knowledge

Subversion and Rationalization of Knowledge Systems for Revealing Modernity in Africa

KMAadmin — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 05:26:31 -0600

Author: Jacques L. Hamel (1) UNECA, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Summary: The paper provides a speculative reflection on the power of modern science, technology, innovation (STI) and knowledge systems for revealing some distinctive style of modernity in Africa. The focus is on uncovering the necessary mental or intellectual costumes required for the modernization of STI systems as the backbones of modernity through a ‘Strategy of Subversion and Rationalization’. This modernization process is essentially the passage from close, self-confirming, faith-based, conventional or customary knowledge systems to essentially evidence-based, scientifically-established and technically-proven knowledge systems. In these systems scientific knowledge is construed as a theory of the real and as a technology of truth and understood as the epistemological foundation of any vision of an idiosyncratic form of Afro-modernity. The scientific method purges Abrahamic and Shamanic worldviews of non-scientific constituents and opens a path from the pre-modern, totemic, enchanted, patriarchal and over-religious worldviews and mindsets to the more secular, rational, liberal, mechanical, enlightened and scientific worldviews and mindsets of modernity. This paradigmatic shift requires championing the tyranny of the scientific method and the rule of technique as well as promoting decisive scientific arbitrations, increased technical mediations and a redefinition of STI’s relationships with religious, cultural, social and economic life. The necessary capacities for achieving this shift toward more modern scientific and technical knowledge orders are grouped into eight areas.

Capacities to Formulate Effective Visions and Strategies
Capacities to Create a Conducive / Enabling Climate
Capacities to Strengthen Ownership, Leadership and Commitment
Capacities to Design Effective Policy Instruments, Institutions and Systems
Capacities to Forge Partnerships, Alliances, Relationships
Capacities to Advance Regional Cooperation and Integration
Capacities to Double Funding and Investment in STI Programmes and Activities
Capacities to foster Knowledge Societies / Economies /Management
Conclusion: Capable Paradigms, Worldviews, Mindsets and Practices for the Modernization of Traditional Knowledge Systems

Introduction

Whatever theories of knowledge (Audi, 1998), of science (Kuhn, 1962), of modernity (Heller, 1999) and development (Preston, 1996) one embraces, the essence of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) cannot be met and there is no access to an Afro-modernity of any kind without the rigorous exploitation and use of modern science, technology, innovation and knowledge. Effective STI systems drive countries forward along the development ladder and along the transition to modernity. Halving poverty and hunger – the essence of MDGs – cannot be achieved without upgrading and modernizing STI systems in the African region. It cannot be achieved without new visions, new paradigms and new strategies. This is what this paper is about.

To be sure many African countries are making remarkable progress in STI in spite of meager budgetary resources and enormous cultural, social, economic and political constraints. The progress is real and encouraging, even if government’ pledges are not fulfilled. But much of the region has been historically incapable of fully exploiting the power of STI for its development. Scientific and technical capacities remain low, with relatively few researchers, scientists, engineers, doctors, innovators, publishers and patentees per capita. This low capacity is well documented and is beyond dispute (with RSA a particular case).

Meeting MDGs and uncovering some variety or brand of Afro-modernity requires specific strategies and related capacities that are presently lacking. It requires strategic capacities to carry out uphill struggles and expend considerable efforts ‘simultaneously’ on an extensive range of battlefronts or battlegrounds. These capacities are grouped below into eight areas.

