IK Monitor Publications (8-2)

Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor, July 2000

Contents IK Monitor (8-2) | IKDM Homepage | Suggestions to: ikdm@nuffic.nl | © copyright Nuffic-CIRAN and contributors 2000.

Publications

Awotona, Adenrele (ed.) (1999) Housing provision and bottom-up approaches. Family case studies from Africa, Asia and South America. xxx + 332 pp. ISBN 1-84014-303-7. GBP42.50. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., Gower House, Croft Road, Aldershot, Hants GU11 3HR, England, and Ashgate Publishing Company, Old Post Road, Brookfield, Vermont 05036, USA.
Fax: +44-1252-344 405.
E-mail: ashgate@cityscape.co.uk
http://www.ashgate.com

This book, written by experienced academics in architecture, explores the issue of housing provision through case studies from Africa, Asia, and South America which make use of contemporary bottom-up approaches. Its 11 chapters are divided over four sections. They deal with such topics as: user modifications in public housing estates; breaking through the barrier of standardization; post-occupancy evaluation of walk-up dwellings; housing and difference in Cape Town; grassroots publicity and successful housing; housing adaptable to changing conditions; housing process in war-torn areas, and balancing capacity with vulnerability.
Chapters 1, 4, 5, and 10 are particularly related to indigenous knowledge. They re-affirm the contemporary validity and relevance of traditional settlement planning and housing within the context of sustainable development. Chapter 1 is a highly invigorating contribution by Amos Rapoport. His chapter provides a conceptual analysis of family-housing relations and the cultural meaning of housing. Rapoport argues that housing which is inappropriate, and hence inhibiting, may lead to undesirable changes in family structure, behaviour and other aspects of culture. He calls for the design of open-ended site layouts and housing.

In Chapter 4 Magda Behloul examines users' perceptions of their housing environment in Algiers. This is similar to the issue examined in Chapter 5 by Abubaker M. Shawes and Adenrele Awotona regarding the attitudes of Libyan families towards traditional and contemporary houses. The authors establish that Libyan households are highly dissatisfied with contemporary housing layouts, which do not suit their social life or needs. This is in contrast to their positive attitude towards their traditional dwellings, which are characterized by simplicity and affordability.

Chapter 10, 'Chinese vernacular dwelling' by Ying Liu and Awotona, interests me most. The authors use Chinese traditional courtyard houses to explain the concept of bottom-up housing supply. They rightly conclude that even in the midst of periodic wars and political turbulence in China, the courtyard houses have persisted and kept their major traditional features. This is because the houses are well suited to the socio-cultural and political life of the Chinese people.

Conspicuously absent in this volume, however, are materials investigating the effects of the uncontrolled modifications and extensions which users introduce to public housing, and the non-involvement of would-be users in the planning, design and construction of public housing. As a suggestion for future research, it might be interesting to look for a public housing estate with a certain percentage of non-civil-servant users in order to see if and how they modify their housing units. It would also be good to examine how to sustain traditional architecture, thereby saving it from the threat of extinction.

The adoption of the case-study method and the use of simple expressions make the book very informative and accessible. It is free of jargon. In all, the book is a good reference work and a useful companion for academics, students, and researchers in town planning, architecture and urban design, as well as for policy-makers, NGO representatives and anyone else who is interested in bottom-up approaches to housing provision or in the study of homes from a methodological point of view.
(Dr Bolanle Wahab, Head, Department of Town Planning, The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Nigeria)

Bo, Sit; Ohn Winn and Ngwe Sint (1999) Strengthening farmers' organizations for watershed management in Myanmar - A training manual. Edited by Prem N. Sharma. PWMTA Field document No. 23. 50 pp. ISBN none. Participatory Watershed Management Training in Asia (PWMTA) Program, GCP/RAS/161/NET, FAO (UN), U.N. House, P.O. Box 25, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Tel. / fax: 977-1-544 641.
E-mail: sharma@pwmta.wlink.com.np

This is a training manual on how to improve watershed management by working with farmers' organizations. It is based on a study conducted in Myanmar, which was sponsored by the Netherlands through the FAO/UN Program on Participatory Watershed Management Training in Asia (PWMTA). The manual offers five modules and eight case studies.

'Watershed' generally refers to a geographically delineated area in which all water drains towards a single outlet or point. In the manual, the word 'watershed' is used for the geographic unit defined for purposes of watershed management. Usually the ecological condition (e.g. the land-bearing capacity) of the upstream areas will affect the condition of the downstream areas. Watershed degradation is due partly to the natural susceptibility of the area and partly to improper land uses practised by resource-poor farmers and other local inhabitants.

Watershed management is a process of taking deliberate action to ensure the desired hydrological behaviour through an optimal mix of land use and natural resource management. This mix fosters the sustainable development of both upstream and downstream areas. An integrated and holistic approach that combines various disciplines and involves multi-sectoral cooperation is seen as indispensable for successful watershed management. The participation of small or subsistence-level farmers is also crucial for successful watershed management because these are the people who know exactly what is going on in their own environment. They are also the decision-makers and main stakeholders who will really determine the fate of the environment upon which their future livelihood depends. For this reason, farmers' own organizations were chosen as the focus of the study and manual.

There are two kinds of farmers' organizations: namely administrative organizations and traditional organizations. The traditional farmers' organizations represent a number of groups: religious persons, the elderly, bachelors, spinsters, and married people.

