An explorative action research study toward the design of a digital knowledge organisation as part of an Indigenous Knowledge Management system with a Herero community

Description

Indigenous Knowledge Management Systems are being developed in order to preserve, process and retrieve knowledge. Unfortunately, most of the systems available do not take into account cultural ways of organising and sharing of indigenous knowledge by local communities. Current technology trends and developments have hardly been informed by African indigenous and rural knowledge systems. Thus, either substantial modifications are necessary in adapting technology to the requirements of indigenous knowledge systems, or those systems are inadequately represented through technologies. This work explores different options of organising video recorded indigenous knowledge in the pursuit of maintaining local communication patterns and practices.

(continued…) The thesis presents methodological perspectives on the challenge and aims of designing products suited to rural practices and conceptualisations in Southern Africa. We pursue an explorative study following and action research approach. The evolutionary design of our indigenous knowledge management system is informed by a series of interactions, reflections, discussions and prototype evaluations with a pilot community in Eastern Namibia. We have extracted themes out of the discussions and interactions to inform our design and the development of a digital knowledge organisation.