The first area focuses on effective visions and strategies and on building or strengthening the necessary broad subversion and rationalization capacities to meet the spirit of MDGs and to uncover a modern Africa. These call for assembling related basic, critical thinking, policy-making, adaptation, absorption, innovation and management capacities.
The second area concerns the strengthening of capacities to put in place a conducive or enabling climate for the modernization of STI systems, stressing a Renaissance or a revival perspective, faith in instrumental rationality, intellectual vigor, equal opportunities, true or factual knowledge and modern-day mythologies. The enabling climate should make possible the overall subversion and rationalization of pre-modern worldviews and long-established STI systems.
The third area highlights the importance of capacities in policy ownership, leadership and commitment, in line with the African STI policy narrative agreed at the level of Heads of State. The African development agenda has to be more in the hands of Africans and less dependent on foreign policy narratives, wisdom, ideologies and hand-outs.
The fourth area underlines the necessary capacities to develop the systemic and synergistic aspects of a set of two dozens typical STI institutions, constituting the major policy instruments of a ‘standard’ STI system. Here the popular modern innovation system narrative has to be deconstructed and re-contextualized for pre-modern cosmologies, cultures, societies and economies.
The fifth area underscores the capacities to forge partnerships and other forms of collaboration to advance STI systems. Nowadays no country – large or small – can advance an STI agenda alone. Every country needs to develop internal and external relationships, such as associations, linkages, twinnings, alliances and joint ventures.
The sixth area focuses on capacities to advance regional integration and the sharing of STI resources, expertise, institutional assets and markets. This is an area where African countries could and should be making more progress. Without more integration Africa may be too fractured, divided, fractioned and balkanized to access modernity.
The seventh area concentrates on capacities to fund and invest in STI programs and activities - an area historically rich in government or public promises and pledges but rather poor in follow-up and implementation. Public investments in STI have to double, as already agreed by African Heads of State, to jumpstart the transition to modernity. Private investments (FDI = $US 50 billion in 2007), on the other hand, should increase dramatically in the years ahead as they reveal resource-rich Africa as an immense energy reserve and fuel station universally coveted for powering the global technological engine.
The eighth area draws attention to meeting the emerging challenges of knowledge societies, economies, networks and management. Here there is a need to inject more ‘Enlightenment’ and scientific knowledge into African cosmologies, idioms, religions, beliefs and cultures in order to reveal the face of a distinctive Afro-modernity - hopefully not as eco-violent, disillusioned, melancholic and material as the North Atlantic mode of modernity. And there is a need to understand that knowledge is not additive but transformative. That means that some knowledge, acquired through acculturation and socialization, has to be unlearned, deleted, subtracted or deducted to make room for new knowledge. This may rank as the most important and costly blunder that African STI policymakers are making.

In conclusion African stakeholders are urged to build capacities to investigate, undermine and transform traditional or pre-modern knowledge systems with up to date scientific data, insights, practices, worldviews and mindsets. They are encouraged to re-imagine the African region as a modern one. For this it might be necessary to re-cosmologize, re-mythologize, ‘re-prophetize’, re-charlatanize and guide the evolution of the region toward some unique type of post-totemic, post-enchanted, post-phallocratic, post-shamanic, post-Abrahamic and post-colonial region.

Capacities to Formulate Effective Visions and Strategies

There is a need to strengthen capacities to develop and implement effective STI strategies, including subversion and rationalization strategies (promoted by this author). There is a crying need to fill the total lack of strategy behind MDGs. Various development strategies have been formulated around the idea of building capacities to lead, innovate, leapfrog, assimilate, follow, imitate, differentiated by sectors or areas. Other strategies have revolved around building capacities to exploit available technology, particularly new technologies, such as bio, agro, nano and digital. Other strategies have focused on knowledge management, on upgrading indigenous knowledge and technologies, on technology transfer and on research. But some important elements of any successful strategy for meeting MDGs and accessing modernity are still missing. A Strategy of Subversion and Rationalization of Traditional STI Systems is a complementary strategy addressing some neglected – if not completely ignored - aspects of STI for development. This strategy uses the vision of a reborn, renewed or reawakened Africa developed by a dozen African leaders since the 1960s and it also uses the vision of the Enlightenment philosophers and thinkers who designed the modernity project. In short, the strategy relies on modern STI to subvert and rationalize pre-modern mythologies, traditions, customs, ideologies, languages, religions, dogmas, credos, superstitions and cultures, which may hold back the march of STI in the African region.

