ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the development’s ability to follow the music industry and appropriate and consume indigenous knowledge in its appetite for new techno-ethno directions. It attempts to unpack some of the reifying consequences that can accompany seeing indigenous practice and discourse as a useful knowledge resource. The chapter argues that the terms ‘indigenous’ and ‘knowledge’ need critical qualification, it is not the intention to be dismissive of the potential for development to learn from local skills and distinctive cultural practice. It identifies how a genuinely anthropological approach to knowledge-participation can involve a challenging engagement with indigenous notions of identity, power and agency, that problematizes the terms of development participation. The results might be uncomfortable for those who assume an easier project cycle choreographed to indigenous rhythms, as conflicts and contradictions are exposed that cannot effectively be ignored.
