The nature of indigenous environmental knowledge production: Evidence from Bedouin communities in Southern Egypt

The use of indigenous knowledge has been seen in some quarters to offer real possibilities of success in development practice. However, results have been uneven, perhaps because of the way in which indigenous knowledge has been conceptualised. Drawing on empirical research among two related Bedouin communities in Egypt, the paper suggests that indigenous knowledge is provisional and dynamic and therefore rather less static than implied in much of the literature; it should be seen as utilitarian and grounded, both economically and socio-culturally; and indigenous knowledge as a term may be unhelpful and misleading and would be better expressed as local knowledges.