The management and preservation of indigenous knowledge in Dlangubo village in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to establish various practices of indigenous knowledge (IK) commonly used in the Dlangubo village, and methods and tools used in managing IK; to determine ownership protocols and what they know about the South African (SA) intellectual property (IP) laws; to explore the role of libraries and information and communication technologies (ICTs) in managing IK and, lastly, what model can be developed for the management of IK in the Dlangubo village, in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa. In order to gain more insight about the problem studied, the socialisation, externalisation, combination and internalisation (SECI) model of knowledge management and the diffusion of innovation (DoI) model were adopted. The SECI model helped in understanding the modes of knowledge creation and transfer that were used in managing IK in the area of study. The DoI model was important in understanding the perceptions of the community about the South African intellectual property (IP) laws, the libraries and the ICTs in managing IK.

This study used the constructivist theoretical underpinning and adopted the qualitative approach in order to inquire in depth and explore the studied phenomenon in the natural setting of the Dlangubo village. This approach allowed the researcher to engage in an in-depth interviewing process with the participants in order to explore IK management challenges and then get empirical evidence about the area studied. Flowing from the qualitative approach, the grounded theory (GT) was adopted because it uses the systematic inductive approach to inquiry followed by a constant comparison of categories in order to generate theory, which is grounded in data of the sampled participants of the Dlangubo village

The findings of the study indicated that the practices that were predominantly used in the area of study included agricultural crop farming and livestock keeping, the initiation of girls into adulthood and beadwork. The in-situ preservation strategies were more common than the ex-situ preservation strategies. Most of the respondents indicated that they acquired IK through apprenticeship of family line. The majority did not have knowledge or had insufficient knowledge about the South African IP laws. In addition, they were not using the libraries and the ICTs in managing their IK. The model that was recommended was to have the cultural information centre where they can sit together and share their IK and skills, and market their finished products.