The Knowing in Indigenous Knowledge: Alternative Ways to View Development, Largely from a New Guinea Highlands’ Perspective

Abstract

What might indigenous knowledge mean to others and what are the implications for its effective integration into development? After discussing criticism of the adjective indigenous, the author focuses on the noun knowledge. The concept of knowing in the New Guinea Highlands points up the subjective nature of understanding and potential for disagreement. The structures of languages, particularly verb constructions featuring evidentials, reflect this subjectivity, indicating the source and reliability of intelligence imparted in any dialogue. The evidential interest relates to oral traditions, embodied knowing, and individual knowledge variability. It also indicates the trust to put in any intelligence, particularly salient in acephalous contexts, where expert authorities are not recognized. The developmental implications are considerable, for a stateless political environment precludes the imposition of capitalist state ideas of economic development, though the outlines of an alternative acephalous development are currently unclear but likely to feature a struggle to accommodate egalitarian values to the hierarchical wider world.