' of knowledge which determines organization, management and redistribution issues in fishery.
Fishing activity doesn't exist isolated, but 'embedded' with other institutions such as kinship, or cognitive aspects created from this particular knowledge, which determines fihermen world-view.
Finally, we understand that artisanal fishermen have a particular life-mode. As a self-employed, in contrast to wage earners, they understand their job not as a means but an ends in itself. This determines the construction of their world-view, where traditional knowledge, with its differente practices, constitutes a vital tool.
Paul Sillitoe (Durham University)
Paper short abstract:
After a brief overview of indigenous or local knowledge in development, this presentation questions the proposition that such work necessarily results in people treating their cultural heritage as a commodity.
Paper long abstract:
On the face of it, indigenous knowledge in development should call to the aim of the RAI's 'Anthropology in the World' conference, as an area where the discipline has been influential outside academia. Development is one of those fields where those trained in anthropology can see a clear application of their knowledge, particularly with the emergence of participatory approaches.
This presentation will give a brief overview of indigenous knowledge work, which seeks a place for local cultural heritage in development contexts, on the grounds that people's understandings and views should feature in any interventions influencing their lives. This work seeks to promote development activities to better fit with local aspirations than top-down impositions, such that they may prove acceptable and thus sustainable.
But does this interfacing with capitalist informed development (as an activity generally concerned with improving material standards of living and demanding economic growth) necessarily imply that people treat their cultural inheritance as a commodity? It is possible that other ways of being in the world allow people to resist the capitalist political-economic agenda and view their knowledge as something other than a commodity.
Indeed it is arguable that such alternative cultural perspectives may offer us a way forwards, particularly with the current 'crisis of capitalism'. This may further recommend anthropology to the public, drawing attention to one of the subject's central tenets, namely that we have something to learn from other cultural traditions; it is not all one way as economic development suggests.
Pablo Jaramillo (Universidad de los Andes)
Paper short abstract:
The paper analyses the uses of traditional knowledge in the negotiations and implementation of a clean energy project in La Guajira, Colombia, and the position of anthropological research amidst this process.
Paper long abstract:
In 2002, Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM), a Colombian utility company, started the development of a clean energy project in La Guajira peninsula, Colombia, with a loan from the World Bank (WB). The project consisted in the installation of 15 wind turbines on the territory of the Wayúu people. The project became a scene of transnational negotiation about the role of "traditional" political leaders, respect for "indigenous" values, and rights over "ancestral" territories. The paradox I want to address in this paper is that a significant part of the knowledge about the matters of concern comes from anthropological research carried out in collaborations between Wayúu leaders and anthropologists in the context of emancipatory indigenous mobilisations during the 1980s. The clean energy project was subsequently named using an indigenous word (Jepirrachi), and has been praised by the WB as an inspiration and for the success of its "Operational Policy on Indigenous Issues". The paper firstly explores the main characteristics of the negotiation of the how "traditional knowledge" has become interpreted in the implementation of the project, and secondly analyses the conundrums faced by anthropologists studying such processes while trying to avoid the commoditisation of their knowledge and of the very social relationships from which it derives. The paper reflects on research currently being carried out with regard to EPM, the WB and the indigenous people involved in the project, and on the ethnographer's previous fieldwork with the Wayúu since 2007.
Viacheslav Rudnev (Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology)
Paper short abstract:
Traditional Knowledge (in particularly folk experience in nature using and life-support activity) has important role in creation a new global consciousness – positive base for action on harmonizing situation in relationships between nature and society in regime of sparing nature.
Paper long abstract:
Ethnological research has testify, that in the traditional culture of each nation, there is a file of knowledge that reflecting original experience in nature observation and nature using.
Modern society has a lot of problems and relationships in the nature-society system has priority as a factor of high risk for society's survival, for society's future. Huge pressing of industrial society on nature has led to disturbing the balance of nature and society. New high level technologies have allowed to mankind get high effect in nature using, but were not capable to create a mechanism for adequately compensating of negative collateral consequences of human activity, similarly to nature. Folk societies learned to integrate the use of renewable resources at an optimum level into their traditional cultures. Integration environment education with original data bank on folk heritage in human nature using and life-support activity on local level have global meaning for society. Problems of the relationships between nature and society have stimulated World-wide discussion of the topic at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.
In my lecture I'll focus attention on perspectives of using folk heritage in human adaptation to nature (in particularly folk technologies useful for fertilizing soil - that is top actual problem for modern) in education process for solving modern ecological problems and creation new model of World outlook (aimed to harmonize situation on relationships between nature and society).
Renata Sõukand (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia) Raivo Kalle (Estonian Literary Museum)
Paper short abstract:
Despite the speedy changes of living standards and widespread image that all “traditional” can be potentially treated as a “trap for tourists”, many Estonians do live the tradition and seeing ethnobiologist approaching it properly, learn to appreciate the knowledge.
Paper long abstract:
Urban majority of Estonians lost its ties to the land during and after soviet regime.
The vacuum of ecological knowledge caused the phenomenon of rapidly opened door, when in late 1990ies, supported by economical rise, everything already available outside flushed into the homes and minds of Estonians, including new knowledge on the use of plants. Tens translated books on the medical, edible, garden, etc plants were published in a relatively short period, influencing not only the knowledge system, but also the nomenclature of species grown in the gardens. Finally, the original books by Estonian authors on "traditional plant knowledge" started to evolve, mixing international plant use and plants alien to Estonia with bits of local flora and mind.
On the other hand, in front of joining EU, all "traditional" suddenly became commercially valuable, as certain initiatives supported tourism. Every little tourist-farm developed their traditional recipes (some really were original), local "traditional soap" brands were manufactured from materials brought almost 100% from abroad etc. Entertainment is going even future, there are specific thematic sorceress park in nature reservation area Karula, created to preserve folk heritage as well. Ironically, nothing the sorceress "teaches" there or at the numerous invited lectures comes form neither old nor even new folk heritage. But who will tell the difference?
In our opinion the task of ethnobotanists is to educate the people to appreciate the knowledge they already have and to resist not the changes, but absurd substitutions for the knowledge suitable for given culture and nature.