ABSTRACT
How is it that at certain moments and in certain orders of knowledge, there are these sudden take-offs, these hastenings of evolution, these transformations which fail to correspond to the calm, continuist image that is normally accredited? (Foucault 1977:112)
Practically since its inception as a discipline, anthropology has interested itself in the knowledge systems of indigenous peoples. This interest can be traced from early ethnographic work on local patterns of environmental relations and systems of resource-use to more recent work in, for example, ethnoscience and ethnobotany. Within the past two decades, however, the object of this interest has been redefined and reified as ‘indigenous knowledge’. Anthropologists have been joined in its study by other social scientists, as well as development scholars, planners and activists, and it has become the focus of newly established institutes and publications (cf. Warren, Slikkerveer and Brokensha 1995). This burgeoning interest in indigenous knowledge is premised on the belief that many failures of development and under-development are due to the privileging of modern, global, scientific knowledge over local, traditional indigenous knowledge. A corollary premise is that a reversal of this imbalance, based on the study and utilization of indigenous knowledge, will have salutary effects. The challenge of successful development, therefore, is seen as ethnographic and pedagogical in nature: ignorance of knowledge that lies outside modern scientific traditions is seen as the problem, which can be remedied through the unearthing and study of this knowledge. This critique of the dominant paradigm of development was initially heralded as a great step forward, but within the past five years in particular, questions have been raised regarding its genuineness.
Both perspectives are reflected in a recent issue of Current Anthropology, in which the lead author, Paul Sillitoe, refers to this new study of indigenous knowledge as a ‘revolution’, whereas one of the commentators, Carmen Ferradás, calls it just another ‘selfprivileging antinomy’ (Ferradás 1998:240; Sillitoe 1998:223, 246).l My purpose in the present analysis is to consider the truth in both these views of indigenous knowledge. I will base this analysis on my own study of one system of indigenous knowledge, that of smallholder cultivators of Pará rubber in Southeast Asia.
