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Indigenous Knowledge Essay

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The word Indigenous Knowledge (IK) or Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is used to define the knowledge systems developed by an indigenous people and its community as contrast to the ‘modern’scientific knowledge ( Slikkerveer 1999, Ajibade 2003). While Kincheloe & Semali,eds. (1999) dicusses on the concept and practices of Indigenous Knowledge, this study refers Indigenous knowledge (IK) to the knowledge which indigenous people acquired from generations to generations, and mostly based on their life experience with the nature and influenced by their cosmological beliefs. Indigenous knowledge is the basis for local peoples’ decision-making in many rural communities and ethno-cultural groups of the society. Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) deal with specific systems of knowledge and practice, developed and accumulated over generations, often outsed universities, research institutions and laboratories which form the base for local-level decision-making process, and are as such unique to a specific culture or region (Cf. Slikkerveer 1995) It has value not only for the culture in which it evolves, but also for scientists and development …show more content…

Thus, understanding IK and IKS requires proper understanding about Indigenous Peoples. While the World Bank seeks indigenous peoples as ‘social groups with a social and cultural identify distinct from the dominant society that makes vulnerability to being disadvantage by the development process, the United Nation defines Indigenous Peoples as ‘indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them’(Cf. Cobo

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