Tutaleni I. Asino
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Indigenous knowledge and Science

Word count: 208

In writing that “the historical origins and evolution of science within Euro-American cultures naturally causes its practitioners (today’s scientists) to embrace certain fundamental worldviews, epistemologies, ideologies, and values; all related to science’s origin and evolution”, I believe Aikenhead & Ogawa (2007) accurately captures the friction and superiority complex that some scientist from Euro-American cultures seem to have with science that originates outside of their borders. This passage reminded me of the first time I came to the US and the amount of paper I had to produced to prove that I was inoculated against numerous diseases only to find that some of my papers and the papers of other students from Asia and Latin America were looked at much more critically than those from European countries. The prevailing view seems to be that unless the science is Euro-American approved it needs to undergo further scrutiny.

The question that this article left me with was this: if inherent in the concept of Science is an Euro-American biases which leads many to dismiss the scientific nature of indigenous knowledge, what term can be invented to apply to the scientific nature of indigenous knowledge

Aikenhead, G. S., & Ogawa, M. (2007). Indigenous knowledge and science revisited. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2, 539–620. doi:10.1007/s11422-007-9067-8.

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