For the project, it is wise to let the farmers decide whether they want to set up completely new organizations or to strengthen or reformulate their traditional organizations. Such groups can have one objective, such as the generation of income, or multiple objectives. In most areas of Myanmar, religion is a part of people's culture and the very essence of their life. Farmers have organized themselves according to their religion for a long time. The spiritual strength of the community might in fact be the secret to sustainability.

The authors devote much of the manual to describing how to deal with farmers, how to learn about a village community, and how to develop understanding for the programme among farmers. As a training manual, however, I think the authors should also have focussed more on methodology. For example, how should wealth be measured and ranked; how do you make a problem tree; how can you help farmers to translate problems into programme objectives, and how can project staff encourage local inhabitants to make a work plan? Even if the authors would rather not change the main structure of the manual, they could have described such methods in the appendices. But despite this shortcoming, I still think the training manual makes very worthwhile reading. It could be very helpful to people doing field studies, especially if they are mainly interested in how farmers in the project area organize themselves and their institutions.
(Yang Fang, Center for Integrated Agricultural Development (CIAD), China Agricultural University, Beijing, China. E-mail: yangf@mail.cau.edu.cn http://www.cau.edu.cn)

Brookfield, Muriel and Harold Brookfield (eds) (1999) PLEC News and Views. Special issue on methodology. No. 13, April 1999. 34 pp. ISSN 1020 0843. Published for the United Nations University in the Department of Anthropology, Division of Society and Environment, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
Fax: +61-2-6249 4896.
E-mail: mbrook@coombs.anu.edu.au
(See also IK&DM 7(2), July 1999, where this publication was first mentioned under 'Preview: Important new books' on page 34.)

This special issue of the PLEC New and Views, a newsletter by and for participants in the UN University Project on People, Land Management and Environmental Changes (PLEC), covers three areas of methodology: assessment of plant species diversity in agricultural landscapes, agrodiversity assessment, and demonstration projects within PLEC. The goal of the PLEC is to develop replicable sustainable and participatory approaches to biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes using a series of demonstration projects clustered in five major geographic regions (East and West Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and the Americas). For more information, see the website at http://rspas.anu.edu.au/anthropology/staff/staff.html

The three articles in this issue are authored by scientists participating in the PLEC project. The first paper, 'Methods for the assessment of plant species diversity in complex agricultural landscapes: guidelines for data collection and analysis from the PLEC biodiversity advisory group', sets out principles of plant species diversity sampling and proposes a uniform sampling and data recording strategy for the development of a PLEC database. The paper makes specific sampling recommendations for each 'land-use stage', including random vs. biased sample selection, number of replications within a field type, plot size, sampling frequency, and measurements. Similarity analysis, species-area curves and abundance-diversity curves are the suggested analysis approaches.

The second paper, 'Guidelines on agrodiversity assessment in demonstration site areas', opens by distinguishing between agro-biodiversity (biological diversity on agricultural lands) and agrodiversity (diversity in the way that farmers use the environment, including crop choices and management strategies). Agro-biodiversity is viewed as one component of agrodiversity. The main elements of agrodiversity are: management diversity, agro-biodiversity, bio-physical diversity, and organizational diversity. Temporal variation in farming practices also contributes to diversity. The recording of agrodiversity is stratified by land-use stage and field type. No uniform sampling strategy is advocated for the assessment of agrodiversity, but a checklist of components to consider within each element of agrodiversity is provided.

The third and final paper in this issue is 'Demonstrating PLEC: A diversity of approaches'. This contribution emphasizes that there is no single correct approach to demonstration projects and provides two examples from Amazonia. The authors offer the insight that innovative farmers often do not conform to the model of 'good, compliant' farmers who have typically been the subjects of demonstration projects. The project proponents act as facilitators in the demonstration process, by bringing farmers and experts together and providing logistical support for learning events. The transfer of information and experience is largely enacted by the farmers.

The three articles in this special issue are very much aimed towards PLEC participants, but may also be useful to other practitioners who are seeking or developing methods for assessing biological, management and institutional components of diversity in agroecosystems. In particular, the description of an ecological sampling scheme developed to promote uniform data gathering in highly diverse settings may be useful to practitioners faced with similar data collection demands. The utility of this publication to readers outside the PLEC network is hampered by the lack of detail and examples in the first two articles, and by multiple references to other project documents that may not be easily accessible to outsiders. Additionally, although livestock are mentioned as components of agroecosystems within the framework offered, exclusively or predominantly pastoral ecosystems do not appear to be included within the diversity of agroecoystems under consideration. The tables in the first paper were quite helpful and future publications could provide sample database spreadsheets and maps to further illustrate the recommended methods in action. I look forward to more case studies on the variety of approaches used in PLEC demonstration projects.
(Maria E. Fernandez-Gimenez, School of Renewable Natural Resources, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA. E-mail: gimenez@ag.arizona.edu)

Forse, Bill (1999) Where there is no vet. x + 368 pp. ISBN 0-85598-409-0. GBP14.95; USD24.95. Macmillan Press Ltd. London and Oxford UK, co-published with Oxfam and CTA. To order, contact: Oxfam Publishing, 274 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7DZ, UK.
Fax: +44-1865-313 713.
E-mail: publish@oxfam.org.uk
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/publications.html
(See also IK&DM 7(3), November 1999, where this book was first mentioned under Preview: Important new books')

The author is both a veterinarian (vet) and a farmer who has practised veterinary medicine in 16 African and Asian countries. He has considerable experience in providing animal health services in remote areas. The purpose of his book is to provide advice to farmers, extension workers and others who have restricted access to pharmaceutical drugs, sterile equipment, and a fully qualified veterinarian.

