IK Notes Indigenous Knowledge and Local Power: Negotiating Change in West Africa T hough the development, articula- tion and systematization of indig- enous knowledge in Africa are most parastatal agricultural operation re- sponsible for the development of cash and food crop farming in the region, as often seen as issues of culture and local a means of gaining local farmer confi- epistemology ( the study of the nature dence and providing people with ways and grounds of knowledge ), they have of scrutinizing commercial transac- at the same time critical power dimen- tions. The results were mixed. Two as- sions. The relation between local pects of the “balance sheet” of out- knowledge bases — and practitioners comes drawn up by the team respon- — on the one hand and central or sible for the participatory evaluation Westernized ones on the other is mani- effort clearly illustrated the concerns festly a high-power/low-power situa- of villagers with power relations. tion, a matter most often quite acutely The first lay in the figures on that and accurately perceived by local balance sheet themselves. In the initial people themselves. Until and unless design of the Bambara-language lit- the “terms of trade” between these two eracy program, it was assumed that spheres are significantly altered, or at each community would create a train- least cast in a framework that promises ing center, enroll and make literate some renegotiation, it is entirely un- some twenty adults, then create an- derstandable that the repositories of other class and train a second group of indigenous science would choose to similar or larger size. By the end of four keep it “off the market.” years, somewhere between thirty and fifty newly literate participants should Telltale patterns have been on the rolls in each commu- No. 28 of literacy acquisition nity concerned. January 2001 A story from an evaluation of func- tional literacy in Mali two decades ago IK Notes reports periodically on Indigenous Knowledge (IK) initiatives illustrates the point and provides a ba- in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is published sis for further examining the problem. by the Africa Region’s Knowledge and Learning Center as part of an evolving In the late 1970s an effort was under- IK partnership between the World taken — with joint Ministry of Educa- Bank, communities, NGOs, develop- tion, Ministry of Rural Development ment institutions and multilateral organizations. The views expressed in and World Bank funding — to inven- this article are those of the authors World Bank tory and assess results from several and should not be attributed to the World Bank Group or its partners in years of functional literacy classes in this initiative. A webpage on IK is the villages of the western portion of available at //www.worldbank.org/afr/ the country. The literacy program had ik/default.htm been established through the 2 The actual results both fell well short of this objective and appropriate rhetoric about the importance of learning and turned out, upon closer examination, to be highly signifi- the functional value of the new learning, in point of fact cant. Almost nowhere across the entire region did one find a there were few opportunities to apply knowledge of written community where more than ten “new literates” had been Bambara in the rural environment. What formal schools ex- trained. On the other hand, it was equally rare — excepting a isted were all conducted in French, few if any publications in few cases of major implementation failure — to find villages written African language could be found, and the medium of where no one had learned anything. In case after case, the writing in Bambara was not used to any practical ends by ei- program seemed to have resulted — after several years of ef- ther the local government or the agricultural operation it- fort, an appropriate amount of rhetoric and a generally weak self. Moreover, there was an acute lack of credit or invest- record of material support by government agencies — in the ment opportunities that might have made the creation of lo- emergence of a nucleus of new literates, generally between cally run enterprises a viable alternative. four and seven young men. Why this number and so seldom But to say that there were few outlets for the use of literate less or more? and numerate competence did not mean that there were none. Control of tax transactions with the government and Interpreting the record oversight of farm marketing functions were two issues of ma- jor interest to local actors, because they saw themselves as The answer seemed to lie in the real uses to which literacy in being so regularly exploited in these areas. Viewed from an Bambara could be put under circumstances then applying in individual perspective, the monitoring of tax remittances and western Mali. Though the program was publicized with all the agricultural marketing was not a frequent enough activity to justify each adult becoming literate and, perhaps more im- portantly, “numerate.” However, when these functions were IK Notes would be of interest to: “collectivized” and confided in a handful of (generally young male) villagers, they made for valuable, regular and some- times remunerated work undertaken in defense of the com- munity as a whole. As a consequence, in village after village, Name the evaluators found that the training programs had resulted Institution in the creation of a nucleus of four to seven new literates who organized and assumed these functions. The local people Address seemed to have very accurately assessed the magnitude of opportunities for use of the new knowledge as well as the imperative of better collective self-defense and to have modulated their response to the programs on this basis. Results from the first year’s participatory assessment were communicated to officials of the agricultural operation to Letters, comments, and requests for publications demonstrate the existence of core groups of literate farmers should be addressed to: across the region. This was done in the hope of motivating Editor: IK Notes them to offer communities with this sort of nucleus — and Knowledge and Learning Center Africa Region, World Bank the demonstrated capacity to train the number of people 1818 H Street, N.W., Room J5-055 that new economic and political opportunity justified — the Washington, D.C. 20433 chance to take over larger portions of agricultural marketing E-mail: pmohan@worldbank.org responsibility and to receive, in return, a significant slice of the profit margin on the sale of the crop for rebate to indi- 3 vidual farmers or collective reinvestment in locally-directed evaluation team ended up meeting — both in the first year development projects. After some negotiation, agreement and during the dissemination efforts at the beginning of the was finally reached on this major change of policy and the second — with puppet authorities in most communities