Ontology of Folk knowledge Among Lake Fishermen in Suez Governorate. “The Village of Kabreet El Mafariq as a Modle”

Abstract

The importance of the study is the interest in the field of folk knowledge, an area that has not received sufficient attention. While scholars have often focused on other areas and themes of intangible cultural heritage such as customs, beliefs, and folk arts, interest of folk knowledge - at least at the local level - has diminished, despite its importance and usefulness to most human life activities. The study aims to draw attention to the importance of studying folk knowledge in all types of our Arab communities in order to benefit from it in achieving developmental goals. The study seeks to monitor, analyze and interpret the folk knowledge of some lake fishermen as a model that illustrates the important and depth of this knowledge and the importance of preserving it because of its meanings, values and skills that contribute to development. The problem of research is determined in the study of folk knowledge related to fishing activity in lakes in an Egyptian village, in the light of a conceptual relationship between the concepts of folk knowledge, ecology, ontology, and fishing. The research methodology is concerned with the ecological dimensions and the ontology of folk knowledge, and the use of the anthropological approach with its most important tools of observation, informants, and in-depth interviews to study cases of fishermen in one of our Egyptian communities. The research is divided into two parts, the first of which deals with the research methodology and includes the most important concepts, literature of folk knowledge in fishing, and the anthropological approach and tools. The second part deals with the results of the field study, divided into folk knowledge of fish species and their locations, and then knowledge of cosmic phenomena affecting fishing activity.

Keywords

• folk knowledge; ontology; ecology; fishing