This reviewer works at VETAID. VETAID is a non-profit, overseas development organisation working for poverty reduction and food security of people dependant on livestock. VETAID's remit is to improve livelihoods of small-scale farmers and pastoralists by improving access to livestock health and husbandry resources, building on traditional livestock practices where possible. VETAID is currently working in three countries of sub-saharan Africa, Somaliland, Tanzania, and Mozambique and has previously worked in Afghanistan, Southern Sudan and India. Our projects are designed to meet the needs of livestock keepers in those countries to improve their food security and the contribution which livestock make to their lives. VETAID sent out copies of this book to some of its field staff who had mixed responses to it. They felt that the audience of the book was not entirely clear. It is obviously for people who can read English and have a more than basic understanding of animal healthcare and husbandry. It assumes a high level of knowledge on some issues, e.g. which parasites cause which diseases, but a low level of knowledge in other areas, e.g. casting a horse (using a rope or a special harness to make an animal fall to the ground; a restraining technique -ed.). The amount of information in the book can be a little confusing, particularly as the book covers 12 species of livestock. Our staff think that the illustrations are very good and (with the permission of the publishers) could imagine using them as part of their training and extension programmes with community animal health workers and farmers.

The book contains many references to ethnoveterinary practices. For example in the A-Z of insecticides the reader can make a choice between ash, charcoal, castor-bean plants, engine oil, eucalyptus, and Tephrosia vogelii as well as numerous chemical products. The author provides guidelines for the preparation and use of ethnoveterinary medicine (EVMs), but also warns of their dangers, and disclaims responsibility for them as they have not all been validated in clinical trials. This raises the point again in the reviewer's mind that the incorporation of ethnoveterinary knowledge (EVK) in animal healthcare training will only ever be possible after extensive validation of specific plants and a systematic review of all trials conducted to date.

This book could play a useful role in sustainable development if indeed it were used in the training of community animal health workers and extension workers. Useful sections could be translated into local languages perhaps.
(Marina Martin, Research Project Manager, VETAID, UK. E-mail: marina@vetaid.org.uk)

Gao Lishi (1999) On the Dais' traditional irrigation system and environmental protection in Xishuangbanna. 630 pp. ISBN 7-5367-1756-3. CNY50. Yunnan Nationality Press, Kunming, Yunnan, PR China. Funded by the Ford Foundation.

The book contains the text in Chinese (pp. 1-253), an English translation (pp. 257-601), and some texts in the Dai language (pp. 602 ff.). There are illustrations (colour plates, maps and technical drawings) in the first part, but unfortunately, the legends to these illustrations are not translated.

The author, Mr Gao Lishi, is a Bai national and Associate Researcher at the Nationality Research Institute of Yunnan Province in Kunming, People's Republic China. His main research interests are ethnological, cultural and cross-cultural studies. He has lived and worked for over 30 years among the Dais in Xishuangbanna, studying their culture and history.

This book provides detailed descriptions of the irrigation systems, the technology used for planning, construction and maintenance, detailed accounts of the operating system, etc. But more importantly, it places the irrigation system in the context of Dai culture. The two are intimately interwoven; agriculture influences culture, and culture influences agriculture, and therefore irrigation. The Dai economy is based on rice grown in irrigated fields, which requires major infrastructure and organization that are beyond the potential of individual farmers or small groups of farmers.

The Dai are one of the more than 20 ethnic minority groups (called 'nationalities' in PR China) living in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. Xishuangbanna prefecture is the southernmost part of Yunnan, characterized by a moist tropical climate and the corresponding tropical forests. Linguistically and culturally, the Dai are closely related to the Thai of northern Thailand.

Emphasis is placed on the fact that irrigation is not an isolated part of the culture or the environment, but must be integrated. One of the first rice growing people, the Dai understood early on the intricate ecological relationships between climate, soils, forests and water. They also understood that forests-especially mountain forests-are essential for the regulation of water flow, which in turn determines irrigated agriculture. This resulted in a protection system for the forests. The forests were set aside as holy, religion being a strong and efficient protection method.

The topic of indigenous knowledge is not restricted to irrigation. A whole chapter is dedicated to the construction of housing, which is adapted to the situation and climatic conditions of this area. It makes use of available, flood-resistant material, an essential feature as these houses are located in river flood plains.

This book is rewarding reading for anyone interested in traditional irrigation systems, but also for those with a more general interest in the cultural and historical development of rural societies. It provides a wealth of information on an area and ethnic group about which information is not easily accessible, mainly for linguistic reasons.
(Dr Robert Zwahlen, Senior Environmentalist, Environmental Department, Electrowatt Engineering Ltd., Zurich, Switzerland. E-mail: robert.zwahlen@ewe.ch)

Guijt, Irene (1998) Participatory monitoring and impact assessment of sustainable agriculture initiatives. Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods (SARL) Discussion Paper No. 1. 112 pp. ISSN 1560-2192. GBP8.00 (plus 40% postage and packaging). Published by and obtainable from: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), 3 Endsleigh Street, London WC1H 0DD, UK.
Fax: +44-171-388 2826.
E-mail: sustag@iied.org

Abbot, Joanne and Irene Guijt (1998) Changing views on change: Participatory approaches to monitoring the environment. SARL Discussion Paper No. 2. 96 pp. ISSN 1560-2192. GBP8.00 (plus 40% postage and packing). Published by and obtainable from: IIED (see the address above).

