Indigenous knowledge in education in north-east India

Sammanfattning: Considering the need to preserve indigenous knowledge with relevance to the global ESD discourse, the purpose of this study is to explore and understand the value and status of indigenous knowledge (IK) in the context of integrating this in the formal school curriculum, with a focus in the North-eastern (NE) region of India. This study is grounded within the theoretical framework of Critical pedagogy of Place proposed by Gruenewald. This research study follows a qualitative approach through a semi-structured interview process (involving eight participants) to gather information and address the gaps in the current literature and find answers to the research problems. The final dataset was analyzed using thematic analysis procedure. The outcomes of this study assured that indigenous knowledge continues to be valuable and important for the society in the NE region of India. Participants showed tremendous respect and pride for IK and considers such knowledge as valuable. However, respondents have also raised a unanimous cause for concern that even though some forms of their traditional knowledge were still prevalent in their communities, the overall scenario was not highly encouraging, and the practice of IK was on the decline. In fact, few of the indigenous participants were equally worried that in case their IK were to fully disappear in due course of time, their identity in the society might be lost. They cited globalization and proliferation of digital media as two main reasons for the continuous decline of IK in their communities. Gradual loss of knowledge increases the vulnerability and risks for indigenous populations and therefore, the importance of IK education through formal schooling was explored within the scope of this study. Participants shared their experiences and highlighted that having IK content in the textbooks within their educational curriculum can be quite helpful to spread the knowledge of IK amongst students in the NE region. They shared that there were already some forms of IK in the existing textbooks, and this could be a good starting point to help expand the content in a systematic way. Still, they cited concerns on the availability of IK documents as a hindrance to scaling up the introduction of additional IK knowledge. Inspite of this challenge, a general understanding that has surfaced out of this study is also the fact that the NE region is quite well positioned to take appropriate steps to preserve IK through ESD objectives and discourses. With the government of India and the local state governments in the NE region rejuvenating IK through political intent, e.g., by introducing IK specific schools, and together with the increasing awareness of IK in the NE region as highlighted in the literature, there is already a strong ground to plan and act on.