Indigenous Knowledge and Peoples

The IP-Forum
Baht 200, 5 US$, 4 Euro plus postage

The Indigenous Peoples Forum was a platform created for 70 indigenous peoples from China, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma and Laos to learn from each other during the Conference on the Impact of Globalisation on Ethnic Minorities organised by the Social Research Institute of Chiang Mai University and Trent University (Canada) in November 2004. Indigenous participants also elaborated on 3 specific topics related to Indigenous Knowledge and shared moments of exchange and dialogue among themselves and with academics. They discussed issues of how to strengthen Indigenous Knowledge in the light of negative impacts of modernization and globalization and agreed on a work plan for 2005.
The 3 topics addressed in parallel workshops during the Forum were:

This booklet provides insights into the results of 5 fieldtrips in Northern Thailand, the perceptions of the indigenous practitioners about the 3 main topics and describes the scope and activities of the interethnic networks across borders, which started with this Conference in November 2004. The topic networks of ethnic farmers/healers from 6 countries are part of the Project on Affirmation of Cultures and Biodiversity Conservation (ACBC), which emphasises the role of ethnic cultures for the future of humankind and is funded by SwedBio (SIDA) from Sweden.

Bridging epistemologies – indigenous views…
250 Bt, 6 US$, 5 Euro plus postage

With the idea of bridging epistemologies in mind, we called on a workshop in which indigenous views had a prominent role as part of the International Conference on Bridging Scales and Epistemologies from March 17 to 20, 2004 in Alexandria, Egypt. The Millennium Assessment Organisers agreed to invite a group of persons from different continents to contribute to the epistemological debate, to define the role of science and indigenous knowledge and to cultivate ways of dialogue.

Dialogue posed a challenge: to go beyond the often expressed unilateral emphasis on science as the driving force of knowledge and beneficiary to a possible integration with local knowledge. We aimed at creating a space for different ways of knowing to meet in an intercultural and dialogical encounter.
During two congress sessions, each participant gave a personal account of their understanding of three themes: how they perceive nature and its changes from their point of view, how they perceive science, and how they imagine a bridge between themselves and scientists and development actors.
Bridging epistemologies by means of intercultural dialogue takes us away from a universal way of thinking and other fundamentalisms. It provides us insightful and vibrant access to the multi-dimensionality of knowledge and the inter relationship of myths, values and concrete practices. It nurtures affection, reason, the imaginary, magic, music, colours, and our awareness to follow the logic of symbols.

Persons who expect a fashionable academic discussion with abundant difficult terminology that ensures an abstract theory on how to build epistemological bridges will be disappointed. This book is primarily a source of individual accounts of ways of knowing that are ingrained in cultural categories and practices (part 1) as well as case studies showing environmentally friendly experiences deeply embedded in particular cultural ways of conceiving nature (part 2). Finally, the spirit of the epistemological debate evidenced a broad palette of aspirations towards an intercultural dialogue among different ways of knowing leading to the acknowledgement of diverse worlds on our planet. This colourful and insightful mosaic of opinions is compiled at the end of the book in part 3.

Participatory Technology Development (PTD)
200 Baht or 4 Euro or 5 US$

The Field Manual on Participatory Technology Development (PTD) Linking Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity for Sustainable Livelihoods published by Yunnan Science and Technology Press at 200 Bath. Authors are Maruja Salas and Timmi Tillmann with contributions from Xu Jianchu, Wang Jianhua, Andy Wilkes and Therese Grinter.
The contents are
1. What is PTD?
2. Basic Concepts of PTD
3. PTD Methods
4. Process and sequence of PTD
5. Innovations and experiments
6. Farmer networks and organization
7. Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation
8. Training of PTD
9. Outlook
And an ample bibliography and web-resources on Participation, PTD and Indigenous Knowledge.

The book People and Forests – Yunnan Swidden Agriculture in Human-ecological Perspective written by Prof.. Yin Shaoting (Yunnan University), funded by Ford Foundation and edited by Yunnan Education Publishing House. 560 pages
at 150 Baht.

Yunnan is still one of the areas of China where swidden agriculture is still preserved by ethnic minorities to a considerable extent. Prof. Yin reports about the historic records about swidden agriculture (cut with knife and plant with fire – the Chinese term). He also describes with many details the swidden systems of the Jingpo (Kachin), Bulang, Wa, Jinuo and Dulong. He ledges for the recognition of swidden agriculture as a cultural heritage of the indigenous peoples of Yunnan, which needs to be preserved.