Participatory natural resource management and agricultural development are becoming the new paradigm, and-as these two IIED books assert-it is time for both donors and the people who invest their own energies to question the paradigm's effectiveness. The 'participatory approaches' need to be monitored and evaluated, and it follows that the monitoring and evaluation itself should incorporate 'participatory' elements. Participation is correctly seen here as complex-meaning different things to different people for different purposes at different stages. It is also seen as dynamic, time-consuming, and without the benefit of easy assumptions made by a homogeneous group of 'insiders'. Nevertheless, all would agree that participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) elicit more and better information from the people directly involved, as well as promoting empowerment in itself.

The first book offers a practical introduction to setting up a PM&E process for 'sustainable' agriculture initiatives, although the process would be applicable to many environmental activities. Both books point out that indicators are vital to monitoring. But indicators are subjective and usually need to reflect multiple interests. This is why it is difficult to reach consensus on 'people's indicators' and why it is all the more important that indicators be determined with the help of local participants on the basis of their own knowledge. Although Guijt reminds practitioners to make good use of local technical knowledge when indicators are selected and to negotiate and work with local people as the indicators are applied, these aspects are not fully developed in the books.

'Good' indicators should be 'smart' (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Rrelevant, and Timely), valid, reliable, sensitive, and cost-effective. Examples are given of 'process-output' and 'impact-outcome' indicators, indicators within logical frameworks, and environmental PSR indicators (PSR = pressure-state-response). A 12-step framework is provided for designing and implementing a participatory indicator-based monitoring system.

Twenty participatory methods for collecting data for PM&E are described, and advice is offered regarding the need to be 'adaptive, innovative, and serendipitous'. Tips are given for choosing appropriate methods. The methods are a fairly standard set of rapid rural appraisal (RRA) and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tools, including direct observation, maps, photos, diagrams, matrices and rankings, calendars, daily routines, critical events, and theatre. They are each well described in several pages. This alone makes the book worthwhile, although of course there are many other 'toolboxes' for RRA and PRA methods on the market.

The second book reviews ten projects or programmes where participatory approaches were used to monitor environmental change. In this context, 'participatory monitoring' means 'socially inclusive' monitoring by multiple stakeholders. The arguments used here in favour of PM&E are that it promotes accountability among decision-makers, it enhances capacity and awareness at the local level, and it makes good use of local knowledge pertaining to environmental change for purposes of planning and decision-making in general. These are the mediating, empowering, and facilitating functions of participation.

The second book also summarizes the benefits of the participatory approach and the 12 PM&E steps recommended in the first book. The multiple purposes of monitoring and evaluation are emphasized and well illustrated with text in boxes--a graphic aid used liberally throughout the book. The relentless time pressure and potentially heavy costs-which are a burden to locals as well as projects-working against PM&E are not ignored, so 'efficiency' is not one of the benefits of this approach. Other conflicts arising between 'scientific' and 'alternative' data collection and interpretation are briefly aired.

This book also seeks the grail of 'appropriate indicators', i.e. indicators that are understandable-and trusted-by stakeholders, while at the same time being ultimately useful to decision-makers and policy-makers. There is discussion of the trade-offs between specificity and coverage, between preciseness and understandability, and between accuracy and applicability, as well as discussion of the 'evolutionary' approach which implies replacing indicators by the direct monitoring of events and changed values.

The relevance to indigenous technical knowledge is again not highlighted much. The directly relevant section consists of a few pages in Chapter 3 on the importance of using locally acceptable and relevant 'grassroots' indicators-not forgetting that local does not mean homogeneous! Gender differences are there of course, but also socio-economic-cultural distinctions within a community. Moreover there is need for means of verification that are sensitive to alternative literacies or numeracies. Some nine criteria for a 'good' indicator are illustrated by examples related to cropping and soil erosion.

Chapter 4 assesses three approaches to participatory monitoring deemed useful for involving local peoples and multiple stakeholders. These are PRA / RRA and their participatory techniques for producing maps, diagrams and other visual materials, for making use of oral testimony from experienced residents (e.g., stories, poems, 'pounding songs', legends, family histories) and for adapting ecological assessment techniques (e.g., species counts and biodiversity indices) for use by local people. The ten projects using PM&E, complete with indicators and descriptions of the implementation processes, are commented on in an annex.

The fairly detailed discussion and definitions of 'monitoring' in both books are valuable material, but not essential to the thrust of the argument. They could easily be moved out of the main body of the book so as not to distract readers.

Despite these small reservations, I was myself very pleased to see both these books, and shall certainly be using them in courses on data collection and PRA / RRA.
(Mike McCall, Associate Professor, Social Science Division, ITC, Enschede, the Netherlands. E-mail: mccall@itc.nl. http://www.itc.nl/soc/)

Hountondji, Paulin (ed.) (1997) Endogenous knowledge: Research trails. 376 pp. ISBN 2-86978-040-0. GBP19.95; USD35.00. Translated by Ayi Kwesi Armah. CODESRIA, B.P 3304, Dakar, Senegal. Distributor: African Books Collective Ltd, 27 Park End Street, Oxford OX1 1HU, UK.
Tel.: +44-0-1865-726 686.
Fax: +44-1865-793 298.
E-mail: abc@dial.pipex.com
http://www.africanbookscollective.com

The editor, Paulin J. Hountondji, has a Ph.D in Philosophy and has published widely. He has been lecturing at the National University of Benin since 1972. The book is the outcome of a seminar held at the National University of Benin. Most of the twelve authors are lecturers at this university in various areas such as medicine, linguistics and archaeology.

