Manners of contestation: "Citizen science" and "indigenous knowledge" in West Africa and the Caribbean

Abstract

"Indigenous knowledge (IK)" and "citizen science" represent parallel discourses which have emerged respectively in "southern" and "northern" settings. This paper explores commonalities and differences in how these traditions of work have represented knowledge systems and the engagement of 'other' perspectives with modern science. At the extreme, IK debates emphasise conceptual and moral dissonance and disengagement between knowledge systems, while work on citizen science emphasises its emergence in direct engagement and contest with the science of "expert" institutions. Both discourses are undermined by arguments that all knowledge is socially produced, dissolving divides between indigenous/scientific, lay/expert knowledge into a plethora of partial perspectives and situated practices among diverse social actors. Nevertheless, this dissolution should not mask real differences in the manners in which knowledge systems are contested: differences reflecting social relations and practices of science and the institutional histories through which they have developed. The paper explores such differences in two cases concerning hunters and national parks in the Caribbean (Trinidad) and West Africa (Guinea), showing how categories such as "indigenous" and "citizen" are themselves produced through these same social and historical relations.