ABSTRACT
The concept of indigenous knowledge has come to play a prominent role in contemporary debates on development. This coming to the fore reflects the fact that processes of social transformation and of formulating policy objectives of social intervention are increasingly understood in pluralist terms, i.e. as multiple trajectories (Helmsing 2000) or as multiple modernities (Arce and Long 2000). The emphasis on plurality indicates that in our understanding of these processes we have made a decisive step away from the conventional developmentalist ways of thinking about social transformation and intervention framed in evolutionist, teleological, ethnocentric or naive optimistic expectations. It also points to the need for highlighting the aspirations and interests of the people involved in these processes, demonstrating the value of their own resources embedded in their life-world. Social transformation can no longer be equated – if this was ever possible at all – with the adoption of modern technology, the assumed opposite of indigenous knowledge.
