Co-designing a Platform for Documenting African Indigenous Knowledge: Participatory Citizen Science and Data Science Approaches

Abstract

Africa indigenous knowledge (AIK) is innovative and unique among local and subsistent smallholder farmers. AIK drives food production, preservation and consumption for more than 80% of citizens in Africa. However, AIK face risk of extinction due to increased rural-urban migration, land grabbing, penetration of multinational companies and the emergence of relatively small-scale indigenous commercial farming businesses. While this necessitates the documentation and strengthening the link between AIK and modern food production efforts in Africa, librarians and other information professionals in Africa are confronted with the challenges to capture and document this implicit knowledge. Our study combines data science and citizen science approaches through active community and smallholder farmers’ participation and data-driven analyticsto define a curated digital platform for capturing, documenting and sharing African indigenous knowledge of agriculture and food systems. The goal is to provide insights, facilitate learning and promote knowledge that is relevant for policy intervention and sustainable food production based on ethical and FAIR principles. The research results show the importance of stakeholders, in particular farmers, as active agents for co designing the AIK management platform and bridging the gap between indigenous and scientific knowledge for promoting resilient food system. We conclude by arguing that learning from AIK by investigating what local communities know and have, can improve understanding of food production and consumption, particularly in times of stress or shocks affecting the food systems and communities.