Subversion Capacities

These refer to:

Capacities to reconstruct prior assumptions and reevaluate known facts, to challenge existing shared fundamental conjectures and overcome established community resistance
Capacities to question, overthrow or overturn systems of principles and convictions as well as forms of dominance, control and power incompatible with or not sustained by individuation, autonomy, subjectivity, self-determination, democratic rationality and other features of modernity
Capacities to challenge and transform un-enabling STI governance structures
Capacities to uproot totalizing, oppressive or terror structures that obstruct the way to modern manners of grasping and dealing with reality
Capacities to evolve more pragmatic, empirical, disillusioned, disenchanted and mechanical worldviews
Capacities to overcome pre-modern cosmological and ideological formations, whether home-grown or alien
Capacities to ‘de-privatize’ African States and privatize economies (including farming lands)

Rationalization capacities

These refer to:

Capacities to absorb the scientific method and be guided by instrumental reason
Capacities to rationally use STI to mathematize and channel the forces of nature for human purposes
Capacities to apply accurate calculation of technical means to achieve precise ends
Capacities to trim down or rationalize uncanny STI processes and absurd transaction costs (WB estimates that it takes an average of 68 days before exports are allowed to leave Angola, including 25 days to prepare documents, eight days to clear customs and another 24 days to get through port)
Capacities to comprehend scientific revolutions and move beyond Islam, Christianity and Witchcraft
Capacities to reorder traditional agriculture by cutting down on or by reordering mythological inputs: long periods of fasting (half the year in some African countries), numerous religious holidays, prayers for rain, no pork or wine or beer, sacrificial goats, holy water, women role as food purveyors, girls exclusive burdening role in fetching water and wood for cooking, children as fences, fear of ‘unnatural’ or ungodly GM crops, agricultural “slave” workers, etc.)

These subversion and rationalization capacities are required to unleash the full power of STI and reveal a unique form of modernity in the African region.

Capacities to Create a Conducive / Enabling Climate for STI

Open-minded stakeholders and scientists should strive to achieve a paradigmatic ‘renewal’ (ubuntu) requiring structural or fundamental reforms of the inner working of African societies. African STI policymakers seldom disagree on the fundamentals because they prefer to avoid proposing a coherent vision of Africa’s future, which would clearly show the inescapable pain of change and which would go beyond wishful thinking and pipe dreams. A workable strategy for the transformation of the foundations of African STI systems is still lacking. This strategy should achieve a shift toward scientific ways of observing, analyzing and knowing or toward science as the latest myth or the new religion of the time that can propel the continent into some original form of modernity.

STI policymakers need to understand that the emergence of some brand of distinctive modernity on the African continent goes much further than the simple ownership and display of modernity’s most visible technological products, tools, appliances, gadgets and gizmos. It is the hidden or unconscious background thinking that should be the object of close examination and challenge by African STI policymakers. In this regard they could climb on the shoulders of the great Enlightenment philosophers, thinkers, fighters and scientists of the 17th and 18th centuries (Descartes, Bacon, Voltaire, Kant …) who designed the modernity project with the concern for plain instrumental rationality at its core.

Policy-makers and strategists should encourage essential modernization processes, which would open the way to STI development and progress, such as autonomization, individuation, demystification, feminization (less patriarchal forms), democratization, liberalization, laicization, trans-nationalization, systematization, differentiation, technocratization and humanization processes. But they should also keep in mind that scientific illumination, technical action and modernity offer only a partial escape from the human condition.

Stakeholders should appreciate that mindsets, thinking and ideas are more essential than money or technologies or political promises, etc., in shaping the evolution of STI. Indeed, “The world we have created is the product of our thinking – it cannot be changed without changing our thinking” (Einstein). They should also realize that Africa has no other choice than to go through the pain of having to abandon some highly cherished received ideas, keeping in mind that “Ideas are the most painful things in the world” (Galbraith).

