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- Permanent Link:
- http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI13042136/00001
Notes
- Summary:
- This document presents a framework for integrating indigenous and scientific knowledge in disaster risk reduction (DRR), applying it to the case of Papua New Guinea (PNG). While the international community has acknowledged the importance of incorporating indigenous knowledge into development strategies, including DRR, this has been more at the level of rhetoric than practice. Historically, mainstream scientific communities have minimized the possible benefits of indigenous knowledge, but examples of communities surviving disaster through application of traditional strategies have led to increasing challenges to orthodox thinking. While the need to integrate indigenous knowledge into DRR has been acknowledged, there has been no clear outline as to how this should or could be done. But what is indigenous knowledge? It is a body of knowledge obtained by local communities through the accumulation of experiences, relationships with the environment, community practices and institutions passed down from generation to generation. This is qualitative and geographically determined knowledge, whereas scientific knowledge is often quantitative and general. Nevertheless, the two are not incompatible. This document focuses on building bridges across these two systems. It emphasizes the use of participatory techniques as key to the frameworks integration of indigenous and scientific knowledge in DRR. Step one of the framework is community engagement through collaboration with local stakeholders in establishing community goals. Step two involves community situation analyses to identify vulnerabilities and set community priorities. The third step is focused on determining which indigenous and scientific strategies would be most appropriate to minimizing identified vulnerabilities. The final step is the integration of strategies by the community. This framework is applied to three rural communities in Papua New Guinea (PNG), Kumalu, Singas, and Baliau. Key to the successful implementation of this framework is treating it as an action-based approach, whereby knowledge does not exist for its own sake but rather for meeting community needs. This is most likely to be accomplished if indigenous communities are placed at the core of the DRR process. This means connecting the frameworks’ participatory approaches to broader development objectives of democracy and equality. Within these approaches, the document advocates for dividing communities into groups, whether by gender, ethnicity, status, age, etc., so as to ensure all forms of vulnerability and bases of knowledge are accounted for. ( English )
- Subject:
- Indigenous People and DRR ( English )
- Citation/Reference:
- Mercer, J., Kelman, I., Taranis, L., Suchet-Pearson, S. (2010). Framework for integrating indigenous and scientific knowledge for disaster risk reduction. Disasters 34 (1): 214-239.
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