The concern underlying the present reflections is how to respond to the change in the “mode of development”, in which knowledge is presumed to be the greatest added value of the goods and services that are generated, especially from Latin America and in particular from Andean communities.
The context of the debate starts from recognizing that explicit knowledge is a form of construction, recognizes that experience or so-called tacit knowledge is a source and expression of powerful knowledge that has the virtue of generating new meanings for society.
In four chapters "the question" of knowledge is covered, in the first a kind of historical framework is presented that observes the changes that arise in the configuration of knowledge societies.
The second chapter discusses the positions of the tacit and explicit, collects the understanding position of knowledge management by placing it as an asset of companies and culminates with showing knowledge in Andean cultures in its rich trajectory.
The third chapter addresses in the two items, a kind of criticism of the understanding of development as science and knowledge as an expression of power, antecedents that open the way to the proposal of another way of building knowledge.
The fourth chapter deals with a way of contributing to the construction of knowledge from the capitalization of experiences, for which it collects in a brief mention the experience that is developed in the project to support community forestry development in the Andes of Ecuador.
I.- CHANGE OF PERIOD: THE DIMENSION OF KNOWLEDGE:
Humanity is witnessing profound changes with accelerated rates. A change of era is taking place, characterized by the questioning of societies to the current development model, the elements of this era are losing their validity and stability, modifications are being generated in the relations of production, of power, the human experience, culture and in general everyday life.
The following considerations characterize the change of era:
- Vision of the world and international paradigm of development in crisis. Today most of the world's organizations and nations agree that this mechanical vision, from which the development paradigm is derived, is losing its validity: questioning the nature, direction and priorities of development. The material growth and technological development achieved by humanity have taken on a high erosion of eco-environmental factors, deep social inequality and growing economic and technological gaps between developed and developing societies. External premise for change. It is the organization's environment that is changing and this fact should be the benchmark for establishing new management models. Transformational nature of changes.The changes that are going to take place in organizations should be oriented more towards the ends than towards the means.Technological revolution. In particular, the one related to information technology is the one that is changing the vision of the world and the paradigm of development.
In relation to the construction of knowledge, these changes are expressed among others by the following characteristics:
- Production of knowledge in the context of its application (De Souza, 1999) Establishment of relationships, links between different scientific disciplines to approach the understanding of reality from the formation of inter and trans disciplinary teams Recognition of the complexity of social processes, cultural and biophysical in their temporality and spaces that legitimize participation as a possibility of understanding and above all of transforming reality. Techno-scientific networks as chains of localities characterized by a set of heterogeneous parameters, practices and actors (Escobar, A., 1999).The recognition of the validity of tacit, indigenous knowledge or known as popular knowledge in academia and in society in general.The production of knowledge as a commitment and the overcoming of the supposed neutrality, since science is a human undertaking and as such is marked by human interests, values, desires, motives, purposes and ideals.
In short, a dialectical vision guides us to define the hierarchies of the one to be investigated, their relationships to explain the causes and effects, the guidelines for transforming and allows expressing the contradictions that motivate and move the processes beyond ideological discourses.
1.1.- Knowledge societies
It is noted that humanity is witnessing a profound change in its mode of development, one of the characteristics attributed to it is the configuration around knowledge, hence its quality in the name: Knowledge societies, which implies among others that, “The accumulation of knowledge increases as knowledge and human experience grow and spread through the educational systems and the information and communication networks that we have developed and the way in which people perceive and discern This data continually adapts and reforms. Knowledge is, then, the good that exists in greater abundance, in the new society that is being configured, the lifestyle that will obtain greater respect will be based on the consumption of knowledge. ”(Sakaiya, T. 1994 p. 70). A demonstration in production will show “the creation of totally new materials for very diverse destinations, from aeronautics to biology, and increases our ability to substitute one element for another.A deeper knowledge allows us to specify the materials on the molecular plane to achieve the desired thermal, electrical or mechanical characteristics. ”(Toffler, A. 1999, p. 45).
In this configuration of societies, a key question is, How do the so-called third world countries enter into competitive conditions? In this regard, the position of the World Bank is an important reference.
The World Bank in the report on world development 1999, under the title of "Knowledge at the service of development" argues that, "the distance that separates rich countries from poor countries is greater in relation to the generation of knowledge than with income levels "and adds that:" Developing countries do not have to reinvent the wheel or computers, or rediscover the treatment of malaria. Rather than rediscover what is already known, poorer countries have the ability to acquire and adapt much of the knowledge already available in rich countries. With communications costs falling at a dizzying rate, knowledge transfer is now cheaper than ever ”(World Bank, 1999, p. 2).Concepts that, when reviewed in the light of history, are similar to the import substitution policies proposed in the 1950s, which consisted of gradually producing goods and services from the countries themselves to take advantage of comparative advantages in terms of availability of material. premiums, labor and distance to markets. For the industrial take-off, it was recommended to take advantage of the credits that the international banks and financial organizations offered, then with the income generated by the production and sale of the goods they were more than enough to cancel the credits.which consisted of gradually producing goods and services from the countries themselves to take advantage of comparative advantages in terms of the availability of raw materials, labor and distance to markets. For the industrial take-off, it was recommended to take advantage of the credits that the international banks and financial organizations offered, then with the income generated by the production and sale of the goods they were more than enough to cancel the credits.which consisted of gradually producing goods and services from the countries themselves to take advantage of comparative advantages in terms of the availability of raw materials, labor and distance to markets. For the industrial take-off, it was recommended to take advantage of the credits that the international banks and financial organizations offered, then with the income generated by the production and sale of the goods they were more than enough to cancel the credits.
