THE INFLUENCE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE ON THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT POLITICIANS IN ENGAGING WITH HIV/AIDS

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CHAPTER 2 GOVERNANCE AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION: CENTRAL DEFINING TERMS RELEVANT TO THIS STUDY

INTRODUCTION

In this chapter focus is on providing a broader picture of governance and citizen participation18 in line with central terms forming the main areas of this study. Explanation of the two key terms, namely, IKS and HIV/AIDS is given.
Like many other concepts, the concept of ‘governance’ may be understood from different angles. Some of these angles depend on the historical evolution of both definitions and world events which have influenced changes in the understanding and definitions of the term. It is has therefore been found to be imperative to provide some analysis and explanations so that the reader understands the core perspective used in this study as compared to other perspectives.
I also show the relationship between governance and citizen participation in ways that support the significance of IKS in policy development and implementation.
Firstly, reflection is on the term “Indigenous Knowledge Systems” (IKS). Views about IKS by different theorists on the term and its relevance to human social and economic life are discussed.
18. Citizen participation in this study relates to the involvement of community members and their traditional leaders in decision making and implementation processes by government authorities. Though it may have the potential to enhance democratic participation in bureaucratic systems, such participation can be limited by factors such as communal power dynamics, cultural systems, individual motives, and access to means of participation. The term “participation” in this study should therefore be understood with a strong cognizance of these limitations. Further, in Section 7.6 it has been argued that participation can be structured in different forms some of which undermine the notion of popular democracy. Examples include: functional participation when participation is driven by goals defined by external institutions; participation by material incentives when communities only contribute their resources without decision making powers, participation by consultants, when communities are consulted only to answer certain questions from external institutions; passive participation, when communities are only told what has been decided by external institutions; and manipulative participation when representatives of communities have no decision making powers though mandated by their communities. (cf: Section 7.6. below).
This is followed by the probe into the sociological meanings of the word “disease”. This is done with the understanding that HIV/AIDS, which is one of the main subjects in this study, is generally understood as a disease. This has taken me further to studying specifically HIV/AIDS in line with the orthodox position which understands HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, as the cause of AIDS.
The researcher went further to study theoretical socio-political settings in which the practice of addressing problems related to HIV/AIDS takes place namely governance and social development. Here my concern was to show the relationship between governance and citizen participation in decisions making and implementation processes. This is paramount to the subject about IKS in policy development and implementation for HIV/AIDS programmes. This is so because issues of indigenous people in decision-making processes are seen in this study as falling under the general question of citizen contribution in decision making and implementation.
Addressing HIV/AIDS by government and political leaders falls under their role as social and economic development agents. Hence I found it necessary to study the term “development”. This is in line with one of the aims of this study, which is concerned with the powers and functions of the local government that provides space for their response to the issues of HIV/AIDS and also the powers and functions that provide space for the integration of IKS into policy development and implementation processes.
The last part of the chapter looks at how the terms reflected upon relate to one another. This is done with the intention of emphasising the point that in human experience and practice, there is a symbiotic relationship between these terms.

 INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS: WHAT IT IS AND ITS PLACE IN THIS STUDY

In this section focus is on defining the term ‘Indigenous Knowledge Systems’. As noted above the abbreviation “IKS” will be used. I provide views presented by different theorists as to how the term “IKS” is understood and its relevance to human social and economic life.
Consistent reflection of the term gradually provides clarity about its relevance to human life. By the end of the study there is a comprehensive understanding of the term.