There is a need to engage true scientists and STI communities in public understanding of modern thinking and modern STI and there is a need to cultivate a greater awareness of the role and power of thinking and STI in development. Science is not only a popular buzzword and not only a stock of knowledge but above all a technique and method of thinking (calculative / essential / perspectival…) and it cuts like razor blades as it destroys traditional systems of customary bodies of beliefs. It is essentially an atheistic venture or undertaking built on a rejection of religious authority and supernatural or ‘divine’ causes or explanations necessarily giving rise to more laicized, disenchanted and enlightened societies than long-established over-religious or over-shamanized African ones. In modernity faith-guided knowledge systems do not force nature into fixed old-fashioned boxes.

In order for STI to fully operate on many African societies it is necessary to strip current worldviews of shamanic mysticism or magic, providential or divine intrusions, amazing archangels, absurd limbos, far-fetched miracles, occult forces and charlatan tactics, pretenses, frauds and deceptions. Modernity is in actual fact accessed through scientific rationalization and instrumental rationality. In this perspective imported Evangelical and Qur’anic models of reality, although of relatively recent human construction and bearer of positive civilizational values, lack decisive values for accessing modernity, such as democratic governance; the full utilization of feminine talents and aptitudes; affection and care for nature; a concern for the future (down here); superiority of scientific methods and hypotheses over ‘gaseous’ prophetic knowledge; a strong focus on life before death; and a less fatalistic attitude toward the lifeworld and poverty. Ancient sacred religious texts and documents - not exactly hotsprings of fresh worldviews - may constitute virtual owner's manuals for one’s life, especially for Africans-of-one-book, which under certain conditions are not conducive to paradigmatic innovation and to a swift transition to modernity. Evangelical, Qur’anic and Shamanic models of reality are traditional or pre-modern social constructions far from or quite different from modern scientific constructions of reality. From time to time our responses to aging or bogus realities should be one of denial, defiance or rebellion. “Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane” (Philip K. Dick).

Euro-modernity, in addition to overturning the kings’ power, mostly came as a reaction, through subversive conflicts, wars and revolutions, against the autocracy, abuse of power, exploitation, repression, colonialism, cruelty, misogynism and obscurantism of European medieval Christian churches. Islam, on the other hand, has been better in some respects than Christianity as regard science since it is less ridden of shocking miracles and outrageous tales that are contrary to common sense and to the known laws of physics and nature. The immense contribution of Islam to science in medieval time is well documented and beyond disagreements. But modernization of these pre-modern mythologies would bechallenging, if not suicidal, to the culture of salvation, of subjugation and of non-questioning (faith-predetermined beliefs) of both Islamic and Christian Africa. A culture of censure and contempt for science is not in line with the autonomous modern inquisitive subject. It is not in line with science as a way of thinking (Carl Sagan), as a method (Descarte), as a culture (UNESCO) and with modernity’s inbuilt worldviews and mindsets. In this regard facts speak for themselves: the contribution of sub-Saharan Africa to modern science in terms of scientific publications, patents, tech licensing, tech-intensive exports, investments in tech, and so on, remains stuck marginally at less than 1% of world total. Only a paradigms shift can fundamentally turn this situation around.

STI policy-makers could be more active in advocating a science-based knowledge order (Latour, 1987). Concretely this implies prioritizing (non-fixed) scientific knowledge and theories over Holy Scriptures, revelations, divinations and fantasies. It implies evolving more worldly / post-charmed societies. It implies reversing the current trends of building many times more churches and mosques than tech or research centers (about 100 times more in some African countries). It implies scrutinizing the conjectures, postulations and standpoints of Imperial Islam, Constantinian Christianity and ‘Magical Witchcraft’ in relation to a laicized, demystified and disenchanted modernity. It implies sacralizing science, the scientific method and scientific knowledge.

