Sustainability and Social Justice
NGOs and Production of Indigenous Knowledge Under the Condition of Postmodernity
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Indigenous knowledge (IK), experienced in development, is a product of a set of institutions often external to where they are located. The results of the use of IK in sustainable development are another example of capitalism's capacity to configure development according to its own imperatives. Rather than being an instrument of sustainable development, IK has become a means through which the diversity of knowledge systems and the embedded cultures in which they exist are disciplined and managed according to capital's need to expand. The collaborative role played by the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in this process is obscured by their use of the seductive language of empowerment of marginalized social groups. NGOs' interventions run counter to the interests of the people they claim to serve. The challenge to work towards an alternative institutional environment that could liberate the use of IK from being determined by the ideology and institutions of capitalism.
Publication Title
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Publication Date
11-1-2003
Volume
590
First Page
54
Last Page
72
ISSN
0002-7162
DOI
10.1177/0002716203258374
Keywords
capitalism, indigenous knowledge, inequality, NGOs, power, sustainable development
Repository Citation
Fernando, Jude, "NGOs and Production of Indigenous Knowledge Under the Condition of Postmodernity" (2003). Sustainability and Social Justice. 151.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_idce/151