The recognition of IKS as an important social phenomenon

Amid socio-political and economic challenges of our time, scholars of IKS have argued that the failure of the exogenous knowledge – generally the Western Knowledge – to meet human aspirations to self-development and protection against life-threatening evils of society accounts for the need to recognize the value of IKS in the mainstream operations of human life. Utilization of IKS in the contemporary social and economic issues has been so recognsable that various institutions have been established to protect and tap on the IKS across the world. These include, The International Consortium for Indigenous Knowledge, founded at the Pennysylvania State University in 1995; the International Centre for Indigenous Knowledge for Agriculture and Rural Development (CIKARD) based at the Iowa State University; The Commonwealth Centre for Indigenous Knowledge to focuses on the communities of the Commonwealth; Coordinating Body of Indigenous People’s Organisation of the Amazon Basin (COICA) found in Lima, Peru in 1984; Continental Commission of Indigenous Nations (CONIC) (Semali & Kincheloe, in Semali & Kincheloe, 1999: 3; and Maurial, Semali & Kincheloe, 1999: 3). Furthermore, International organisations such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, The United Nation Nations; The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and others have paid significant attention to the subject of Indigenous Knowledge, not only for its utility in the social and economic development processes, but also as part of highlighting and defending the human rights of the local and indigenous communities. The World Bank has a publication entitled “Local Pathways to Global Development”. In that volume examples about how indigenous peoples have utilized their local experiences and creativity to deal with their socio-economic and political issues are presented by different authors.
Within the Commonwealth Centre for Indigenous Knowledge, focus has been on amplifying the importance of Indigenous Knowledge, creating opportunities for scholars and development practitioners to appreciate and incorporate IKS in their scientific and professional enterprises. Specific areas of interest within this centre include: validation of indigenous knowledge; developing tools and methodologies to use IKS in intellectual and scientific learning; using IKS as tool enhance understanding of diversity, “interdisciplinary, participatory research and cooperative problem solving”; localizing developing efforts; internationalizing IKS through facilitation of global networks of institutions of higher and their respective students; “identifying and compiling resources”; reinforcing teacher awareness of IKS; training on comparative analysis for IKS against scientific knowledge; linking IKS to Science, Technology and Society Education; and “encouraging interaction between indigenous epistemologies and western epistemologies for the purpose of finding new methods to produce knowledge” (Semali & Kincheloe, in Semali & Kincheloe, 1999: 5).
Within the Indigenous communities themselves promotion of IKS has been linked to social and political reforms of the day. These have sought to re-conceptualize development from desire to promote indigenous knowledge. This is happening in all its facets of human life and society including: politics and policy systems; education systems; agricultural systems; heath and well- being systems; arts and culture; and other systems that form the basis for human existence and livelihood. Semali & Kincheloe inform us that:
The stakes are high, as scholars the world over attempt to bring indigenous knowledge to the academy. Linking it to an educational reform that is part of larger political struggle, advocates for indigenous knowledge delineate the inseparability of academic reform, the reconceptualization of science, and struggle for justice and environmental protection. …In indigenous studies, such as Native American academic programs, emerging new political awareness have been expressed in terms of the existence of a global Fourth World Indigeneity. Proponents of such view claim that Fourth World peoples share the commonality of domination and are constituted by indigenous groups as diverse as the Indians of the Americas, the Innuits and Samis of the Arctic north, the Moaros of New Zealand, the Koori of Australia, the Karins and Katchins of Burma, the Kurds of Persia, the Bedouins of the African/Middle Eastern desert, many African tribal peoples, and even the Basques and Gaels of contemporary Europe (Semali & Kincheloe, in Semali & Kincheloe 1999: 16).
In this context IKS has been utilized as a tool to stand in solidarity against the oppression of the colonials powers. In light of this, a view is taken that indigenous knowledge itself has been denigrated by forces of colonialism and in part, liberation from colonialism implies freedom to apply indigenous knowledge. Thus, The denigration of indigenous knowledge cannot be separated from the oppression of indigenous peoples. Indeed, modernist science, anthropology in particular, has been deployed as a weapon against indigenous knowledge (Semali & Kincheloe, in Semali & Kincheloe 1999: 17).

 What is IKS?