The book is based on research work carried out mostly in Benin. In the introduction the editor justifies the use of the word endogenous rather than indigenous, which is not synonymous to indigenous and avoids the derogatory connotation of indigenous. The introduction presents a summary of the book which is divided into four sections: (1) Endogenous technologies; (2) Conceptual structures; (3) Medicine and pharmacology, and (4) Forms of transmission. A wide range of subjects are covered in the twelve chapters of the book and include (part 1): traditional iron metallurgy in West Africa; (part 2): epistemological reflections on Hausa zoological names; (part 3): foreign objects in human bodies; and (part 4): writing and oral tradition in the transmission of knowledge.

It is difficult to summarise the twelve chapters in this review. I find Part 3, Medicine and pharmacology, the most interesting and fascinating. This section contains four articles. Simone de Souza gave a list of 35 well known medicinal products used in Benin. These include fruits, seeds minerals, sulphur and shells. She gave the local name, scientific name, uses and effects for each product. She added that the effects were medical and magical. It is magical when observers cannot link the cause and effect. The second article, 'Traditional models of mental health and illness in Benin', by Gualbert Ahyi, a psychiatrist, attributed mental illness to the influence of the spirits and work of the living persons. An attack on a person can be direct or indirect. Direct attack using witchcraft or indirect attack using the services of an intermediary. The third presentation, 'Foreign objects in human bodies: a surgeon's report', is by Henry-Valere Kiniffo. He cited cases encountered in his practice. These include a bundle of black and red hair plaiting thread removed from a girl's stomach. He mentioned that objects get into patient's bodies by invisible methods. The last paper in this section discussed the links between psychomatic medicine and sorcery. The author, Clement T. Adjido, a psychiatrist, stated that the real issue is not witchcraft but the belief in witchcraft. He quoted a Fon language proverb that means evil strikes only somebody who is ready for it. He concluded that 'Africa is a land of many mysteries'.

Most of the discussion that ensured after each presentation at the seminar was included after each chapter. The speaker was identified in each case. In the discussion after the presentation on 'Rainmaker, myth and knowledge in traditional atmospheric management techniques' by Gbnoukpo Bodhou Dah-Lokonon, it was pointed out that the Benin culture is an oral culture and a lot of the traditional practices remain a trade secret. The book documents traditional practises occurring mainly in Benin. However there was the tendency to generalize the findings for the whole of Africa. There were minor typographical errors. Also, on the contents page, Part 2, Chapter 4, the page number is 115 not 97; Part 4, Chapter 11 is 12 and Chapter 12 is 11. The book ends with a bibliography. Overall the book documents traditional knowledge and practices in Benin. This is good, researchers in other countries should do the same. The book would make interesting reading for courses in African studies.
(J.O Amarteifio, Senior Lecturer, Department of Basic Sciences, Botswana College of Agriculture, Gaborone, Botswana. E-mail: jamartei@bca.bw)

Jeffery, Roger and Nandini Sundar (eds) (1999) A new moral economy for India's forests? Discourses of community and participation. 304 pp. ISBN 0-7619-9354-1. GBP29.99. Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd, 32 M-Block Market, Greater Kailash-I, New Delhi 110 048, India.
http://www.sagepub.co.uk

Roger Jeffery is a professor of Sociology of South Asia and Convenor, Centre for South Asian Studies at the Department of Sociology, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Dr Nandini Sundar is Reader in Sociology at the Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi, India.

This book provides worthwhile detailed information on the various conceptual and empirical problems associated with the approaches to joint forest management (JFM) currently prevalent in India. JFM is merely one variant in a range of institutional forms that require 'community participation', but which grant 'the community' varying degrees of control. Three categories have been included in joint forest management: first, forests managed by local initiatives, such as village youth clubs or village elders, in many cases the protection of village forest land or reserved forests; second, forests promoted by the forest department, especially in states with large donor-funded forestry projects; third, committees initiated by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which have undertaken forest protection in addition to their other functions. More specifically, JFM depends on the formation of local (village) institutions that undertake protection activities, mostly on degraded state-owned forestland.

The book begins with a comprehensive discussion by the editors of community participation in forest conservation. They argue that a 'new moral economy' is in the process of evolving. The essays that follow take up a variety of important topics. Sumit Guha provides historical reflections on joint forest management. K. Sivaramakrishnan considers the consequences of the state takeover of Zaminari forests, showing how community as a form of social organization can be the focus of policy advocacy. Arun Agrawal constructs a conceptual framework in which to understand 'community', especially as it has been used in the conservation circuit. Amita Baviskar explores 'ecodevelopment' in the case of the Great Himalayan National Park; he notes the conflict between the park authorities who try to enlist the people in conservation and the villagers who invoke their ancient customs. Savyasaachi uses the example of forestry programs in the Phulbani district of Orissa, where he sees the Kuianka creating open and closed forest spaces through their alternating cultivation; this method involves human intervention and natural self-regeneration.

