ReCLAIM: Reframing Ecological Land Evaluation in Zimbabwe: re-centering indigenous knowledge by participatory and cross-disciplinary research.
Lead Research Organisation:
UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM
Abstract
Zimbabwean smallholders live with the aftermath of colonial expropriation which displaced communities onto poor soils with inadequate rainfall and disrupted indigenous knowledge systems (IKS). A colonial agroecological survey (AES), mapped Natural Regions (NR) with reference to requirements for commercial maize and tobacco production. The NR are still used for research, extension (advice) and policy, although it is unlikely that they represent constraints on African farming systems.
To deliver context-sensitive and equitable solutions, science must be part of an interdisciplinary effort in partnership with rural communities, bringing IKS into dialogue with scientific knowledge and critically re-evaluating information inherited from the colonial period. We shall pilot an integrated assessment of Zimbabwe’s NR, including the co-evaluation with communities of IKS and scientific understanding to inform revision of national-scale information.
Objectives and interdisciplinary approach.
1. To re-evaluate NR critically from integrated scientific, historical, cultural and social perspectives
Through interdisciplinary reading of internal and archival evidence, grounded in historical methodology but including cultural-linguistic, social and natural science perspectives, we shall examine the methodology of the AES, and its political, economic and social context, to show how this constrained its output. We shall develop and apply crop models, parameterized with historical weather, soil and crop yield data, to assess how far use of a particular commercial reference cropping system skewed the NR from regionalizations more relevant to African farming. By recalibrating the model with modern crop and weather data, we shall propose alternative regionalized Crop Production Domains (CPD).
2. To understand IKS in contrasting environments, and how they can inform practice when related, but not reduced, to scientific information.
In participatory research, with four communities in two contrasting NR, we shall co-produce accounts of IKS for local soils and cropping, using mixed methods to combine oral history, social and linguistic investigation of “talk about soil”. We shall construct local scientific soil information (SSI), by sampling and statistical modelling, then develop a double description to show how IKS and SSI sit in some degree of partial correspondence, and how both can support advice and practice.
3. To integrate national and local scale findings for impact.
Variation of the local IKS and SSI within and between the NR will be compared with the original account of their potential as a first picture of how far the NR ignored the potential of African farming systems, and how far they captured constraints. The model-based CPD will be compared similarly.
We co-produced this proposal with three partner organizations in Zimbabwe for critical feedback and for pathways to impact. Information about the NR, and alternative CPD classifications to support other crops and systems, and emerging accounts of IKS and SSI, will be shared and discussed with Zimbabwe’s Department of Research and Specialist Services (DR&SS) to explore how it should inform research at their stations around the country, and its interpretation to support extension. We have also agreed to collaborate with the Zimbabwe National Geospatial and Space Agency (ZINGSA) to develop new products on CPD and soil conditions to add to the digital spatial information products it generates to support agriculture via phone apps.
The Integral Kumusha Foundation promotes community development through harnessing indigenous knowledge. They will provide critical feedback during the project, and will jointly run a “Communiversity” event in their outreach programme to share findings with their participating communities and stakeholders.
To deliver context-sensitive and equitable solutions, science must be part of an interdisciplinary effort in partnership with rural communities, bringing IKS into dialogue with scientific knowledge and critically re-evaluating information inherited from the colonial period. We shall pilot an integrated assessment of Zimbabwe’s NR, including the co-evaluation with communities of IKS and scientific understanding to inform revision of national-scale information.
Objectives and interdisciplinary approach.
1. To re-evaluate NR critically from integrated scientific, historical, cultural and social perspectives
Through interdisciplinary reading of internal and archival evidence, grounded in historical methodology but including cultural-linguistic, social and natural science perspectives, we shall examine the methodology of the AES, and its political, economic and social context, to show how this constrained its output. We shall develop and apply crop models, parameterized with historical weather, soil and crop yield data, to assess how far use of a particular commercial reference cropping system skewed the NR from regionalizations more relevant to African farming. By recalibrating the model with modern crop and weather data, we shall propose alternative regionalized Crop Production Domains (CPD).
2. To understand IKS in contrasting environments, and how they can inform practice when related, but not reduced, to scientific information.
In participatory research, with four communities in two contrasting NR, we shall co-produce accounts of IKS for local soils and cropping, using mixed methods to combine oral history, social and linguistic investigation of “talk about soil”. We shall construct local scientific soil information (SSI), by sampling and statistical modelling, then develop a double description to show how IKS and SSI sit in some degree of partial correspondence, and how both can support advice and practice.
3. To integrate national and local scale findings for impact.
Variation of the local IKS and SSI within and between the NR will be compared with the original account of their potential as a first picture of how far the NR ignored the potential of African farming systems, and how far they captured constraints. The model-based CPD will be compared similarly.
We co-produced this proposal with three partner organizations in Zimbabwe for critical feedback and for pathways to impact. Information about the NR, and alternative CPD classifications to support other crops and systems, and emerging accounts of IKS and SSI, will be shared and discussed with Zimbabwe’s Department of Research and Specialist Services (DR&SS) to explore how it should inform research at their stations around the country, and its interpretation to support extension. We have also agreed to collaborate with the Zimbabwe National Geospatial and Space Agency (ZINGSA) to develop new products on CPD and soil conditions to add to the digital spatial information products it generates to support agriculture via phone apps.
The Integral Kumusha Foundation promotes community development through harnessing indigenous knowledge. They will provide critical feedback during the project, and will jointly run a “Communiversity” event in their outreach programme to share findings with their participating communities and stakeholders.