Determining requirements within an indigenous knowledge system of African rural communities

Eliciting and analyzing requirements within knowledge systems, which fundamentally differ so far from technology supported systems represent particular challenges. African rural communities' life is deeply rooted in an African Indigenous knowledge system manifested in their practices such as Traditional Medicine. We describe our endeavors to elicit requirements to design a system to support the accumulation and sharing of traditional local knowledge within two rural Herero communities in Namibia. We show how our method addressed various challenges in eliciting and depicting intangible principles arising because African communities do not dichotomize theoretical and practical know-how or e a science of abstraction and generalization. Ethnography provided insights into etiology, or causal interrelationships between social values, spiritual elements and everyday life. Participatory methods, involving youth and elders, revealed nuances in social relations and pedagogy pertinent to th...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: SAICSIT
• Authors: Heike Winschiers-Theophilus, Nicola J. Bidwell, Shilumbe Chivuno-Kuria, Gereon Koch Kapuire
• Keywords: African Rural Communities, Information Technology, Knowledge Systems, Rural Herero Communities, SAICSIT 2010