These are the more general essays of the book. An important specific topic that is treated is joint forest management. This section is opened up by a contribution by Shilpa Vasavada, Abha Mishra and Crispin Bates who discuss the respective roles of the community, NGOs and the forest department in JFM. Next, N.C. Saxena and Madhu Sarin review the Western Ghats Forestry Project. Mariette Correa examines the need for emancipatory research and remarks that the lack of independent critical research diminishes the space for people's participation. Catherine Locke considers women's representation and roles in gender policy in JFM. She assesses the notion of gendered interventions proposed by ecofeminist WED and GAD approaches, and argues that environmental interventions are seen as a new arena in which gendered bargaining processes will be enacted and contested. The book closes with an essay by Bhaskar Vira in which a typology of conditions are presented that are necessary to make joint forest management work. In summary, they argue that community participation must allow the local populace to choose their own methods of conservation and not degenerate into merely another way of co-opting villages into the state agenda.

A final note on the contribution of Arun Agrawal. Agrawal teaches political science at Yale University, USA, and focuses on the politics of community, development, and environmental conservation. He has widely published on indigenous knowledge, including articles on forest use in Kumaon, migrant pastoralists in Western India, institutional analysis and development discourses. In this essay, Agrawal provides a broader history of the rise of the community concept, particularly in conservation. He thinks that community has become central to the goal of conservation, which includes two aspects: (a) community-as-shared-understandings, and (b) community-as-social-organisation. To my mind, this was one of the most interesting essays in the book.
(Wang Kanglin, Associate Professor, Department of Ethnobotany, Kunming Institute of Botany, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Heilongtan, China. E-mail: bamboo@mail.kib.ac.cn)

Lawrence, Peter; Geneviève Renard, Mathias von Oppen (eds) (1999) The evaluation of technical and institutional options for small farmers in West Africa. 172 pp. ISBN 3-8236-1298-0. DEM70; USD52 (plus postage and handling). Margraf Verlag, P.O. Box 1205, D-97985 Weikersheim, Germany.
Fax: +49-79-348 156.
E-mail: margraf@compuserve.com

This volume is the latest in the series of workshops organized by the University of Hohenheim in Germany on aspects of work done over 14 years under special research programme SFB-308 (Adapted Farming in West Africa). Held on 21-22 April 1998, the workshop brought together about 55 scientists from University of Hohenheim and institutes in the West African countries of Benin and Niger.

The book is divided into four sections: (1) Introductory papers; (2) Presentations from Niger (10 papers); (3) Presentations from Benin (6 papers); (4) Conclusions. The underlying premise of the discussions is that technical innovations do not necessarily guarantee agricultural development. A suitable institutional framework is equally important.

The introductory papers focus on the history of the SFB 308 project, the ongoing work and results, and a framework for assessing technical innovations. The framework is based on such criteria as technical feasibility, social acceptability, economic profitability, ecological sustainability, and farmers' acceptance or values. The presentations from Niger provide an overview of biophysical conditions of the Sahelian environment, various strategies that farmers have adopted to survive in the harsh environment, and institutional issues pertaining to technological transfer and adoption in the region. Similarly, in the third section the presentations from Benin provide an overview of biophysical conditions in sub-humid regions, technology transfer and assessment, and the role of non-governmental organizations and cooperatives in the transfer and adoption of farming technologies. The final remarks and conclusions stress the need for scientists to understand farmers' behaviour and needs, include farmers in technology development, and to develop an appropriate institutional framework.

The book is comprehensive in its coverage. Several methods of assessing technology and institutional options are described for application at various levels of agricultural development. It covers innovations in plant and animal production, and soil science and their biophysical impacts. My only disappointment is the authors' failure to stress the role of indigenous or local peoples' knowledge in determining technical and institutional options for small farmers in West Africa.
(Dr Seth Appiah-Opoku, Environmental program, University of Vermont, Burlington, USA)

Mararike, Claude Gumbucha (1999) Survival strategies in rural Zimbabwe: The role of assets, indigenous knowledge and organisations. 198 pp. ISBN 177906-027-0. ZWD420 (plus ZWD20 for postage and packing). Mond Books, P.O. Box A1777, Avondale, Harare, Zimbabwe.
Fax: +263-4-724 597.

The author is Lecturer in Rural Development and Indigenous Knowledge in the Department of Sociology at the University of Zimbabwe. His investigation of rural development in Zimbabwe focuses on understanding the role of asset ownership, indigenous knowledge, organizational arrangements and their potential synergistic interrelations.

An implicit political economy framework is used to identify the principal sources of rural development problems in Zimbabwe: (1) inadequate assets or resources; (2) powerlessness due to the lack of strong organizations to represent and articulate villagers' concerns and interests; (3) suppression of indigenous knowledge and organizations; and (4) policies formulated by outsiders (political parties, governmental and non-governmental organizations) under colonialism and since independence in 1980. The author argues that policies typically fail to appreciate both indigenous knowledge and the priority that people attach to the acquisition of particular types of assets for their long term survival and development (viz. Amartya Sen's concepts of assets and entitlements which the author critically incorporates). The priorities which village people attach to the acquisition of more of particular kinds of assets is used to explain why government development programmes often are not successful in truly helping villagers.

The author is correct in his view of the struggle between village people and the state as one that concerns the access, control and utilization of resources in the villages. Organizations are analysed for their attempts to produce forms of social consciousness that create and perpetuate patron-client relationships that preserve privileged positions rather than genuinely support locally-initiated development activities which constitute solutions to villagers' real problems. This places indigenous knowledge in an appropriate political context, in other words, we must view development as an inherently political process, not a mere technical exercise concerned with getting the methods and techniques 'right'.

