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Scenarios as a Tool for Eliciting and Understanding Farmers’ Biological Knowledge

University of California, Santa Barbara

David A. Cleveland

University of California, Santa Barbara

Modern scientific knowledge and indigenous or traditionally based knowledge are often assumed to be fundamentally different and incomparable. Testing this assumption is important theoretically and for supporting scientist-farmer collaboration to improve farmers’ well-being in their own terms. We illustrate the use of scenarios based on a basic biological model to understand farmers’ theoretical biological knowledge. Scenarios depict aspects of the model in terms comprehensible to farmers and relevant to collaboration with scientific plant breeders. Results suggest that scenarios are useful for eliciting traditionally based biological knowledge and that farmers’ theoretical biological knowledge is based on the same model as that of scientists.

Key Words: scenarios • indigenous knowledge • scientific knowledge • farmers • plant breeding • participatory research and development

Field Methods, Vol. 17, No. 3, 283-301 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/1525822X05277476


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