Determining requirements within an indigenous knowledge system of African rural communities.
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Date
2010
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
SAICSIT
Abstract
Eliciting and analyzing requirements within knowledge
systems, which fundamentally differ so far from technology
supported systems represent particular challenges. African rural
communities’ life is deeply rooted in an African Indigenous
knowledge system manifested in their practices such as
Traditional Medicine. We describe our endeavors to elicit
requirements to design a system to support the accumulation
and sharing of traditional local knowledge within two rural
Herero communities in Namibia. We show how our method
addressed various challenges in eliciting and depicting
intangible principles arising because African communities do
not dichotomize theoretical and practical know-how or
privilege a science of abstraction and generalization.
Ethnography provided insights into etiology, or causal interrelationships
between social values, spiritual elements and
everyday life. Participatory methods, involving youth and
elders, revealed nuances in social relations and pedagogy
pertinent to the transfer of knowledge from generation to
generation. Researcher and participant-recorded audio-visual
media revealed that interactions prioritize speech, gesture and
bodily interaction, above visual context. Analysis of the
performed and narrated structures reveal some of the ways that
people tacitly transfer bodily and felt-experiences and temporal
patterns in storytelling. Experiments using digital and paperbased
media, in situ rurally showed the ways that people in
rural settings encounter and learn within their everyday
experiences of the land. These analyses also demonstrate that
own ontological and representational biases can constrain
eliciting local meanings and analyzing transformations in
meaning as we introduce media. Reflections on our method are
of value to others who need to elicit requirements in
communities whose literacy, social and spiritual logic and
values profoundly differ from those in the knowledge systems
that typify ICT design.
Description
Keywords
Knowledge systems, Indigenous knowledge systems, Information systems, Communication patterns, Conferences and workshops, SAICSIT '10, 2010, Bela Bela, Rural communities - Africa - Communication
Citation
Chivuno-Kuria, S., Kapuire, G. K., Bidwell, N. J., & Winschiers-Thophilus, H. (2010). Determining requirements within an indigenous knowledge system of African rural communities. Paper presented at SAICSIT '10, October 11-13, 2010, Bella Balla, South Africa.