Agricultural Development NGOs, Anthropology, and the Encounter With Cultural Knowledge

This article is intended to contribute to developmentanthropologists understanding of the role of culturalknowledge in the context of agricultural rural developmentprojects run by NGOs in the Third World. Paying particular attention to narrative constructs of deficiency in local livelihoods and knowledge of indigenous peasants of high-land Peru, it is argued that these constructs impede a fullerappreciation of the value of culture and the potential of localknowledge for development and conservation. In this respect, the role of development anthropologists is crucial, not only because of their familiarity with cultural knowledge but also because they are positioned to harmonize develop mentalist agendas with cultural knowledge. Drawing onethnographic data, the article examines one particular caseof a Peruvian NGO seeking to incorporate indigenousknowledge into its praxis. The tensions that emerge through this incorporation are investigated vis-à-vis the explanatory frameworks and agendas of conventional agricul-tural development models. It is concluded that the use oflocal knowledge in agricultural development necessarilyentails a shift away from positivist understandings of knowledge, and that the task of development anthropologists may involve challenging some of the deep assumptions that development embodies.