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Knowledge guardianship, custodianship and ethics: a Melanesian perspective
Abstract
Across the world, knowledge communities categorise and attach conditions of guardianship to different kinds of knowledge. For private or secret knowledge, those responsible for its care have obligations for arranging and restricting transmission to ensure community survival. While an insider/outsider positionality is often used to navigate this knowledge area, a binary approach is unhelpful. Taking a more relational reading of positionality, we support a dynamic understanding of the transmission of restricted knowledge, using relevant principles of guardianship or custodianship. Based on a Melanesian Solomon Islands tribe, the study sketches a set of principles and shows how they operate in practice. Our intents are to honour the contribution that Melanesian thought makes to rethinking research dichotomies regarding secret knowledge, that readers appreciate the dynamic nature of knowledge guardianship, and that this case study enhances the discussion on ethical entitlement to, or restriction of, Indigenous knowledge in the Pacific region and beyond.
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“Some Pacific-Indigenous scholars have emphasised different types of knowledge (Sanga & Reynolds, 2020) and, in comparison to Western knowledge traditions, not all knowledge is publicly accessible; rather, knowledge is relationally accessible.”
From Decolonising Qualitative Analysis: Collectively Weaving Understanding Using Talanoa and Fa'afaletui Pacific-Indigenous Research Methods (2024) · cites this paper as Sanga & Reynolds, 2020
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Research works printed but not linked: 24
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Mafile’o, T., Vaka, S., Leau, K., Satele, P., & Alefaio-Tugia, S. (2024) · International Journal of Qualitative Methods · doi:10.1177/16094069241272241 · Cited by 16
“Some Paci fi c-Indigenous scholars have emphasised different types of knowledge (Sanga & Reynolds, 2020) and, in comparison to Western knowledge traditions, not all knowledge is publicly accessible; rather, knowledge is relationally accessible.”
Metadata
- Authors
- Sanga, K., & Reynolds, M.
- Affiliations
- Victoria University of Wellington (NZ)
- Corresponding author
- Sanga, Kabini
- Venue
- AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2020-05-04
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 99-107
- ISSN
- 1174-1740 (ISSN-L)
- 1177-1801
- OpenAlex
- W3020826512
- Cited by
- 14
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 1.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- AlterNative An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights
- Social Sciences › Law › Indigenous Peoples' Rights and Law
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Australian Indigenous Culture and History
- Keywords
- hidden knowledge, insider-outsider positionality
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- Sanga, K., & Reynolds, M. (2020). Knowledge guardianship, custodianship and ethics: a Melanesian perspective. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples. https://doi.org/10.1177/1177180120917481
