Communicating in a Culturally Appropriate Way

The development of photo-posters to educate the Nigerian community on the perceived problems of teething was prompted by research findings which revealed that misconceptions about teething were widespread within the populace and in particular among some health professionals. Studies have shown that 58% of ethnic Yoruba rural dwellers in Nigeria attributed ailments to the teething process, while 70% of market women in Enugu State perceived diarrhea in their children was due to teething. In a recent survey, 61.4% of nurses believed diarrhea should accompany the teething process. Furthermore 82.1%, 35.8%, and 27.9% of them implicated fever, weight loss, and boils respectively as signs of teething. Photo-posters adopt the use of visual representation of a problem and the goal of using photo-posters is to begin to create an understanding in the minds of people that babies can be healthy in spite of their erupting teeth. It is believed that using pictures of real babies who are seen to be healthy when their teeth first emerge should go a long way to reducing some of the misconceived ideas. In its development, the participatory approach was adopted involving selected members of the target population, thus making it a culturally appropriate tool. This article describes the rationale behind the choice of the photo-posters and the process of developing them.

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Narrative Exchange as Knowledge Transfer: The Rhetorical Construction of Opposition to GM Crops in SW England

Anthropology Matters ◽

10.22582/am.v13i1.220 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

Author(s):

David Downing

Keyword(s):

Knowledge Transfer ◽

Empirical Evidence ◽

Food Chain ◽

Genetically Modified Organisms ◽

Local Food ◽

Culturally Appropriate ◽

Rhetorical Construction ◽

Risks And Benefits ◽

Ethnographic Data ◽

The Uk

The release of genetically modified organisms into the environment and food chain in the UK has produced one of the most visible and enduring controversies of recent times. Amid ongoing claim and counter-claim by actors on either side of the GM ‘debate’ over the salient ‘facts’ or balance of risks and benefits associated with the technology, this controversy can be fruitfully seen as a struggle between contested networks of knowledge. Drawing on ethnographic data collected during recent PhD fieldwork, I focus on those, loosely defined as members of ‘local food networks’ in SW England, who perceive their values and cultural projects to be at risk from the deployment of this technology. In scrutinizing how distinctly ‘oppositional’ knowledge is created, exchanged and transformed particularly in relation to the construction and maintenance of cultural and historical boundaries, I suggest that in this arena a key vehicle of knowledge transfer is the narrative or story. A successfully deployed narrative can resolve uncertainties, or equally, dissolve undesirable certainties. Knowledge transfer thus becomes a matter of rhetoric, of persuasion, whereby skilfully deployed narratives can be viewed as analogical networks of associations - enrolling culturally appropriate characters, values and concepts - to move the targeted audience in the desired manner. I argue that such transfers must be seen not only as exchanges of networks of knowledge but also of networks of ignorance, for as the ethnographic data reveals, when the stakes are perceived to be so high, ideological coherence often outweighs empirical evidence and logical consistency. This raises a critical dilemma for the ethnographer. What should he/she do when confronted in the field by exaggerated claims or misinformation?

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