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Experts from around the world examine an innovative proposal to promote both cultural survival and biological conservation: treating cultural and indigenous knowledge as a form of intellectual property. Currently the focus of a heated debate among indigenous peoples, human rights advocates, crop breeders, pharmaceutical companies, conservationists, social scientists, and lawyers, the proposal would allow impoverished people in biologically rich areas to realize an economic return from resources under their care. Monetary compensation could both validate their knowledge and provide them with an equitable reward for sharing it, thereby compensating biological stewardship and encouraging conservation."Valuing Local Knowledge" presents case studies of programs that recognize indigenous rights, and brings direct experience to bear on the international debate over intellectual property, conservation, and indigenous rights.
Currently the focus of a heated debate among indigenous peoples, human rights advocates, crop breeders, pharmaceutical companies, conservationists, social scientists, and lawyers, the proposal would allow impoverished people in biologically rich areas to realize an economic return from resources under their care. Monetary compensation could both validate their knowledge and provide them with an equitable reward for sharing it, thereby compensating biological stewardship and encouraging conservation.
Originally published in 2004. Local knowledge reflects many generations of experience and problem solving by people around the world, increasingly affected by globalizing forces. Such knowledge is far more sophisticated than development professionals previously assumed and, as such, represents an immensely valuable resource. A growing number of governments and international development agencies are recognizing that local-level knowledge and organizations offer the foundation for new participatory models of development that are both cost-effective and sustainable, and ecologically and socially sound. This book provides a timely overview of new directions and new approaches to investigating the role of rural communities in generating knowledge founded on their sophisticated understandings of their environments, devising mechanisms to conserve and sustain their natural resources, and establishing community-based organizations that serve as forums for identifying problems and dealing with them through local-level experimentation, innovation, and exchange of information with other societies. These studies show that development activities that work with and through local knowledge and organizations have several important advantages over projects that operate outside them. Local knowledge informs grassroots decision-making, much of which takes place through indigenous organizations and associations at the community level as people seek to identify and determine solutions to their problems.
There is a revolution happening in the practice of anthropology. A new field of 'indigenous knowledge' is emerging, which aims to make local voices hear and ensure that development initiatives meet the needs of indigenous people. Development and Local Knowledge focuses on two major challenges that arise in the discussion of indigenous knowledge - its proper definition and the methodologies appropriate to the exploitation of local knowledge. These concerns are addressed in a range of ethnographic contexts.
Digital Participation through Social Living Labs connects two largely separate debates: On the one hand, high speed internet access and associated technologies are often heralded as a means to bring about not only connectivity, but also innovation, economic development, new jobs, and regional prosperity. On the other hand, community development research has established that access by itself is necessary but not sufficient to foster digital participation for the broadest possible range of individuals. Edited by leading scholars from the fields of education, youth studies, urban informatics, librarianship, communication technology, and digital media studies, this book is positioned as a link to connect these debates. It brings together an international collection of empirically grounded case studies by researchers and practitioners from diverse backgrounds. They advance knowledge that fosters digital participation by identifying the specific digital needs, issues and practices of different types of communities as they seek to take advantage of access to digital technologies. Collectively, these cases propose new ways for enabling residents to develop their digital confidence and skills both at home and in their local community, particularly through a 'social living labs' approach. The book is organised around key focus areas: digital skills enhancement, youth entrepreneurship, connected learning, community digital storytelling, community-led digital initiatives and policy development. - Highlights that high speed internet is necessary that high speed internet access is necessary but not sufficient to resolve digital divides and foster social inclusion; - Brings together international, empirically grounded case studies to identify digital needs, issues and practices of different communities, and contextualises these with expert comment; - Presents contributions from multiple disciplines, with most chapters incorporating more than one disciplinary background; - Gives insight on the place of the digital in contemporary society; - Illustrates the innovative potential of social living labs to foster digital learning and participation in a variety of community contexts.
