Section 4

Traditional v/s modern: Integrating traditional local knowledge with new technologies to empower mountain communities

Interestingly, many researchers, academicians and the like aren't sure if there exists any distinction between `traditional wisdom' and `modern science'. To some, the distinction between traditional and scientific knowledge was artificial. They wonder if the `medium' is not being mistaken for the `message' because it is the cultural and linguistic packaging that distinguishes the traditional from the modern.

Howsoever convincing the argument might sound, it is clear that such an articulation distances the scientist from the `people'. Does this stance not help the scientist brush aside traditional knowledge on the ground that s/he can't appreciate/understand peoples' wisdom because s/he is not a part of the socio-cultural context that has nurtured this wisdom?

An interesting example to bridge such socio- cultural gap is being quoted. Not all local practices are rooted in the socio-cultural context. By harvesting rainwater along the slopes in chaal, khaal and tal, the mountain people help restore moisture in the top surface that thwarts forest fires. The practice is local and in some traditional but has a clear scientific base. What stops a scientist to understand this simple fact? Quoting this example, some observers wondered why on earth were donors and others spending billions of dollars on forest fires without being able to suppress any.

Such and other examples do make it clear that there is, barring few exceptions, a distinct area of traditional practices and knowledge that is often overlooked or bypassed by the modern mind in one pretext or the other.

The debate on traditional v/s modern often arrives at this rather challenging question. Several interesting instances get quoted but it is clear that in valuing traditional knowledge the scientific mind is not ready to lose its identity. With traditional knowledge being glamorised the world over, the interest in traditional knowledge is definite. And, yet there are apprehensions galore. One wonders if proper incentives were being given to the scientists to switch to the `traditional', The intentions of the scientists to genuinely value peoples knowledge is often doubted.

Hopi’s corn

The Hopi, a tribe of `American Indians’, have planted corn in the high desert sands of the Southwest of the USA. They use `traditional knowledge’. They plant corn (Zea mays) at `excessively’ wide spacing of numerous plants per planting location, leaving very large empty spaces between planting locations. Many scientists and others closely allied to it do not understand the principle involved with this traditional practice, and perhaps the Hopi do not either. But the Hopi continue to grow corn in this way.

Perhaps the scientists could benefit from a deeper understanding of plant-soil-water relations in other than textbook contexts as a `test’ of their ability to apply scientific principles to a wide variety of contexts. The Hopi Way is scientifically valid. Much of modern practice is not based upon such principles, but upon traditional `scientific’ practice and assumptions. It makes one wonder which is the
more scientifically rigorous, the Hopi or the `scientists’ drawing luxurious salaries to bring the `benefits’ of modern agriculture to the world's poor.

The Hopi recognize very well the concept of limited productive potential and carrying capacity and the energy cycle. Many scientists seem determined to depend upon magic potions in the form of energy/nutrient subsidies from outside the system with which they are working. The folly of such linear thinking litters history (e.g. the potato famine caused by low genetic diversity cropping in Ireland and the `Green Revolution’). Now GMO's proliferate. What's the next grand `scientific’ scheme? Is there not a crucial distinction between true scientific discipline and the scientific masquerades and presumptiveness of technocrats?

Submitted by Wayne Tyson

The most striking thought in this regard relates to the fact that it is like one more packaging of the indigenous by academics and other westerners who try to convince the indigenous that, if they would just explain themselves one more time (since having done it for explorers, missionaries, anthropologists and environmentalists), things would get better. These are the areas where outsiders have caused things to go wrong and this is where the corrections need to occur.

It has been propounded that the blending should be encouraged as long as it takes the form of infusion. The moment it takes the form of `intervention', it must be discouraged. Perhaps it is the `technology’ of sustainability that needs to be `transferred’ to the `developed’ world? This might mean a `return’ to the ways of the past, but a movement forward toward true progress by examining the principles of life-sustenance upon which nomads and others have built practices that sustained them.

Not much control

Time Magazine (Feb. 19, 2001) wrote about drilling for oil at the far north edge of Alaska. Native Americans who live there will see their way of life greatly changed if the USA chooses to drill for oil in this `wildlife refuge.’ But, just like mountain dwellers, nomads, and other groups who live far from the centers of power, they will not have much control over this decision.

Legislators and scientists will spend time and money analyzing some parts of the issue, but they usually study only the variables that they understand. They will look at the cost of a specific resource like petroleum. They will look at obvious side effects like pollution. They may plan a budget for new housing or job training for the indigenous people. But they will probably have very little understanding of the value of a way of life which is based on subsistence, just like agronomists don't
understand the special benefits of mixed cropping.

This problem, this limitation in evaluation methods, will almost always guarantee that if a decision is based only on money, resources, or other `objective’ variables, the indigenous people will lose everything. To help preserve traditional ways of life, the key isn't more study, more quantifying, or even a deeper understanding of how the traditional ways of life. The only thing that can save this is a commitment by leadership at all levels to preserve these ways of life simply because they are valuable for themselves, just like wilderness itself is valuable for itself. These are political commitments, not scientific evaluations.

Science doesn't yet have a way to define or explain wilderness or subsistence ways of life, but they are still too unique to be destroyed by the modern system.

But how can mountain dwellers and indigenous people gain influence? As has been pointed out, they may do it by educating and organizing themselves, by linking together, by using publicity and tourism to make them more visible. And local or outside `experts’ may sometimes be able to help, as long as they don't allow one-dimensional analysis.

Summarised by David Unterman

Several cases where the blending of modern with traditional as also its actual translation on the ground was happening get cited. Yet, it is clear that the blending is more to justify and legitimise the `modern' and not vice versa. In effect, traditional knowledge is being preserved by the same institutional system that has been instrumental in its neglect in the past. Is it not a trap? Oblivious of the favorable donor environment that pushes the scientist to
search the traditions, the local people share the same with the hope that that might bring about the desired change in their lives. The incentive systems governing the scientific/ technology development research lure the common man to share his experiential knowledge at the cheapest price. This indeed is dishonesty given the fact that there is a premium on the same in the market.

Can the tribal people be empowered to question what is happening to the land they must have to raise food on, which is being taken away from them by the corporate interests or scientific research? Unless people are empowered and given right to question our intention, the traditional knowledge will be yet another tool by which the imperialism of the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries will stretch itself well into another century.

There is distinct talk about protection of traditional knowledge but no clear-cut mechanism of doing so. The debate in some sense is inconclusive and for right reasons too as it is an emerging discipline. The education process has helped the tribal and the traditional to understand the differences in thermal characteristics and the economy of using less firewood, they still choose the hard cement finish for status reasons. Converse is true for the scientist too. Though they (scientist) value traditional wisdom, they pursue it in the same scientific process. Is it not a paradox?

Conclusion
The value of traditional wisdom in the mountain context has been established yet again; however, there is need to deliberate on the issues that will bring it to the mainstream both at the local decision making level as well as at the donor/institutional level in designing interventions. Let the `developed’ world get its own house in order before deigning to preach the gospel of exploitation to those who have for centuries, millennia, been doing a far better job of `managing’ the earth's resources than that 'developed’ world?