vis- evaluation team set out, on the eve of the following agricul- ited, even if these people were indistinguishable, to an un- tural marketing season, to communicate this news to local practiced eye, from the true local officials. But something of authorities along with a summary of the results of the initial great interest transpired early in the second year when the round of the participatory literacy evaluation. The effort pro- evaluators came back to relay the news of the government’s duced the second major lesson about local knowledge and decision about the transfer of marketing responsibility and collective self-defense. related resources into local hands. No sooner had these top- ics been broached than their interlocutors asked for a pause Distinguishing “for show” and “for go” in discussions. They quietly disappeared from the scene and, after a short interval, were replaced, as if on a revolving First, though, a word of background. During the period of stage, by a new set of counterparts — the true village au- French colonial rule, throughout rural areas of the western thorities. If there was a chance that real transfer of power Sahel, local communities became accustomed to dealing and resource was in the offing, then it was time to bring in- quite circumspectly with representatives of the central re- digenous culture and authority into the balance. gime. Each village named, in effect, its own puppet govern- ment — that is, a set of fictional local authorities who would Four decades of experience meet with the French whenever that was required, gather in- formation to be relayed back, if necessary, to the real village The lesson is reinforced by experience in other countries of chief and his counselors and generally relieve them of the the region — Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Niger and the Central necessity of dealing directly with colonial agents. This pat- African Republic — with literacy and agricultural manage- tern was maintained well into the period of African indepen- ment programs. By far the most success in the rapid acquisi- dence, because the representatives of the new national re- tion of new skills and mobilization of local knowledge in re- gimes were often perceived as no less alien or inimical to lo- lated efforts of institutional development have been recorded cal interests than their colonial predecessors. in circumstances of durable transfer of authority and re- This attitude was clearly if subtly manifested during the sources into local hands. In fact, programs based on partici- first year of evaluation work on more than one occasion. One patory design of the knowledge systems and local language of the Malian evaluators involved in discussions with local tools required to effectively manage new economic activity authorities noted that the word they themselves used in and political jurisdiction seem to provide an ideal medium Bambara for the cooperatives set up by the national govern- for “inventorying” and articulating related indigenous ment to handle farm production and marketing was some- knowledge — because they create an environment in which it thing more than what it seemed to be — a deformation of the is clear (or at least clearer) that the cultural treasures ex- French term “coopérative.” He asked people to repeat what humed and deployed will serve local interests and remain they were saying, listened respectfully and made a few dis- under local control. And, under these circumstances, literacy creet inquiries after the discussion was over. What people training itself turns out to be an excellent medium for mobi- were actually saying was “ko-fara-tinti,” a Bambara pun on lizing local knowledge, because it provides an opportunity the French term that meant, literally, “skin the back and and tool for “renaming” development and for reconfiguring plunge in a dagger.” It was, in effect, an eloquent and lapi- the details of its implementation. dary commentary on how local people then saw the underly- This proved true, for example, in a series of experiments ing objective of State agricultural policy. with the local management of rural enterprise in which the Given this level of suspicion, it was no surprise that the authors took part: in central Niger in the late 1960s, again in 4 Burkina Faso in the 1970s, in northern Cameroon in the the opportunity to “turn the tables” on traditional agricul- 1980s and among the livestock herders of the Central Afri- tural extension work — where resources, methods and para- can Republic in the early 1990s. The Cameroonian case in- digms remained under the strict control of government volved the creation of an entire accounting system in the agents and were devoted to producing products and proce- Massa language, whereas the Central African Republic expe- dures in official experimental stations for top-down dissemi- rience was based on training Fulani herders already literate nation to farmers. Local authorities were very responsive in religious Arabic script in the Romanized transcription of when invited – and enabled – to draw up the experimental their own language. The literate training itself took as little designs themselves and name people who would undergo re- as three or four weeks of intensive instruction developed with lated training. Significantly, though, the undertaking was — and monitored by — the local population; but the follow- eventually undermined by the firm opposition of the official up period of actual assumption of new powers and manage- agricultural extension services to this kind of contestation ment responsibilities was critical and more prolonged. and decentralization of their rights and privileges. Articulating and expressing local knowledge, as these ex- Who controls the knowledge? amples illustrate, is therefore much more than an “epistemo- logical” and cultural undertaking. It is hedged about by ques- Similar conclusions could be drawn from the experience with tions of power and the “terms of trade” between local and participatory agricultural experimentation and extension central societies that are simply reconfirmed — in another work undertaken in Mali on the heels of the literacy evalua- particular sphere — by recent concerns for the copyright and tion described above. There the incentive for local partici- patent protection of indigenous pharmaceutical or botanical pants was the chance to take charge of agricultural experi- lore. Devising strategies that mediate these conflicts and mentation themselves, while both learning the new skills re- weave creative transfer of authority and resource into recon- quired and assessing the store of local knowledge relevant to struction of local knowledge is the true challenge. the endeavor. No small part of the motivation sprang from This article was written by Peter Easton (Florida State University) and Guy Belloncle (University of Tours, retired). For more information, e-mail Peter Easton : easton@coe.fsu.edu