Discusses the suitability of mainstream forms of intellectual propety rights to indigenous knowledge and efforts to reconcile the Western concept of intellectual property with indigenous knowledge.
Discover how conservation can be made more effective through strengthening links between science research, policy and practice. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Innovation is among the most important topics in understanding economic sustained economic growth. Jason Potts argues that the initial stages of innovation require cooperation under uncertainty and draws from insights on the solving of commons problems to shed light on policies and conditions conducive to the creation of new firms and industries. The problems of innovation commons are overcome, Potts shows, when there are governance institutions that incentivize cooperation, thereby facilitating the pooling of distributed information, knowledge, and other inputs. The entrepreneurial discovery of an economic opportunity is thus an emergent institution resulting from the formation of a cooperative group, under conditions of extreme uncertainty, working toward the mutual purpose of opportunity discovery about a nascent technology or new idea. Among the problems commons address are those of the identity; cooperation; consent; monitoring; punishment; and independence. A commons is efficient compared to the creation of alternative economic institutions that involve extensive contracting and networks, private property rights and price signals, or public goods (i.e. firms, markets, and governments). In other words, the origin of innovation is not entrepreneurial action per se, but the creation of a common pool resource from which entrepreneurs can discover opportunities. Potts' framework draws on the evolutionary theory of cooperation and institutional theory of the commons. It also has important implications for understanding the origin of firms and industries, and for the design of innovation policy. Beginning with a discussion of problems of knowledge and coordination as well as their implications for common pool environments, the book then explores instances of innovation commons and the lifecycle of innovation, including increased institutionalization and rigidness. Potts also discusses the possible implications of the commons framework for policies to sustain innovation dynamics.
Why did the people of the Zambesi Delta affected by severe flooding return early to their homes or even choose to not evacuate? How is the forced resettlement of small-scale farmers living along the foothills of an active volcano on the Philippines impacting on their day-to-day livelihood routines? Making sense of such questions and observations is only possible by understanding how the decision-making of societies at risk is embedded in culture, and how intervention measures acknowledge, or neglect, cultural settings. The social construction of risk is being given increasing priority in understand how people experience and prioritize hazards in their own lives and how vulnerability can be reduced, and resilience increased, at a local level. Culture and Disasters adopts an interdisciplinary approach to explore this cultural dimension of disaster, with contributions from leading international experts within the field. Section I provides discussion of theoretical considerations and practical research to better understand the important of culture in hazards and disasters. Culture can be interpreted widely with many different perspectives; this enables us to critically consider the cultural boundedness of research itself, as well as the complexities of incorporating various interpretations into DRR. If culture is omitted, related issues of adaptation, coping, intervention, knowledge and power relations cannot be fully grasped. Section II explores what aspects of culture shape resilience? How have people operationalized culture in every day life to establish DRR practice? What constitutes a resilient culture and what role does culture play in a society’s decision making? It is natural for people to seek refuge in tried and trust methods of disaster mitigation, however, culture and belief systems are constantly evolving. How these coping strategies can be introduced into DRR therefore poses a challenging question. Finally, Section III examines the effectiveness of key scientific frameworks for understanding the role of culture in disaster risk reduction and management. DRR includes a range of norms and breaking these through an understanding of cultural will challenge established theoretical and empirical frameworks.
Indigenous Peoples, Consent and Benefit Sharing is the first in-depth account of the Hoodia bioprospecting case and use of San traditional knowledge, placing it in the global context of indigenous peoples’ rights, consent and benefit-sharing. It is unique as the first interdisciplinary analysis of consent and benefit sharing in which philosophers apply their minds to questions of justice in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), lawyers interrogate the use of intellectual property rights to protect traditional knowledge, environmental scientists analyse implications for national policies, anthropologists grapple with the commodification of knowledge and, uniquely, case experts from Asia, Australia and North America bring their collective expertise and experiences to bear on the San-Hoodia case.