INCORPORATION OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND PERSPECTIVES IN AGROFORESTRY DEVELOPMENT .1. REVIEW OF METHODS AND THEIR APPLICATION

Calls for the effective integration of indigenous knowledge and perspe ctive into agroforestry are increasingly familiar in agroforestry prog rammes. This is the result of a need to better target research, ethica l concerns about participation and power and the recognition that indi genous knowledge is a potentially powerful source of understanding tha t may often be complementary to scientific knowledge. Incorporating in digenous knowledge into development may be achieved through farmer par ticipation in research planning and implementation, external survey of local needs as a basis for planning research or the active synthesis of indigenous and scientific knowledge (in addition to collaboration b etween the scientist and the farmer) in order to capitalise on their p otential complementarity. It is argued that active synthesis has recei ved inadequate attention. In part this is because it demands rigorous analysis of indigenous and scientific knowledge. This is an exacting p rocess and requires effective means of explicitly representing the kno wledge concerned. An approach to this task is briefly introduced. A ca se study description and evaluation can be found in the accompanying p aper [Thapa et al., 1995 (this issue)].