The book encourages the view that survival strategies reflect problem-solving processes to find lasting solutions to meet physiological, social, economic, and political needs of everyday life, including making contingencies for the future. This book discusses how village people use their knowledge as power to enhance the level and effectiveness of organizations which shape their access to resources and control over those resources. Participatory rural appraisal methods are used to understand local knowledge, how it is used, and local perceptions of constraints that villages must collectively confront.

The author posits that problems faced by village people can serve as windows of opportunity because of the potential 'learning effects'. Problems successfully confronted constitute autonomous local capacity building. They accomplish this by producing the necessary knowledge base, character, discipline, confident attitude, capabilities and organizational structures needed to effectively address other and emergent problems in the future. In this way, links between indigenous knowledge and development are explicitly identified.

The book will be useful to students, academics, politicians and NGOs in their quest to truly understand the needs of rural communities and facilitate meaningful problem solving.
(Robert E. Mazur, Associate Professor of Sociology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa USA. E-mail: rmazur@iastate.edu)

Pieroni, Andrea (ed.) (1999) Herbs, humans and animals. Proceedings of the international seminar, Coreglia (Tuscany), Italy 8-9 May 1999. Erbe, uomini e bestie. Atti del seminario internazionale, Coreglia (Toscana), Italia 8-9-Maggio 1999. 195 pp. ISBN 3-933932-04-1. DEM84.90. Experiences Verlag, Venloer Str. 233a, 50823 Köln, Germany.
Fax: +49-221-952 5484.
E-mail: experiences@netcologne.de
http://www.de/experiences

This handsome book stems from a seminar that was held in Italy in 1999 on the links between people, animals and plants in the Mediterranean region. It contains 13 of the papers presented; ten of these papers relate to European ethnoveterinary matters, one to Middle Eastern issues and two to African ones. Six of the papers are in Italian; the preface is in Italian and in English.

Contributions include a pharmacologist's presentation of plant treatments for animals in Spain, a medical anthropologist's report of Bedouin ethnoveterinary practices in the Middle East, and reports of ethnoveterinary practices in Tuscany, and Tanzania.

One of the papers deals with the crossover area of ethnoveterinary knowledge (EVK) and alternative or complementary medicine. The papers are all quite short but their annexes are extensive, containing tables of information gleaned from reviews of specialized literature and field interviews e.g. ethnoveterinary plant uses in Italy during the last 50 years.

The English preface is much shorter than the Italian one, which is unfortunate for those who cannot read Italian. This reviewer is of the opinion that this detracts from the book's ability to place itself in the context of other work going on in the field of ethnoveterinary medicine at the time the seminar was held. However, this book will be useful to 'students' of ethnoveterinary knowledge with a specific interest in Europe. This is a timely publication as there have been few studies to date on the quickly disappearing ethnoveterinary knowledge of European farmers.
(Marina Martin, Research Project Manager, VETAID, UK. E-mail: marina@vetaid.org)

Barnard, David and Yzette Terreblanche (eds) (1999/2000) PRODDER, The Southern African development directory 2000 edition. 580 pp. ISBN 0-7969-1926-7. Southern Africa: ZAR200 + postage; international: USD60 (postage included). Internet subscription (2 years): Southern Africa: ZAR350; international: USD70. Published by Programme for Development Research (PRODDER) at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), P.O. Box 5556, 0001 Pretoria, South Africa.
Fax: +27-12- 302 2445.
E-mail: SDPlessies@hsrc.ac.za or: Rkeet@hsrc.ac.za
http://hsrc.ac.za/prodder.html

The Programme for Development Research (PRODDER) was established for the purpose of fostering development research in the region of Southern Africa mainly by collecting and disseminating information about persons and organizations involved in the Southern African development process. In 1987, the first PRODDER directory was published. Its aim was to give the Southern African development sector and all those who play a role in it the necessary local and international exposure. On 30 November 1999, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) published the latest edition of the bi-annual development directory. It is the eighth edition and quite comprehensive, offering an overview of 5600 development-related organizations in the 14 member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), namely Angola, Botswana, Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

I also reviewed the previous edition of this directory (1997-1998) for the Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor (see IK&DM 6(2)). In that review, I commented that an online version would be welcome, especially because it would offer more options for searching through the large amount of information (690 printed pages). I was therefore pleased to be asked to review the new version-which is now available online! Full of anticipation I went to the website to search through the wealth of information about all these organizations. With one click, you can go directly to the organization's own website if it has one. Compared with the latest printed version, the online version offers more information about the organizations. It gives their mission statement, for example, and lists their activities, networks and regional offices.

But much to my regret, the publishers have put the directory online without adding any additional search options. It can be searched only in the ways the printed version could be searched: by the name of the organization, by country, by sector, or by type of organization. As I pointed out in my earlier review, I miss a more specific thematic index. An online version could overcome this lack by offering a possibility for free text searches. Then one could search on words which appear anywhere in the descriptions of the organizations and their activities. In a printed version, one can browse through the pages, scanning for a particular word. But the online PRODDER directory does not offer any browse options at all. A search for the word 'indigenous' in the title of an organization gives only one hit: WIMSA, the Working group on Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa. Other interesting organizations focussed on local knowledge no doubt exist, but at the moment they are difficult to find. And one could certainly never find that the mission of the Mantenga Foundation in Swaziland is '...to promote the exportation of locally produced goods.'

