"Formations" of knowledge

I'm noticing that I tend to focus on "things that indigenous people know that Western people don't." But this course is not just about a checklist of things that one group does or doesn't know. It's about approaches to knowledge. It's about management of knowledge. How is knowledge approached, shared? As Norm said, how does one position oneself with respect to knowledge? One aspect of this he talked about was different knowledge formations. One formation is a circle of people discussing and sharing what they know, gradually reaching a mutual understanding. Another formation is clever guy/gal standing up in front of a room talking as the authority, and then getting challenging questions at the end, in which members of the audience essentially say, "But aren't you wrong, because of this, that and the other?" Academia clearly accords one kind of knowledge sharing more status and respect than the other. Academia seems to value knowledge sharing as status display and contest more than knowledge sharing as creative process. You know, I'm really good at that display and contest thing, so I have to admit I kind of like it. I'm opinionated and argumentative, so I like a chance to use those traits. Which is different from saying that I get the best results I could by using those traits. Maybe things would be different if I weren't so quick to say, "But wait, that's wrong because of X, Y and Z." On the other hand, that's not all I enjoy. I equally enjoy knowledge sharing as creative process. One of the things I love about talking to women scientists is exactly that quality of conversation. It's a more cooperative type of conversation, and I daresay I learn more from these.

I think, though, that I am just beginning to get the vaguest hints of what knowledge sharing and management are in Aboriginal cultures. So I'll have to reflect further on this.