Networks of knowledge: how farmers and scientists understand soils and their fertility. a case study from Ethiopia

This paper explores knowledge about soils and their fertility from the perspective of different players, including both scientists and farmers. Different understandings of soils and their management are seen to be bound up with the contexts within which knowledges about soils are created—the networks of players engaged in building knowledge, the settings within which ideas about soils are tested and examined, and the wider assumptions and beliefs that different people carry with them. The contrasting, and sometimes overlapping, understanding of soils by farmers, scientists and development practitioners in Ethiopia is focused on. Drawing on a range of documentary material and detailed fieldwork carried out in Wolayta, southern Ethiopia, over a number of years, the paper argues that a focus on the contexts for the generation of different knowledges helps avoid the unhelpful distinctions often made between indigenous and scientific knowledges, and moves analytical attention towards an assessment of who is involved in knowledge creation and the power relations implied. The paper concludes with a discussion of how multiple knowledges about soils and their fertility might interact in the context of meeting agricultural development challenges and the potential for a productive engagement between different actors and networks.