I very much welcome the online version of the PRODDER directory, but at the same time I would urge the publisher to add-at the very least-a full text search option to the site. As I wrote in my previous review, this would increase the practical value of what is already a wonderful source of reference material.
(Gerard van Westrienen, senior staff member and information specialist, Nuffic-CIRAN, the Netherlands. E-mail: gerardw@nuffic.nl)

Selener, Daniel; Nelly Endara and José Carvajal (1999) Participatory rural appraisal and planning workbook. 146 pp. ISBN 9978-40-814-2. USD20 (postage included). International Institute of Rural Reconstruction IIRR (Latin American Office). All orders must be prepaid. To order, send check in US dollars payable to IIRR, issued from a bank located in the USA; or send a cheque in any European currency (equivalent to USD20) issued from a bank located in Europe. Mail check to: IIRR, Apartado Postal 17-08-8494, Quito, Ecuador.
Tel. / fax: +593-2-443 763.
E-mail: daniel@iirr.ecuanex.net.ec

Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) techniques have been evolving in recent years, and related literature has been published to disseminate PRA knowledge and experience from both theoretical and practical perspectives. In terms of theory, many publications describe the basic concept of and philosophical justification for the use of indigenous knowledge in sustainable development through PRA. In terms of practice, however, few publications provide guidelines for conducting this type of work at field level. Therefore, practitioners in many parts of the world, particularly Latin America, do not have easy access to training in PRA techniques. The recent book by Selener, Endara, and Carvajal helps to fill this gap.

The book presents both theoretical and practical aspects of the PRA approach, including its basic concepts, advantages, and limitations. It covers practical elements that will help practitioners implement the approach at the field level, focusing on techniques that can be used to understand the reality of rural areas from the local inhabitants' point of view. The book is user-friendly, and the authors use clear, straightforward language to convey the logic of and methods for PRA techniques. Each technique is described in a sequence that explains its purpose, the type of information that can be gathered, the procedure and implementation timeframe. Each technique is illustrated with examples (drawings, matrixes, diagrams, etc.), which have been extracted from real cases, so that the reader has a clear idea about the type of material that can be obtained. The book focuses on techniques for describing reality, but also for identifying problems and solutions through group participation. This will enable practitioners to establish baselines from a qualitative point of view, and also guidelines for implementing activities. Finally, it provides two case studies from Ecuador that illustrate how the techniques can be combined in a flexible way for use in participatory rural intervention programmes.

One limitation of the book is that it does not include techniques for monitoring and evaluating the activities that are identified or planned by other techniques. But this does not diminish the book's utility for field practitioners.
(Oscar Ortiz, PhD, Agricultural extension specialist and special project coordinator, Social Sciences Department, International Potato Center (CIP), Lima, Peru. E-mail: o.ortiz@cgiar.org)

Semali, Ladislaus M. and Joe L. Kincheloe (eds) (1999) What is indigenous knowledge? Voices from the Academy. Indigenous Knowledge and Schooling volume 2, Garland Reference Library of Social Science volume 1191. 381 pp. ISBN 0-8153-3452-4. GBP18.99 (plus GBP6.50 for airmail postage and packing). Falmer Press, a member of the Taylor & Francis Group. Order from: ITPS Ltd, Cheriton House North Way, Andover Hants, SP10 5BE, UK.
Fax: +44-1264-343 005.
(See also IK&DM 7(1), March 1999, where this book was first mentioned under 'Preview: Important new books')

What is indigenous knowledge is an interesting book for all those involved in the academic debate on indigenous knowledge and its explicit links with education. The refreshing aspect of What is indigenous knowledge is its effort to join a number of scholars originally from Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as from the USA to write on this theme. Of the 18 contributors and editors to the volume, nine work in non-western academic institutions. Their educational and work backgrounds show a rich variety of disciplines and experience, although all of them are involved in the field of indigenous knowledge in one way or another. As a result, they also analyse the theme of indigenous knowledge from different angles, such as philosophy, cultural studies, health, nutrition, music and religion. The varied professional backgrounds of the authors set the tone of the different chapters of the book. Contrary to the majority of publications on indigenous knowledge, What is indigenous knowledge is written at a thoroughly scientific level. This makes it a book that has to be carefully read to appreciate its richness.

There is a clear rupture with Western hegemony regarding knowledge production and rules of scholarship. It is exactly this challenge to western conceptualisation of indigenous knowledge that makes What is indigenous knowledge unique among its kind. According to the authors, a deconstruction of this type of indigenous knowledge opens new grounds for the understanding of the field, and, above all in educational contexts.

The theme of sustainable development is explicitly discussed in Chapter 14, 'Indigenous people's knowledge and education: a tool for development'. In other chapters, the issue is referred to more implicitly. This is due to the fact that indigenous knowledge and sustainable development can be seen as distant neighbours.

What is indigenous knowledge is a book of interest for all academics and practitioners involved in the theoretical discussions on strengthening rural communities through an endogenous development models situated in educational context. Readers who are not all that interested in far-reaching theoretical discourses might prefer to consult one of the many other, more practical, books on indigenous knowledge.
(P.R.W. Gerritsen, IMECBIO, University of Guadalajara, Mexico. E-mail: pgerritsen@cucsur.udg.mx)