Capacities to Design Effective Policy Instruments, Institutions and Systems

There is an abundant literature on STI systems and system analysis but the main thrust of the narrative needs to be de-contextualized and re-constructed for African societies, weighed down by pre-modern ways of apprehending and operating on reality. Policy-makers should aim at increasing the general performance and integration of STI systems and subsystems. These are typically made up of a set of standard institutions, comprising among others: 1- Ministry or Commission or Council for STI policymaking; 2- STI Budget; 3- STI Funds; 4- Taxation; 5-Subsidies; 6-Scholarships; 7- Research Grants; 8- Venture Capital; 9- Centers of Excellence; 10- Incubators and Tech Parks; 11- IP; 12- Standards; 13- R&D; 14- Support; 15- Databases and Information; 16- Academies; 17- Professional / Learned Societies; 18- Parliamentary Committees; 19- Recognitions, Prizes and Rewards; 20- Interdepartmental Forums; 21- Chief Science Advisors; 22- Conferences and Seminars; 23- Science Clubs; 24- Science Days and Open Doors; 25- Extension, 26- Radio Tutorials.

Capacities to Forge Valuable Partnerships, Alliances and Relationships

Policy makers should forge useful Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), Government-University-Industry Partnerships and North-South and South-South Partnerships. They should nurture bilateral cooperation and support collaborative research to benefit from international or multilateral STI organizations. They should implement international agreements in STI, twin STI organizations, muster involvement of youth, mobilize private sector and rally the Diaspora. They should enlist NGOs engaged in STI, participate in relevant and promising IGOs activities and programmes, favor clusters of enterprises around industrial innovative leaders and liaise with RSA’s strengths in STI.

Capacities to Advance Regional and Sub-Regional Cooperation and Integration

African countries should work more closely with AU-NEPAD/ST and AMCOST. They should expand subregional and regional ‘teamwork’ (no country has the resources to do it single-handedly); share regional scientific and technological facilities (metrology, etc...); guarantee free movement of scientists and tech entrepreneurs across the region; and support regional initiatives (regional meetings, regional networks, regional forums). They should define common positions on regional and international policies; develop potentialities, specializations and complementarities at subregional and regional levels; carry out joint exhibitions and set up shared demonstration units; and conduct regional and subregional STI studies. They should strengthen the STI components of regional and subregional organizations, institutions and associations (such as ECOWAS, PTA, COMESA, SADC, etc.); be more active in emerging regional and subregional STI networks (ATPS, AAS, Magtech, Incubators and Parks, etc.) and consider paid memberships and active participation in regional centers and projects (ARCT, ARCEDEM, OAPI-ARIPO, ARSO …).

Capacities to Fund and Invest in STI Programmes and Activities

There is a need to double funding across the board for STI programmes and activities. This need is recognized by the highest authorities and is related to a wide range of funding instruments, means and objectives, such as the now famous 1% of GDP for R&D (long history of decisions, pledges and deceptions); national budget for STI infrastructures, institutions, training…; FDI; micro-credit; venture capital; licensing; fiscal incentives; donors and foundations; national and regional STI funds (recent AMCOST-instituted and AfDB administered fund); financial assistance to tech-based micro-enterprises; research allowances; fellowships; and open source software / open access info and knowledge.

Capacities to Meet the Challenges of Knowledge Societies / Economies / Management

Capacities to assess and upgrade knowledge in the African region must be strengthened considerably to meet the daunting challenges of knowledge societies and economies. To begin with, knowledge in Africa is somewhat:

Tacit, orally-transmitted, symbolic, figurative, local, rural
Fractured (Islam / Christian divide), compartmented (by ethnicity), balkanized (by six colonizing powers), fragmented (+ 1000 idioms and worldviews) and atomized (not part of any advanced knowledge networks)
‘Unscientific’ (disregarding scientific revolutions), mythologized (with indigenous and foreign superstitions), de-contextualized (uprooted and transplanted from more technologically-advanced areas), ‘canned’ (ready-made and pre-packaged), monopolized (non-sharing knowledge practices and ethos) and unprotected (except by diversion tactics)
Underused (scientists as taxi drivers), misappropriated (by power hungry sources), under or mis-professionalized (shamanic knowledge) and misapplied (ecocidal)
Eroded (extinct or dying languages and knowledge), drained (brains seeking greener pasture), rarely rented (against royalty payments), and too often plagued with spirituo-, mystico-, magico-, Euro- and phallo-centricity.