Additionally, a set of subsidy policies was established, such as eliminating tariffs on imports of raw materials, means of production, technology and also facilitating exports.
The results are evident, there are assembly industries that use a minimum of resources from their countries, the credits have multiplied, making the external debt a difficult tax burden. In the case of Ecuador, it represents that of each dollar available in the fiscal box, 77 cents are committed for the payment of the external debt and in the rest of the Latin American countries the commitments are similar.
From the Andean point of view, knowledge is part of the experience, it is not denied or accepted for the argumentative reason or for the verification information that is available, its point is in the experiential, in what, since the generations have accumulated, Hence, when the practices of the peasants of the Andes are questioned, a common response is, we do it that way because our parents did it that way, from this perspective we can claim the attribute of knowledge societies whose construction is tacitly.
1.2.- Implications of knowledge societies
Despite the differences around the characterization of future societies, an agreement seems to be clear, the role of knowledge as a mobilizer of processes and the weight of greater significance in the valuation of goods and services. The differences are given in the type of knowledge and the intentions of its gestation and application.
From the World Bank proposal, the horizon of knowledge construction would be given for third world countries from adaptation and transfer, in which case the market is attributed the mission of guiding what and how to produce.
For the countries of the so-called third world, this policy would accentuate the outflow of foreign exchange and human talents towards the centers of capital, to the extent that intellectual property rights and other forms of knowledge property are under a monopoly situation and access It would imply negotiations in conditions of inequality, the current gap between countries of the North and South is noticed then.
The extreme thesis of not being linked to the knowledge created and available could imply an unprecedented isolation and it seems that this option has not been proposed, except in ideological assessments. A thesis with great force is the one elaborated by Samir Amín in his text "The disconnection", where he differentiates in which areas it may be possible to selectively disconnect and generate own knowledge from the perspective of local and national interests and needs and in which areas Exchange relations should be deepened, but, from a precedent, that relations between countries take place under a different legal framework from the monopoly rules. The orientations of this alternative position observe four fields:
- The organization of world disarmament The organization of equal access to the planet's resources The negotiations of open and flexible economic relations between the main regions of the world The beginning of negotiations for the correct management of the global / national dialectic in the areas of communication, culture and politics. (Amin, S., 1999).
In general, it summons us to a debate, which at first induces us to a plot that interrogates the theoretical approach of science founded on reason as unique and universally valid and, on the other hand, local knowledge based on experience as signs of foundation of emerging knowledge.
Debate that with the investigation will be clarified. But what we do believe should be addressed strongly is how the construction of knowledge is incorporated into development processes as an approach and methodologies that cross all activities and at different levels, capable of obtaining tangible and intangible products and results that truly we allow us to address development and do not stay in crisis management. It implies that the projects in their execution must incorporate the construction of knowledge into their objectives, in this regard, the steps that have been formulated account for the systematization of experiences, the capitalization of experiences and other ways of organizing and collecting the relevant elements in the performance and action of the project.
Therefore, a new reading of the intervention in development is imposed, which has to start from the will and commitment to generate orientations and understanding of three axes: The foundation or orientation of development, capacities and credibility as contributions to the sustainability of organizations and institutions from the perspective of the formation of networks, where the construction of knowledge becomes the relevant computer. These three axes are known as the sustainability triangle, their application in the processes of organizational change has allowed the vision, paradigm, vision, objectives to be defined, in the first axis, the technical, methodological, financial capacities in the second and tuning with the environment on the third axis.Regarding the sense of network, forms of organization are tested that go beyond individual union forms of associativity in search of incorporating perspectives of historical significance into the legitimate sector claim.
In these conditions of transcendental qualitative leaps, adaptation alone seems destined for failure, imposing the requirement of innovation, for which the path of creativity from logic and lateral thinking, integrated in a dialectical way to the intelligences of: verbal fluency, the mathematical logical facility, the spatial conception, the motor and kinesthetic capacity, the musical talent, the intrapersonal intelligence and the relational capacity, can open possibilities to face the future with advantages.
The recognition of tacit knowledge in the innovative act is a substantial contribution, in the dimension of the experiential and therefore the reference links it to the subjects and social actors, surpassing the formulation of the market as a reference for the generation of knowledge.
