An Ethnography of Knowledge

This book contributes to academic debates on knowledge. A resettlement area with people resettling from different agro-ecological regions with different knowledge and approaches to agriculture and farming provides a fascinating area to investigate how knowledge is produced and socialised. The fact that the resettlement scheme became a melting pot of different knowledge makes the term ‘local’ problematic yet farmers still use and produce knowledge that is considered ‘local’. Of interest is how the gender dynamics, politics, power, conflicts, resistance, religious beliefs and government policies impact on farming knowledge and on farming in general. This book unravels how local knowledge makes use of scientifically based state organised interventions. The book is of interest to policy makers and anyone involved in development studies.

Netsayi N. Mudege, PhD (2005) in Social Sciences, Wageningen University and Research Centre, is a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe in the department of Sociology. She is also a post-doctoral fellow with the African Population and Health Research Center in Nairobi.