User talk:Pgallert/Archive2021 1

Israel material involvement in SA border war

Hi. So where do you think the South African R4 rifle comes from? (Israeli Galil) South African SMG? (Israeli Uzi) South African Cheetah aircraft (Israeli Kfir aircraft) The Israelites were closely associated with South African weapon support. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.229.133.212 (talk) 08:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I wasn't implying that it is wrong information. It is just that an infobox summarises main points from the article, and if Israel's support isn't mentioned there then it shouldn't be in the infobox, either. By all means, expand the article, supply a reliable source, and then re-add. --Pgallert (talk) 18:42, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Oral citations

Went to this talk that touches on oral citations that might be of interest if you're still pursuing that topic:

• Promoting Ethical Research in Indigenous Knowledge
• Group Zotero library collection of resources on indigenous epistemology

T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 03:06, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Nine years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:42, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Paper for you

I think you'll be interested in this: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0162243920924783 WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:12, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

I just learned about the article on Collective intelligence and the title made me think of your description of indigenous knowledge. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:06, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, WhatamIdoing, in my view that's pretty much the indigenous knowledge of modern times. Folks from the first world usually shun the term, even though we're indigenous to some ecosystem, too. --Pgallert (talk) 05:32, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I suppose it depends on what you mean by the term. If "indigenous" implies living in one ecosystem for most/all of your life, then we are not all indigenous, because some of us are migrants. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:26, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I use Purcell's definition, "Indigenous people are human groups that have undergone a long–term adaptation to their biophysical environment". So it doesn't really matter much how long someone lives at one place, but rather if they adapt to their new place, or if they still harbour the adaptation to their former place. Now, it may be time to extend the "biophysical", as there are no doubt people that have adapted to the WWW, to media, to globalisation, and many more.

What we found "in the field" is that certain knowledge cannot be located in individuals. It becomes knowledge only when narrated _and_ not refuted after the performance. That situation could be very close to collective intelligence. --Pgallert (talk) 18:58, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Two questions:

• How long is "long-term"? What's the minimum standard for "adaptation"? If you were to move all the residents of East London to the Mile-High City they'd physically adapt to the new elevation in about a month. Is that enough? After a few years, maybe a decade, they'll have an internal sense of the seasons, and a better idea about how to survive the cold. Or is the timespan longer, so that it requires most of a lifetime, or a generation or two after the immigrant?
• Should we (under that definition) count the contents of the old Farmers' Almanac as "indigenous knowledge" (except for the parts that have been contradicted)?

I think there is a danger in extending biophysical, because it removes the importance of place. If one of the key points about indigenous knowledge is that the indigenous people have long-term knowledge about a specific place, then redefining place as unimportant could invalidate so much of the previous work and make the rest seem little different from garden-variety sociology.

I hope that it's obvious that I'm asking you these questions because (a) you know more than I do, so asking you is an effective way for me to learn, and (b) I hope that your future papers will be useful and important contributions to the world's understanding of this area, and therefore, although perhaps less directly, to Wikipedia. It's sometimes hard in text to communicate that I'm interested and it's important, and not trying to disprove the concept. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:34, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Haha WhatamIdoing, yes that's obvious, and all critique helps my work tremendously, thank you. --Pgallert (talk) 08:49, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the time, I take the position that indigenous knowledge starts when important routine tasks are done differently than before, better than elsewhere, and in a way specifically adapting to the environment. Farmers all over the world have indigenous knowledge, and I definitely think all of us have some sort of that knowledge. For instance, I can determine where North is, in a European forest at night. No indigenous Australian can do that because rain patterns are different. Or, architects around here can design a house that's warm in winter and cold in summer, without using electrical appliances. Not only do architects elsewhere not have that knowledge, but it wouldn't work in their climatic conditions.

Regarding the place, I would say that I have a second residence on the Internet, as many people do. And I have of course accumulated knowledge about that virtual place. As a result, my real daily routine changes, my work results, my spare time activities... I think methodically this is no different to the real world environments and the knowledge adapted to them.

I talk about Wikipedia being "my home on the internet", and I think that you will be interested in m:User:Julle/Essays/Wikipedia as a physical space, but I'm not sure that it's either an ecosystem or a biophysical space. Spending a lot of time at Wikipedia and the sister sites changes my daily routine, but the effect seems the same as changing jobs: switching from a screen-focused job to, say, child care or working in a shop would also change my daily routine. I didn't think that indigenous knowledge was occupation-specific.

I wonder whether the adaptation should be about adapting to the environment in ways that are specific to the local conditions, and that would not be the same adaptations made everywhere. Two examples:

• All over the world, babies cry when they fall down. Parents all over the world might have different methods of minimizing babies falling (e.g., Leading strings or Baby sling), but this feels like something known to every conscious person above the age of two, rather than indigenous knowledge.
• In the 19th century, US farmers adapted to Kansas by growing wheat instead of maize, and by planting it during the autumn instead of during the spring, and the fact that there isn't enough water to grow maize and that winter wheat produces a better crop in that climate than spring wheat might be indigenous knowledge (except that we had previously talked about some differences between indigenous knowledge and written knowledge, and this has been written down).

