The Epistemic Status of Indigenous Knowledge: A Socio-epistemological Approach

Abstract

The notion of indigenous knowledge has mostly been constructed based on the assumption that knowledge is actually intertwined with any certain socio-cultural condition. In that assumption, the social somehow is considered determining how knowledge is produced and obtained in any society. In other words, the tenability of knowledge is not measured merely by individual reasoning but through the question of how some beliefs can be justified by social context. Hence, the main objective of this paper is to argue that indigenous knowledge is as valid as scientific knowledge with some conditions, that is its openness to be falsified. Therefore, the paper argues that the separation between indigenous knowledge and scientific knowledge is irrelevant.