Building upon Traditional Knowledge to Enhance Resilience of Soils in Sub-Saharan Africa - Principles of Sustainable Soil Management in Agroecosystems - page 118

TABLE 5.2
Comparison of Western Science and TK

Aspect Western Science TK

Place of knowing and
learning

Formal classrooms,
laboratories, and workshops

Informal visual observations relating
practices and impacts captured within the
real-world context and specific local
conditions from early childhood working
in the field

Source and nature of
data and information
processed into
knowledge

Samples/objects of study
often detached from their
vital context into simplified
and controllable
experimental environments

Nondualistic (does not distinguish between
research subject and object, between mind
and matter or man and nature; sacred
persons, places, and topics may be
important sources of knowledge

Approach to
acquisition

Objective and quantitative
empiricism

Subjective and qualitative spiritualism

Methods of collection Uses rational theoretical

concepts and robust
reductionist methods,
quantification, randomizing,
replications, statistical
analyses, logical reasoning,
and controlled experiments

Intuition and meditative methods with
holistic view and learning from inside in
real contexts sharpened by experience,
participation, insight of seers, communities
of practice, councils of elders, dreams,
initiation rites, use of alcohol or stimulants,
reflection, and communication with
ancestral spirits

Methods of
dissemination

Academic and literate
transmission (e.g.,
classroom, laboratory)

Folklore knowledge orally passed on from
one generation to the next by elders in
real-life situations

Basis for acquisition
and assessment of
level of knowledge

Competence and objective
tests

Survival under diverse conditions or
extinction and yield benefits

Nature of knowledge Reductionist/

compartmentalized/
fragmented into disciplines
(physical sciences, biology,
psychology, and social
sciences); also science
versus technology

Holistic, often very sophisticated,
embracing all aspects of the ecosystem as a
whole and its knowledge, including
socioeconomic and physical sciences,
biology, and psychology

Form of knowledge Explicitly recorded in forms

that can be disseminated

Tacit, embodied in beholder, and not easily
written down in a form that can be
accessed by outsiders

Notion of time Linear (going from the past

through the present to the
future)

Time is often considered to be cyclic or
spiral; times do not always have the same
quality; auspicious for certain activities

Source: Nakashima, D. and M. Roué: Indigenous Knowledge, Peoples and Sustainable Practice,
Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Change , ed. T. Munn. 2002. Copyright Wiley-VCH
Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. Reproduced with permission.