Indigenous knowledge

Kurzfassung/Abstract

Conceptions of indigenous knowledge, development and struggles for cultural autonomy are usually articulated in terms of critiques of ‘western’ knowledge, development and hegemony. There are, broadly, two types of defence of ‘indigenous knowledge’. The more radical defence joins, and avails itself of, ‘post-colonial’, ‘post-modern’ and relativistic critiques of the ‘western’ notion of ‘universal knowledge’. The more cautious approach emphasises the different ways in which particular disciplines – like anthropological cultural relativism, radical constructivism and realism – deal with questions of knowledge. The present paper eschews the popular and ‘politically correct’ option of embracing the idea of indigenous knowledge. I argue here that extant defences of ‘indigenous knowledge’ err in several significant respects.