Effort to amplify indigenous knowledge as indicated above, has been met with the need to clarify what we mean by indigenous knowledge. This becomes more important as we find ourselves grappling with the realities of societal change, which affect indigenous peoples in their localities or places where they have settled through migration. Academic and general reflective debates have attempted to define the terms “Indigenous knowledge” and “Indigenous peoples”. These debates show that “Indigenous Knowledge Systems” comprise all the areas that concern socio-political and economic human nature. It is a composition of all the aspects that govern the daily life of human beings:
…technology, social, economic and philosophical learning, or educational, legal and governance systems. It is knowledge relating to the technological, social, institutional, scientific and developmental (Nabudere 2012: 170).
The term “indigenous” as opposed to “exogenous” refers to something whose roots have originated from within the place it is found. Hoppers (2002:1) remarks, “…the word indigenous refers to the roots, something natural or innate”. Exogenous refers to something borrowed or intervening into a specific community from other communities.
In the global society, the interaction of people from different backgrounds has probably ushered in some confusion among the academics on the appropriate definition of indigenous people or knowledge. Such people have made themselves citizens of places where their ancestors were not born. They have intermarried with either the local people or people from other backgrounds and reproduced into new generations that are socialised into a mixture of cultural values and practices. Thus the term “Indigenous people”
…is by no means a clear term. Taken in isolation, it does not do sufficient justice to the complexity and dynamics of intercultural relations between ‘indigenous and other peoples. It is nonetheless an important notion. Some academics may find it controversial and ambiguous, but in the political arena it has helped to focus the increasing interest in indigenous societies which could even be said to represent a new dimension in Western thinking about the meaning of culture, human rights and development (van de Fliert 1994: 4).
Some definitions of the indigenous people prefer to isolate such people from the rest of the society, daily experiences and changes emanating from the internal and external forces. The definitions call “indigenous people” the people considering themselves or seen by other social groups as descendants of the ancestors of the localities in question. Indigenous people are considered to have inherited distinct cultural values and practices which are different from the values and practices diffusing into their localities through outside forces. From this perspective, indigenous peoples are inclined to preserve the values and practices they have inherited from their ancestors. In his aspiration to define indigenous people of Americas, Australiasia and Pacific Martinez van de Fliert quotes Cobo as saying, Indigenous communities, people and nations, are those which having historical continuity, with the pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those societies, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories and their ethnic identity as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems. In short indigenous people are the descendants of the original inhabitants of a territory overcome by conquest or settlement by aliens (van de Fliert 1994: 4).