The ability of a worker, a firm, a country or a region to assess a given stock of knowledge such as African and modern knowledge, sort it, filter it, assimilate it and apply it to commercial or developmental ends is critical for any type of development and for accessing modernity. It is critical for unlearning / relearning and for the acquisition of key modern knowledge and competencies. It is critical for entering into the 21st century global knowledge society (Hamel, 2005). It is critical for deconstructing a pre-modern reality acquired through acculturation and socialization and it is critical for learning a new version of reality: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn” (A. Toffler).

Policymakers should emphasize the application of public domain knowledge and technologies (World Economic Forum, 2003) and adopt strategies that make the most of the latest technical knowledge and new technological regime (ICTs, bio, eco, agro …). They should recognize the value of indigenous knowledge, technologies and solutions, adopt green technologies and espouse the sustainable development paradigm. They should also put in place a monitoring system for measuring knowledge societies / economies (indicators, statistics, benchmarks, polls, studies…). In this regard African countries should support an AU initiative designed to measure the advancement of STI systems.

Conclusion: Capable Paradigms, Worldviews, Mindsets and Practices for the Modernization of Traditional Knowledge Systems and for Revealing a Typical Afro-Modernity

It is important to understand the reasons for the relative failure of Nyerre’s Ujamaa, Mobutu’s Authenticité, Sengor’s Négritude, Nkruma’s Conciencism, Kenyata’s Harambee, Wade’s Omega, Bouteflika’s Ennahda Movement, Mbeki’s ‘Call to Rebellion’ - let alone the vision of the Commission for Africa and a host of other appeals for an African ‘Renaissance’ (African Century, etc.). Perhaps there is some truth in the idea that “A problem cannot be solved with the mindset that created it” (Einstein).

Modernity in Africa will never be uncovered with the manipulation of economic variables alone, including external financial assistance, but it will certainly necessitate sound economic policies and strategies. Much of the development discourse in Africa revolves around economics, finance and money but modernity, in addition to being a technology-driven economic process, is essentially a cultural and scientific process, with the scientific technique and tradition at its center.

The scientific method provides tools for resisting ‘intellectual domestication’ and for embracing more modern or post-modern mythologies (Lyotard, 1991). A majority of Africans (80%) swears by or are ruled by Abrahamic mythologies and statistics show that less than 1 in 100 Africans escapes the Islamic or Christian system of beliefs he or she is born in. That clearly shows the strong appeal, fascination, addiction, dependence and the irresistible charm of these two great pre-modern religious solitudes. The scientific method provides a way out of this blind lottery and of this medieval intellectual trapping. Could subversive scientism be the new ‘religion’ of the time that could bridge some century-old divides in the African region and that could at last transform a traditional reality into a modern one?

There is a need to engineer a fundamental shift from Islamism, Christianism and Shamanism / Animism toward Scientism and Technologism. There is a need to engineer a transition from self-confirming systems of medieval thinking, superstitions and prejudices to modern scientific worldviews and empirical knowledge systems.

There is a need to be aware that science, technology and society are co-emerging, co-evolutive and mutually constitutive of each other and to be aware of the seduction of triumphant techno-scientific dogmas (Winner, 1977), which may lead to the devastation, excesses, wastefulness and pathologies of the post-industrial consumerist cultures of modernity. Perhaps STI policy makers should support the creation in each African country of free-thinking think-tanks to reflect on and promote an Afro-modernity essentially based on holding fast to the scientific method, as a new dogma, and on adopting scientific knowledge, which would provide an increasingly detailed and refined understanding of nature, the world and Africans in it. But it is also important to resist worshiping science and technology as a new God or a new Savior and not to let science and technology unduly monopolize African destinies.

A renewed narrative is needed, indulging less on minor variations around the status quo, to address pressing issues related to cosmological revolutions, technological effervescence, globalization, urbanization, energy crises, food shortages, environmental degradations, intercontinental competition and epidemics. It is also needed for the integration of science and technology in wider agricultural, industrial, budgetary, trade, social and educational policies.

