Theory of Knowledge - Course Companion for Students Marija Uzunova Dang Arvin Singh Uzunov Dang

III. Methods and tools
and mutual aid as an ethic of care underpinned
learning
herbalist practices and companies grew out of
how
justice movements as political projects (see Katz
health
Kropotkin 1902 on mutual aid and solidarity as
1981;
key dierence between biomedical practitioners
A
herbalists, though, lies in how they produce
and
for themselves about the materials of their
knowledge
and its bodily eects—where herbalists
medicine,
and smell and try plant-medicines to understand
taste
eects, biomedical doctors are not generally
their
to sample all the pharmaceuticals they
encouraged
prescribe. Thus, it is the substances about which
could
experiences produce knowledge: whole plant
herbalists’
made from plants conceived as beings with
preparations,
humans can have intimate relations, instead of as
whom
and whole bodies understood to be shaped
resources;
constitutions and individual tendencies, but always
by
in relationship with the world around them.
already
regulatory measures have moved away
Contemporary
bodily attunements, seeking evidence produced
from
machines (such as isolated molecular structures) to
by
in for the tastes and smells that trained bodies can
stand
terms: Aeon Magic
Search
ormedicine?
we guard against romanticizing the
While
of traditional communities and
knowledge
the advances and perspective of
devaluing
medicine, we must also recognize the
modern
of Indigenous knowledge wrought
devastation
centuries of colonial rule and subsequent
by
instability. Consider this article, which
political
describes the challenges of global
powerfully
amid folk approaches to healing among
health
communities in Uganda.
Indigenous
What roles do belief and scepticism play in
1.
we receive knowledge from different
how
about medicines and health, herbalists make
evidence
and social interventions into regulatory worlds,
political
to shift how federal and state monitors allow
seeking
to identify medicines with trained bodily senses.
them
reveals a politics of evidence as herbalists
Herbalism
claims about plants’ healing capacities and about
make
as a system of knowledge. What’s most
herbalism
is to ask: whose evidence, and evidence
interesting
what purposes, has shaped western herbalism
for
a set of intellectual orientations? And how does
as
institutionalization make claims on regulatory
its
as it tries to at once hold on to, but also move
structures,
legitimacy in terms of biomedical standards
Producing
evidence may not be at the forefront of all herbalists’
of
but it does play a central role in the creation and
minds,
of structured curricula like that used at
maintenance
Center. In other words, herbalists’ attempts to make
The
work legitimate to regulators and to the general
their
is shaping how they teach herbalism. Part of
public
professionalization of herbalists as they seek to
the
new possibilities for legitimate medicine through
make
politics of evidence relies also on a change in
changing
What factors within and external to a
2.
affect the perceived or actual
community
(a) Under what circumstances can the
3.
between Indigenous and
encounter
knowledge produce negative
scientific
results?
How might we distinguish between
(b)
knowledge and other beliefs
Indigenous
(a) In the context of this example, which
4.
can be used to make
standards
about whether knowledge
judgments
“works”?
(b) Who should set the standards?
Should these standards apply
(c)
or should there be
universally
5
political modes).
out of a space of alternative-ness?
identify. In response to the gray area of what counts as
institutional forms.”
Practising skills: Exploring perspectives and evaluating claims
legitimacy of its knowledge?
held by local populations?
cultures?
limitations and exceptions?
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