Gender, tradition and sustainability: Evaluating the applicability of indigenous knowledge in post-colonial societies. The example of Kenya

The perennial economic and ecological crisis of modernization has led scholars, researchers and development experts to look for alternative strategies for improving livelihoods especially in the Third World. As development continues to elude many in the South, some scholars and development experts have dismissed Western development anchored in the ideas of science and technology as the prerequisite to better life. They argue that science and technology can no longer be relied upon to resolve critical economic and environmental problems, or to promote sustainability and propose that the crises of modernization can be reversed through a return to pre-colonial practices. They assert that because traditional societies managed to sustain their livelihoods over millennia by drawing upon indigenous knowledge, so can contemporary societies. Indigenous knowledge could not only help contemporary societies deal with the economic and ecological problems of industrialization but also lead them to sustanability.; Drawing upon historical evidence and data on gender and land tenure from pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial Kenya, the study argues that it is premature to conclude that traditional knowledge necessarily enhances sustainability. Access to, ownership of and control of land, the main source of livelihood for the majority of the people in Kenya, has historically been, and continues today to be, a male privilege. This study argues that pre-colonial societies were not sustainable and are, therefore, not good exemplars of sustainability, considering that control and distribution of land was both gendered and inequitable. Thus, it is erroneous not only to claim that pre-colonial societies were sustainable, but also to pretend that using traditional knowledge based on that faulty assumption would promote sustainability. Traditional knowledge, however, might facilitate sustainability if three conditions are met: first, if traditional knowledge is de-essentialized; second, if traditional knowledge is accompanied by social policies and land tenure reforms that promote gender equity and ensure both women and men have equal access to land and other resource; and third, if traditional knowledge is integrated with science and technology and other forms of knowledge.