New knowledge orders and new paradigms do not come effortlessly and without problems because very few free-thinking scientists have the strength, the courage, the moral fiber and the guts to challenge established truths, because current knowledge orders are considered sacred whereas any criticism is considered blasphemous or politically incorrect, because existing entrenched paradigms have to be displaced or replaced by new, disturbing and much less magnetic ones and because “the competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be resolved by proof” (Thomas Kuhn). In the end the competition between rival paradigms comes down to a choice between fundamentally incompatible worldviews and modes of cultural, social and economic life.

There is a need to better appreciate science as a mode of subversive thinking, as a means of achieving the systematic destruction of conventional / medieval / pre-modern realities and as a way to reconstruct / modernize / re-order realities from new fundamentals and from new perspectives. Accordingly, African stakeholders are advised to build various capacities, as discussed in this paper, to probe, subvert and rationalize traditional or pre-modern knowledge systems with contemporary scientific facts, understandings, worldviews, mindsets and practices. They are advised to spare no effort in order to re-cosmologize, re-mythologize, ‘re-prophetize’, re-charlatanize and re-direct the evolution of the African reality toward some original form of post-totemic, post-enchanted, post-phallocratic, post-shamanic (magic- and witchcraft-free) and post-Abrahamic region, or toward an Islam-free and Christian-free scientifically-enlightened post-colony. For this evolution to materialize perhaps the first priority of policymakers could be to strengthen capacities to imagine a different and modern Africa and imagine means to attain it. This could be the most urgent and central task of African STI policymakers at the beginning of the 21st century.

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African Knowledge Paradigms

Qhakijane — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:53:39 -0600

Western knowledge paradigms have a pyramid shape: at the bottom is real experience but moving up are layers of surrogates that stand for original ideas. At the apex are ideals, or highly refined knowledge. E.g. at the top is an idea called constitutional democracy but later by layer going down we can unravel this idea in terms of judicial institutions, legislative institutions, executive institutions, under which are communities and constituencies right until we come to the level of individuals serving in the various organs of state.

The ideas of limited government, separation of powers, bill of rights making up internal formations that divide the pyramid in the inside if we were afforded the chance to view it from inside out.

However, this method of knowledge management calls for specialization and division of skills because no single individual can ever hope to access all the necessary knowledge alone. By contrast, pre-colonial African knowledge systems were concentric in the way they functioned and were organised in the following way:

At the centre of the circle are the traditions and ancestral teachings. There is horizontal free access to the knowledge. There is a link between the living and the dead much in the same sense of blueprints and intellectual knowledge being accessible to future generations. The common link between the living and the dead is the tried and tested knowledge of the ancestors.

This knowledge is mediated through song, dance, daily chores, rituals, play and mentoring by elders or senior age group members. It is not surrogate knowledge that deals with higher level concepts (being refined ideas standing for massive experiential data). It is immediate, available, concrete and practical and easily assimilated into one’s personal frame of reference.

Difficult concepts such as “where do we come from as a species” are dealt with by means of myths, songs and stories.

When a boy wakes up in the African village:

he learns from his peers how to milk a cow,
he learns hunting skills in the veld while herding cattle.
he learns to feed himself, and how to fight
he learns how to endure pain and hardship
he learns how to fish, swim, and climb trees,
he acquires a knowledge of medicinal plants.
he learns the names and habits of the different animals.
he learns about patience, responsibility and accountability and must make sure not a single cow gets lost or eaten by the wild animals

This no doubt is quite a major learning experience. In western taxonomical terms it covers a wide range of areas from the cognitive areas, affective areas and psychomotor areas of learning. This kind of knowledge is people-centred, it resides within the people themselves, if it were transferred into a pyramid structure it would need trained professionals, textbooks, teacher hours, exams, govt supervision and research.

There is a certain level of knowledge that in African due to the disruption of local culture results in disorientation and alienation of many young and old people. I certainly do not advocate for going back into tribal knowledge but the question is aren’t there certain skills, survival skills and life skills that could be better taught using the concentric African model. Issues of drug abuse, rape, unemployment, street begging, street living may be symptoms of disempowerment and given KM models that advance the social cooperative nature of knowledge would go a long way to address these social problems.