CHAPTER 1  THE INFLUENCE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE ON THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT POLITICIANS IN ENGAGING WITH HIV/AIDS
1.1. INTRODUCTION
1.2 LITERATURE REVIEW: HIV/AIDS PREVALENCE, POLITICAL, AND CIVIL SOCIETY RESPONSE
1.3 HYPOTHETICAL STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
1.4 KEY FOCUS AND RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
1.5 AIM OF THE STUDY
1.6 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
1.7 HYPOTHESIS
1.8 KEY QUESTIONS GUIDING THE STUDY
1.9 METHODOLOGY
1.10 WORK PLAN
1.11 ORIGIN OF THE STUDY
1.12 THE FOCUS OF THIS STUDY CHAPTER BY CHAPTER
CHAPTER 2  GOVERNANCE AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION: CENTRAL DEFINING TERMS RELEVANT TO THIS STUDY
2.1. INTRODUCTION
2.2. INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS: WHAT IT IS AND ITS PLACE IN THIS STUDY
2.3. THE DEFINITIVE UNDERSTANDING OF HIV/AIDS IN THIS STUDY
2.4. GOOD GOVERNANCE: CITIZEN CONTRIBUTION IN DECISION MAKING AND IMPLEMENTATION
2.5. DEVELOPMENT AND IKS
2.6. CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 3  HEALTH AND DISEASE: RELEVANCE OF SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES TO GOVERNANCE AND INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS
3.1. INTRODUCTION
3.2. RELATIVIST VIEWS AND ASSERTIONS
3.3. FUNCTIONALISTIC VIEW ABOUT THE ROLE OF THE SICK PEOPLE IN SOCIETY
3.4. CONFLICT VIEW
3.5. INTERACTIONIST VIEW
3.6. LABELLING POSITION: VULNERABILITY OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV . 150
3.7. THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN RELATIVIST, FUNCTIONALIST, CONFLICT AND LABELING POSITIONS AND INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS
3.8. DURKHEIM’S STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM AND IT RELEVANCE TO THIS STUDY
3.9. SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES AND GOOD GOVERNANCE
3.10. CRITICAL REMARKS
3.11. CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 4  THE POLICY ENVIRONMENT AROUND LOCAL GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS: THE SOUTH AFRICAN TRAJECTORY FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM FOR PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN POLICY DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION . 175
4.1. INTRODUCTION
4.2. THE APARTHEID TRAJECTORY
4.3. THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE HISTORY OF STRUGGLE TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT: RESTRUCTURING THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT
4.4. LEGISLATIVE PROVISIONS FOR GRASSROOTS INVOLVEMENT
4.5. RECOGNITION OF GRASSROOTS PARTICIPATION IN THE INSTITUTIONAL REFORMS ABOVE
4.6. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION POLICY FRAMEWORK
4.7. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AND GOOD GOVERNANCE PRINCIPLES
4.8. PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THE PUBLIC PARTICIPATION POLICY FRAMEWORK: IDPS AND CONCRETE IMPLEMENTATION
4.9. CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 5  PARTICIPATORY DEVELOPMENT AND INCLUSION OF IKS IN THE CONTEXT OF IDPS
5.1. INTRODUCTION
5.2. BACKGROUND OF IDPS
5.3. WHAT ARE THE IDPS?
5.4. IDP DESIGNING TEMPLATE
5.5. THE STRATEGIC APPLICATION OF IDP FRAMEWORK
5.6. CITIZEN INVOLVEMENT IN DECISIONS AND DEVELOPMENT AT THE LOCAL MUNICIPALITY LEVEL
5.7. STUDYING THE INTEGRATION OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION AND IKS IN IDPS
5.8. INTERPRETING THE INTEGRATION OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION AND IKS IN IDPS
5.9. CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 6  INTEGRATION OF IKS TO HIV/AIDS IN THE CONTEXT OF IDPS
6.1. INTRODUCTION
6.2. SETTING THE PACE: HIV/AIDS INTEGRATION, APPROACHES, AND IKS INTEGRATION IN IDPS
6.3. WHAT TABLE 12 ENTAILS: HIV/AIDS INTEGRATION APPROACHES AND IKS INTEGRATION IN IDPS
CHAPTER 7  THE SIGNIFICANCE OF IKS TO THE GENERAL CITIZENRY AND THE LOCAL MUNICIPALITY LEADERS AND OFFICIALS
7.1. INTRODUCTION
7.2. FINDINGS FROM THE SURVEY
7.3. DOES IKS MATTER TO THE GENERAL CITIZENRY OF SOUTH AFRICA? 325
7.4. DESPITE THE LIMITED INCLUSION OF IKS IN POLICY DOCUMENTS, DO THE LOCAL MUNICIPALITY POLICY MAKERS THEMSELVES APPRECIATE IKS AS A SIGNIFICANT PHENOMENON IN THEIR WORK?
7.5. PARTICIPATION THROUGH LOCAL STRUCTURES
7.6. CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE FORM OF PARTICIPATORY ENGAGEMENT THAT INFLUENCE SHARING OF IKS IN THE STRUCTURES ABOVE
7.7. RECOGNITION OF THE ROLES OF TRADITIONAL LEADERS AND TRADITIONAL HEALERS BY THE LOCAL MUNICIPALITY LEADERS AND OFFICIALS
7.8. TRADITIONAL PRACTICES THAT LOCAL MUNICIPALITY LEADERS INCORPORATE INTO THEIR PROGRAMMES
7.9. OTHER METHODS USED BY THE LOCAL MUNICIPALITY LEADERS AND OFFICIALS TO ADDRESS HIV/AIDS
7.10. ACCESS TO IKS THROUGH BELONGING
7.11. CONCLUSIVE REMARKS: CONFIRMING THE LEVEL OF APPRECIATION OF IKS BY LOCAL MUNICIPALITY LEADERS AND OFFICIALS
7.12. ALIGNING THE SURVEY FINDINGS TO THE THEORETICAL PARADIGMS OF EXPLICIT AND TACIT FORMS OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE, GOOD GOVERNANCE, AND RELATIVISM
7.13. CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 8  FACTORS INHIBITING LOCAL MUNICIPALITY LEADERS AND OFFICIALS TO INTEGRATE IKS TO THEIR DOCUMENTED POLICIES
8.1. INTRODUCTION
8.2. POLICY DEVELOPMENT AS A PROFESSIONAL OR TECHNICAL PROCESS
8.3. THE INFLUENCE OF DEVELOPMENT THEORIES
8.4. THE POLITICS OF AGENDA-SETTING, DECISION MAKING AND TOPDOWN CONTROL
8.5. CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 9  CONCLUSION: A SUMMARY OF THE GENERAL FRAMEWORK, SCOPE, ARGUMENTS AND CONCLUSIONS PRESENTED IN THE STUDY
9.1. INTRODUCTION
9.2. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
9.3. THE HYPOTHETICAL PROBLEM STATEMENT
9.4. MAIN AREAS OF INVESTIGATION AND FINDINGS
9.5. THE RESPONSE OF THE STUDY TO HYPOTHESIS: A CONCLUSIVE STATEMENT
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