Has anyone developed a classification scheme for indigenous knowledge? It sometimes seems like the key point is that indigenous knowledge is oral tradition, or that it's been known by people who lived in the same area for generations, or that it's not freely shared with others. Is the knowledge that winter wheat grows well in Kansas indigenous knowledge? Was it, but maybe it's not now? Is there any knowledge about a specific place that definitely isn't indigenous knowledge? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:55, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

The last question is easiest to answer: all you can read on Wikipedia about it, is non-indigenous. That's what the world knows about a place. But then there are things that only locals know, and that might be indigenous. The second-last question is also easy to answer, remember that indigenous knowledge is knowing-how, not knowing-that: That winter wheat grows well in Kansas is not indigenous knowledge, but to go out there and reap a bumper harvest from it, might be. If every Jack and Jill can just sow a different crop at a different time, it isn't. If there are other, undocumented hacks to it, then these are indigenous.

I think Wikipedia as a place is a terrific example of indigenous knowledge: You and I know how it is created, why, and by whom. Most non-Wikipedians lack this knowledge. That's how you and I can attach a completely different meaning to it, a meaning that at the same time is, and is not, documented. Explaining to a bystander why you trust this statement on Wikipedia but not the other one, must seem like hocus-pocus to any outsider because there is a long chain of reasoning behind it that no one without insider knowledge can follow. That's how I often feel in the indigenous community (going there again this weekend, btw): there might be a rational way to arrive at this conclusion, but understanding it is way out of my depth. --Pgallert (talk) 20:40, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

The know-how vs know-that distinction suggests that religious revelations are inherently non-indigenous. You could "know-that" this being exists, or has these characteristics, or did these things, but there isn't a "know-how" aspect in saying that the Virgin Mary appeared to the children on the hillside, or that Coyote is a trickster. Ditto for history: There isn't any aspect of "know-how" in the question about whether the traditional boundaries for this group's territory were here or there or somewhere else.

OTOH, a master gardener or a person who is talented at repairing mechanical systems have a lot of "know-how" and might therefore be classified as having indigenous knowledge in this model. Nobody would talk about them that way, but they meet the definition of "know-how", and they probably have some "undocumented hacks".

We sometimes talk about indigenous knowledge as belonging to a community, such that this community has some inherent rights over it. But is it located in the community? Imagine that the master gardener learned, through trial and error, an undocumented hack that makes a vegetable garden more productive in her climate. If the gardener takes that secret to her grave, is it indigenous knowledge? Or is it non-indigenous? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:21, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

The historic and religious knowledge falls under traditional knowledge. I'd say that it is something different, or that at least indigenous knowledge encompasses more than just traditional knowledge. Whether it is different or just a subset is a matter of definition. Per Purcell's definition above it is indeed different. If you hover over the links, though, the IK is a redirect.

Indigenous knowledge rests in the community, not necessarily in all people at once but at least in the majority of the people with the same role. If I ask five gardeners, the most senior of them must be able to reproduce the result, and if that one dies, the now most senior must be able to do it. Part of the job of the senior gardener will be to groom a successor. If knowledge, indigenous or not, is taken to the grave then it disappears from that community. Unfortunately, this is happening as we speak due to formal schooling, urbanisation, lifestyle assimilation, and the like. --Pgallert (talk) 07:21, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Not all lost knowledge should be mourned. If we lose harmful knowledge (e.g., the "know-how" that pollutes waterways or injures people), I'll call that progress.

Among experts, are the terms traditional knowledge and indigenous knowledge usually considered synonyms? That is, there are different definitions, but if Alice Expert gives her definitions, is she likely to give me separate definitions of TK and IK, or is she more likely to give me her definition and then say that the words mean the same thing (in her model)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:09, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi WhatamIdoing! Sorry for the late answer, was out in the field. I'd say that whoever has IK as a research focus will give a definition that is distinct from TK. In a way, the "traditional knowledge" term is often (ab)used to mean that this is the only unique knowledge that such societies have: religion, own history, folklore. However, if the research focus is on history or ethnology or anthropology, the terms might be used interchangeably. --Pgallert (talk) 16:07, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

To disentangle those two pages, we probably need a source (well, probably two or three) that says IK is not TK. If I could order up ideal sources, one would say that IK is not TK and they differ in the following ways, and another that says IK is not TK, even though some fields have incorrectly used them as interchangeable terms.

My initial inclination is first to make the TK article say that they're different, then to see whether anyone objects (over the space of months), and finally to WP:SPLIT the article (since now there's consensus that they're different things). How does that sound to you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:21, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

You've got mail

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Namibian presidential election, 2014

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