Browsing by Author "Winschiers-Theophilus, Heike"

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    Community-based co-design of a crowdsourcing task management application for safeguarding indigenous knowledge
    (2020) Stanley, Colin; Blake, Edwin; Winschiers-Theophilus, Heike
    Teaching indigenous knowledge (IK) to African youth has become more complicated due to a variety of reasons such as urban migration, loss of interest in it, the dominance of scientific knowledge and the technological revolution. Therefore, there is a considerable movement towards using technologies to safeguard IK before it becomes obsolete. It is noteworthy that research conducted and software development perspectives being used are mainly based on Western worldviews that are inappropriate for African socio-cultural contexts. IK holders are often not in charge of the digitisation process and merely treated as subjects. In this study, we explored a suitable development approach of a crowdsourcing task management application (TMA) as an auxiliary tool for safeguarding IK. Moreover, the study sought to provide an opportunity for the indigenous communities to make requests of three-dimensional (3D) models of their traditional objects independently. The delivered traditional 3D models are imported into the communities' IK visualisation tools used by the IK holders to teach the youth about their cultural heritage. The main objective of this study was to ascertain how the indigenous rural communities could appropriate a foreign technological concept such as crowdsourcing. This brought about our first research theme: investigating the necessary conditions to establish and maintain beneficial embedded community engagement. The second theme was to determine the suitable methods for technology co-design. Thirdly, to discover what does the communities' appropriated crowdsourcing concept entail. We applied a consolidated research method based on Community-based CoDesign (CBCD) extended with Afrocentric research insights and operationalised with Action Research cycle principles of planning, action and reflection. CBCD was conducted in three cycles with Otjiherero speaking indigenous rural communities from Namibia. Reflections from the first cycle revealed that the rural communities would require unique features in their crowdsourcing application. During the second cycle of co-designing with the ovaHimba community, we learnt that CBCD is matured through mutual trust, reciprocity and skills transfer and deconstructing mainstream technologies to spark co-design ideas. Lastly, in our third cycle of CBCD, we showcased that communities of similar cultures and knowledge construction had common ideas of co-designing the TMA. We also simulated that the construction of traditional 3D models requires indigenous communities to provide insight details of the traditional object to minimise unsatisfactory deliverables. The findings of this study are contributing in two areas (1) research approach and (2) appropriation of technology. We provide a synthesis of Oundu moral values and Afrocentricity as a foundation for conducting Afrocentric research to establish and maintain humanness before CBCD can take place. With those taken as inherent moral values, Afrocentricity should then solely be focused on knowledge construction within an African epistemology. For the appropriation of technology, we share codesign techniques on how the indigenous rural communities appropriated the mainstream crowdsourcing concept through local meaning-making. CBCD researchers should incorporate Afrocentricity for mutual learning, knowledge construction, and sharing for the benefit of all.
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    An explorative action research study toward the design of a digital knowledge organisation as part of an indigenous knowledge management system with a Herero community
    (2013) Kapuire, Gereon Koch; Winschiers-Theophilus, Heike
    Indigenous Knowledge Management Systems are being developed in order to preserve, process and retrieve knowledge. Unfortunately, most of the systems available do not take into account the different cultural ways of organising and sharing indigenous knowledge. Current technology trends and developments have hardly been informed by African indigenous and rural knowledge systems. Either substantial modifications are necessary in adapting technology to the requirements of indigenous knowledge systems, or those systems are inadequately represented through technologies. This dissertation explores different options for organising video recorded indigenous knowledge, in the pursuit of maintaining local communication patterns and practices. Furthermore, methodological perspectives on the challenges and aims of designing products suited to rural practices and conceptualisations in Southern Africa will be explored. We pursue an explorative study following and action research approach. The evolutionary design of our indigenous knowledge management system is informed by a series of interactions, reflections, discussions and prototype evaluations with a pilot community in Eastern Namibia. We have extracted themes out of the discussions and interactions to inform our design and the development of a digital knowledge organisation.