IK Monitor Articles (9-1)

Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor, March 2001

Contents IK Monitor (9-1) | IKDM Homepage | Suggestions to: ikdm@nuffic.nl | © copyright Nuffic-CIRAN and contributors 2001.

Focus on: Gender and indigenous knowledge

Experiences in Nigeria and the USA

Six years ago I did research among the Yoruba in Ara, Nigeria, which focused on the gender bias in indigenous knowledge. The stereotype I set out to verify was the common belief among most Yoruba that Yoruba women do not farm. Back in the United States, this fieldwork experience proved valuable during my involvement with the production of culturally sensitive informational videotapes for women.

During anthropological fieldwork at Iowa State University in 1995 my mentor was the late Professor D. Michael Warren, who had worked in Nigeria for many years, mainly among the Yoruba (see map). My fieldwork, which was part of my Master's thesis (Andresen 1996) on women farmers, also took place in Nigeria. One difficulty in establishing sustainable development projects in developing countries is that Western developers typically ignore the indigenous knowledge of the client community. Indigenous knowledge (IK) is defined by Warren and Cashman (1988) as the sum of experience and knowledge of a given community that forms the basis for decision-making related to familiar and unfamiliar problems and challenges. This definition is attractive not least because it emphasizes the notion that IK is what people hold to be true.

A common belief among most Yoruba - and not only the traditional rural men - is that Yoruba women do not farm. A Yoruba professor of Soil Science told me that Yoruba women do not farm, and if I did find women who claimed to be farmers, they would simply be assisting their husbands and would have no working knowledge of their own. The younger people in the village, however, readily admitted that there are women farmers. The case of the professor exemplifies the perpetuation of two incorrect assumptions: first, that women have no knowledge of farming, and second, that even if they do have such knowledge, it does not differ from that of the men.

Thus my main objective was to verify, validate, and record the indigenous knowledge of women farmers in Ara, Nigeria, with the emphasis on knowledge rather than skills. The research involved structured interviews and field surveys with the 26 women farmers in Ara, and additional in-depth interviews with four of them. The findings were then compared with the recorded knowledge of men and the classification systems enumerated by Osunade (1994) and Warren and Amusan (1996), in order to find similarities and differences demonstrating that the women possess the same knowledge as the men. I was also keen to know how the women had acquired any farming knowledge they had.

Findings
Almost all the women said they had been taught farming by their husbands or their fathers. Although 9 of the women had mothers who also farmed, only one said that she had learned how to farm from her mother. Apparently there was a considerable transfer of knowledge from men to women among those involved in the government's farming association. However, even more evidence points to a dialogue among the women themselves, in which new ideas and experience are shared with respect to the success or failure of certain crops, making the knowledge they have uniquely their own.

Yoruba women were found to have a wide-ranging knowledge of farming. They knew about soils with which they had had no direct contact. Differences were found between the terminology used by Yoruba men to describe the texture and the colour of the soil with that employed by the women. For instance, although some women use olokuta (the term given by the men), the majority preferred sakasaka to describe the same gravelly soil. There was also a difference in the terms used to describe clay. The men and the women both used amo, but some women used ere and ogan as well. As regards colour, the women used yanrin funfun or eeru to describe bleached, coarse sandy soil. In D.M. Warren's research, neither one of these terms was recorded in the men's interviews. The term used by men was yanrin ogidi (Warren 1992). These differences may indicate a divergent knowledge base. The figure illustrates this situation.

Figure. The gender division of farming knowledge in Ara.

Lessons learned
I learned that a thorough understanding of the client community is a prerequisite for development. All stakeholder views that are rooted in an individual's life experiences must be taken into account, even those that are only marginally different. Every group with knowledge should be represented, if divergent knowledge is to be explored and utilized as a part of the community's cultural capital. This varied set of perspectives allows for a deeper understanding of the problem, providing a solution that benefits all of the citizens of a community.

Back in the USA
After graduation, I moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where I graduated in August 2000 with a Master's degree in Public Health. It was at this time that I first became involved in the production of videotapes. I was associated with the University Community Health Care Center, where I studied the cultural barriers that keep Laotian, Cambodian and Vietnamese women from having annual mammograms. That information was used to make culturally sensitive informational videotapes for women in these groups.

Many professionals and lay people believe that recent immigrants to the United States have a very low risk of developing breast cancer, thanks to the healthier lifestyles in their home countries. However, it appears that this hypothesis is not true. Women born in the United States whose parents were both from Asia have breast cancer rates comparable to those of Euro-Americans. Moreover, women with one parent born in the United States had higher cancer rates than whites (Maxwell, Bastani, Warda 1997).

We showed a videotape about breast cancer and detection methods to a focus group of women from the ethnic community. The video was hosted by a well-respected and popular physician from that community. In the tape, he discusses cancer in general and then specifically addresses breast cancer through the use of drawings and a demonstration on himself. After watching the video, the women said that some of the content was at an educational level too advanced for many women to understand. They said it was important to have clear, concise visuals that show actual mammograms and breast exams being carried out on real women, instead of drawings. They expressed a preference for videotapes in which women teach women through interpersonal dialogue.

This is the type of video that we have developed. For our project in-depth interviews were conducted with women from the same age group and ethnic background as those in our target populations. Twenty women from each ethnic group were interviewed, and using the information thus collected, the director, the project coordinator and I developed scripts that addressed issues in each ethnic group. The draft scripts were reviewed by individuals from each ethnic group for content and clarity. During this process, we discovered that each group of women had their own beliefs and misconceptions about breast cancer and mammography. Regardless of ethnicity, the women themselves believe that if their breasts feel healthier, then they are healthier. This means that the major reason why these women think they do not need a mammogram is because they feel healthy and 'had no problems with their breasts'.

In conclusion
Having done fieldwork in Nigeria, I realized that I could not take it for granted that one person's view or opinion represented what was truly happening in the community. Thus my advice to others would be: Consult the people concerned and be alert to stereotypes.

Penny R. Andresen M.A. and M.P.H
1000 27th Avenue SE apt. D
Minneapolis, MN 55414
USA
E-mail: andr0244@tc.umn.edu

References
Amusan, A.A. and D.M. Warren (1996) 'Indigenous Yoruba soil classification and land-use management systems in Southwestern Nigeria'. Nigerian Field

Andresen, Penny Rechkemmer (1996) Women farmers of Ara, Nigeria. Master's Thesis. Ames: Iowa State University, Department of Anthropology.

Maxwell, Annette D. Maxwell, Roshan Bastani, Umme Warda (1997) 'Breast cancer screening and related attiudes among Filipino-American women', Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention 6: 719-726.

Maxwell, Annette D. Maxwell, Roshan Bastani, Umme Warda (1997) 'Mammography utilization and related attitudes among Korean-American women', Women and Health 27(3): 89-107.

Osunade, M.A. Adewole (1994) 'Indigenous climate knowledge and agriculture practice in Southwestern Nigeria', Malaysian Journal of Tropical Geography 25(1): 21-28.

Warren, D. Michael and Kristin Cashman (1988) Indigenous knowledge for sustainable agriculture and rural development. Gatekeeper Series, No. SA 10. London: International Institute for Environment and Development.

Warren, D. Michael (1992) A preliminary analysis of indigenous soil classification and management systems in four ecozones of Nigeria. Ibadan: International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and the African Resource Centre for Indigenous Knowledge.