[P2P-F] a new type of platform?

Sat Jul 30 08:43:14 CEST 2011

Hi Devin,

THere is indeed a long tradition of traditional people using documentation
and networks to further their cause,

for them as for us, it's part of an arsenal of means they can use,

but the context of technology use matters, i.e. is it under their own
control, or not, is it used or not, for the benefit of outside forces,

Michael Gurstein, at OKCON11, pointed to some famous case studies where
'open documentation' was used preferentially by those already privileged,
thus increasing rather than decreasing power differentials...

Michel

On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 11:29 PM, Devin Balkind <devin at sarapisfoundation.org
> wrote:

> I don't think you're making an argument against documentation, but you are
> making an argument for access to resources.  I consider knowledge a resource
> and it's documentation one of many ways to make that resource useable.
>
> The following is from the website you cited:
>
> *Example: The Potato Park community biocultural database (Peru)*
>>
>> A database of potato varieties and biocultural systems became necessary to
>> hold the information collected by communities through action research. The
>> database uses free (open source) software to administer data entry, access
>> and use, since this is compatible with customary practices of free and open
>> sharing of knowledge. The free software DRUPAL platform is creating a
>> database based on three Andean principles of reciprocity, duality and
>> equilibrium. The database also uses GIS technology and audiovisual equipment
>> for recording resources and knowledge.
>>
> http://biocultural.iied.org/tools/community-biocultural-registers
>
> Since there is no link to the dataset and considering your post, I'm
> wondering whether you think this database should be public and accessible
> via the internet.
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 11:35 AM, jmp <m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 28/07/11 09:20, Karl Robillard wrote:
>> > Nicholas,
>> >
>> > The importance of OSE is not primarily in what is being produced, but
>> *how* it
>> > is being produced.  The knowledge of production is being openly shared
>> with
>> > the expressed goal of replication and abundance.  Doing this is just as
>> useful
>> > for producing food forests as it is for tractors.  If you see that
>> traditional
>> > knowledge is disappearing then you only need to document and share it to
>> stop
>> > that from happening.
>>
>> For info / some related implications, from a different perspective.
>>
>> The latter part - especially "... then you only ..." - parallels a
>> common and widespread conception of traditional knowledge that is
>> problematic, in its reduction, at least insofar as the context of
>> indigenous people is concerned. It ignores the material and physical
>> reality of knowledge as doing: traditional knowledge is practices
>> embedded in bio-cultural systems -- not merely information that can be
>> documented ex-situ.
>>
>> It is precisely this reduced conception of traditional knowledge - i.e.
>> that it can be documented to protect it - that many indigenous movements
>> and empathetic researchers are arguing and working against, because it
>> is devastating to many communities (another set of socio-economic
>> conflicts arises from the so-called benefit sharing that accompanies
>> this approach, but that is a tangent here).
>>
>> It is a conception manifested in the UN, WIPO, state and corporate
>> "intellectual property" approaches to the "protection" of traditional
>> knowledge. Indeed, it forms central part of contemporary international
>> political economy - and market expansion - as it has the purpose of
>> spreading the very the idea of private, exclusive ownership of knowledge
>> and intellectual property generally, while seeking credibility through
>> "protection" of minorities and vulnerable groups, whose cultures in turn
>> are undermined as market relations or the cash economy advances onto
>> their territory. The protection myth, in this context, functions to
>> extract information (recipes, species info etc.) from knowledge
>> practices, but let's the bio-cultural systems in which they exist
>> wither. Some background info here: http://biocultural.iied.org/
>>
>> Documenting some "knowledge" does nothing automagically for a knowledge
>> practice, except that in the case of traditional, medicinal knowledge
>> practices, it - with obvious intentions and effects - facilitates
>> commercialisation of the information extracted from a given knowledge
>> practice. Museums are full of dead knowledge.
>>
>> In other words, you can document as much, say, shamanic knowledge as you
>> like, but if there is no access to forest, land and the required
>> resources - i.e. bio-cultural systems - in which those knowledge
>> practices traditionally unfold, then it is merely information in an
>> abstract form on paper (or in bits).
>>
>> If you want to preserve knowledge practices about living on and with the
>> land - i.e. about growing stuff - then the first step is to secure
>> access to land in order to be able to practice. Knowing by description
>> how to grow something won't put food on the table unless there is land
>> to practice on. Knowing by acquaintance won't either, hence many
>> cultures facing land grabs, deforestation, climate change etc. are
>> losing their traditional knowledge not because it is no longer known, or
>> undocumented, but simply because they become uprooted and have nowhere
>> to grow, to end on ecologicals metaphors.
>>
>> -martin
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Devin Balkind
> Director, Sarapis Foundation
> devin at sarapisfoundation.org
> @devinbalkind
>
>
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