Traditional Knowledge

From Tgc

A snippet from

IMPLEMENTING A TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE COMMONS: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES

a document from Natural Justice, South Africa

Some of the healers believe that commodification can even affect the efficacy of the knowledge since it separates the healer from the community by restricting their interaction to a material relationship mediated by the commodity. The healers see a large part of healing as involving a spiritual reaching out to the ailing, which is adversely affected if the entire relationship is based on a pure commercial transaction.

The movement of knowledge as a relationship on the other hand blurs the boundaries between the self and others, strengthening the cultural and spiritual bonds that form a community:

When “knowledge” passes from hand to hand in this spirit, it becomes a binder of many wills. What gathers in it is not only the sentiment of generosity but the affirmation of individual goodwill, making those separate parts a spiritus mundi, a unanimous heart, a band whose wills are focused through the lens of the “shared knowledge.” Thus the knowledge becomes an agent of social cohesion, and this again leads to the feeling that its passage increases its worth, for in social life, at least, the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts. If it brings the group together, the “knowledge” increases in worth immediately upon its first circulation, and then like a faithful lover, continues to grow through constancy