In the concentric African KM model that elders formed the inner circle but did not follow everyone else to police the system. There was much joy and pleasure and play in imparting knowledge. Songs, storytelling, drums, poems all worked within a concentric dispersal system where participants simply crossed barriers and learnt very useful knowledge and skills.

Therefore any dissonance occurring in the system, such as an individual committing a crime e.g. rape, the entire village was affected and restoring psychological balance required the culprit to sponsor the ritual cleansing of the entire village. The deterrent nature of the exercise justified the cost. Modern systems still grapple with issues of community crime, but the African model dealt decisively with such issues. When the colonialists and missionaries came into Africa, they were surprised at the level of civil order and peace. Yes, some despotic chiefs abused this system and subjected their people to abuse which they endured with stoic endurance and fatalistic tolerance which disturbed many missionaries. But retrieving the system and adapting it to the modern situation may pay huge dividends in terms of creating a crime free society.

Africans managed to create a stable system of knowledge management. It had definite spin offs in terms of creating peaceful and stable societies.

The African model poses serious questions: if you cant dance it, sing it and recite it how can it be your personal knowledge? Indeed even the mother church seem to have used the same KM model: can we speak of the early Catholic church without the icons, the liturgy, the recited prayers, and hymns? In dealing with problems of modern city life perhaps it is wise to look inside ourselves and model our knowledge systems using inexpensive, vibrant and enjoyable systems found in Africa.

The African model’s functioning resembles the Brownian molecular movement. Its success lay on two important pillars: the traditions at its centre and practical value.

Knowledge was valued for its corporate blessings and cooperative creation. Some things seemed meaningless in the African KM until one finds out the purpose behind the practices. Not pointing at a particular place e.g a mountain. These practices taught reverence, perseverance and self-control. In all higher level schooling systems which focus on leadership self-control and perseverance are still the virtues most sought after. It does not matter whether they are taught on the netball field or rugby field the end result seem not to have eluded the humble Africans.

It is a challenge today to integrate and adapt African KMS into the modern technologies. It is important to restore the spirituality of technology. Western technology is an end in itself, which is important for its distribution and development. But there is a great need to infuse social values into these technologies so that in the end we preserve our corporate identity as human beings and we ensure that they contribute towards giving mankind a more human face.

Zulu culture, language & traditions

Bloom's Taxonomy for Knowledge, Critical and Creative Thinking

KMAadmin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:02:33 -0700

Benjamin Bloom (1956) developed a classification of levels that might be seen in intellectual behavior in learning. This taxonomy contained three overlapping domains: the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. Within the cognitive domain, he identified six levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. These domains and levels are still useful today as you develop your critical thinking skills

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking involves logical thinking and reasoning including skills such as comparison, classification, sequencing, cause/effect, patterning, webbing, analogies, deductive and inductive reasoning, forecasting, planning, hyphothesizing, and critquing.

Creative Thinking

Creative thinking involves creating something new or original. It involves the skills of flexibility, originality, fluency, elaboration, brainstorming, modification, imagery, associative thinking, attribute listing, metaphorical thinking, forced relationships. The aim of creative thinking is to stimulate curiosity and promote divergence.

While critical thinking can be thought of as more left-hemisphere and creative thinking more right hemisphere, they both involve "thinking." When we talk about HOTS "higher-order thinking skills" we're concentrating on the top three levels of Bloom's Taxonomy: analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

Knowledge

Examples: dates, events, places, vocabulary, key ideas, parts of diagram, 5Ws

Comprehension

Examples: find meaning, transfer, interpret facts, infer cause & consequence, examples

Application

Examples: use information in new situations, solve problems

Analysis

Examples: recognize and explain patterns and meaning, see parts and wholes

Synthesis

Examples: discuss "what if" situations, create new ideas, predict and draw conclusions

Evaluation

Examples: make recommendations, assess value and make choices, critique ideas

Affective Domain

Domain Attributes include interpersonal relations, emotions, attitudes, appreciation and identification with values

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