II.- UNCERTAIN KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE
For the purposes of this work, conceptual aspects about knowledge are collected, restricted to certain theoretical positions. Specifically, the knowledge thesis is collected as the tacit and explicit versions, the expression of knowledge as an asset and the contributions from the Andean culture, the intention is to have a conceptual map of different approaches as a contribution to the general objective of the present reflection. It is intended to have sensitivity for a better tuning with the problems and searches of the social sectors for a transforming action from an involvement with commitment from understanding, in terms of Tomás Villasante implies:Assuming a critical position can use different techniques, but not to find an explanation for the superficiality of the popularly "felt need" (which may well be a circumstantial reason), but to get involved in critical dynamics that lead those social bases to experience what it is. the bottom of the problem and what are its immediate and long-term remedies (Villasante R., T, 1998)
2.1.- The tacit and explicit
The debate about knowing and knowing has a trajectory of multiple approaches, in some currents they are assumed as the explicit and the tacit, the first of them refers to the systematic formal thing that, “expressed with words and numbers and can be transmitted and shared easily in the form of data, scientific formulas, procedures, coding or universal principles. Knowledge is considered a computer code, a chemical formula or a set of general rules, whereas tacit knowledge “is very personal and is not easy to raise through formal language, so it is difficult to transmit and share it with others.. Intuition, ideas and subjective hunches are part of him ”(Ikujiro, N. 1999. Pg.7). Two dimensions are distinguished:
- In the technical framework that includes the non-formal and difficult to define skills that are expressed in the term Know how (Knowing how to carry out a task or work) The second dimension known as cognitive reflects our image, mental models, beliefs and perceptions so ingrained in each person that we almost always ignore them.
The recognition of the tacit comes from the hand of the criticism of rational intelligence as the only possibility of constructing the truth, from the field of psychology “it has begun to speak of another type or another variable of intelligence called emotional intelligence, or also called existential talent or talent to live; words and concepts with which a set of skills is designated such as the ability of the human being to motivate and persist in the face of adversity and disappointment, the ability to control impulses and delay gratification, the ability to regulate mood and prevent Disorders diminish the ability to think, the ability to show empathy and especially the ability to hope. ”(Pozo, G, 1999, p. 6”.
2.2.- Knowledge as an asset.
From the point of view of companies, it is recognized that knowledge is the most important asset, as the "only significant economic resource", hence all the efforts to "acquire, represent, retain and manage it" as expressed in the Technological Management Program of the Andes (1997).
In this conceptual framework to define knowledge, levels are distinguished: “The lowest level of known facts is the data, the data has no intrinsic meaning. They must be ordered, grouped, analyzed and interpreted. When data is processed in this way, it becomes information. Information has an essence and a purpose. When the information is used and placed in the context or frame of reference of a person, it is transformed into knowledge. Knowledge is the combination of information, context and experience. ”(David B. Harris, 1997, p. 1).
The procedures that are suggested in the construction of knowledge, from the transformation of data to information within the framework of the tacit and explicit, in some cases perhaps this dynamic is possible, the question is its convenience, since in any way the experiences have Attributes not reducible to a data in order to maintain the connotation of its meaning and signifier on pain of losing the connotative richness and reducing it to a figure, the effort seems to us rather this for qualitative creation. The second step, from contextual information to knowledge is marked by the limit of the nature of the procedure, the data as origin sets the frame of reference for the construction of knowledge and as such limits it to its connotation, therefore its contextualization does not allows for broad and flexible reflection.
2.3.- Contributions of Andean cultures
The contributions of the Andean cultures constitute a radically different approach from the previously described formulation and in some way from the tacit and explicit approach, although certain entry points are totally coincident. For the reflection of their contributions, let us observe some considerations: “Andean knowledge does not intend to break into reality to transform it, but as part of it, what it does is vivify it, enrich it through chagra and ritual, knowledge as an entity separated from life does not exist ”(PRATEC, 1991, p. 108)
Knowledge is distinguished in: knowledge as a living, holistic, agrocentric and sensitive world:
- Knowing how a world accounts for sharing what is alive with all beings: plants, hills, animals, rivers and deities. Holistic knowledge, where the cosmos is conceived as a linked whole and where nothing is perceived apart from all other beings, as it is conceived that in the world everything is consubstantial and immanent and therefore nothing can exist except within everything else. Agrocentric knowledge is expressed in the concept of the earth understood as: One dimension Altitudinal with its double paradigm of above and below, the land constitutes the productive and symbolic focus that has energized and continues to energize the survival of Andean groups (Sánchez, J. 1984). The land for the Andeans is more than a space for the production of nutrients and ritual expression,As in some studies it is proposed, it is at the same time that and a source of: knowledge, experimentation, axis of political mobilization and identity
Sensitive knowledge expresses a complex unity between human community and nature, there is no world that transcends it "everyone feels equal and important in the recreation of life: the mountain, the human community or the deity" (Rengifo, G., 1991, p. 107).
The understandings of his knowledge start from a unity of object and subjects as subjects, the internal and external as parts of the same space and, in the most general, community and nature as lives.
The myths and rituals that are recreated from the oral culture are practiced by the communities as part of the daily tasks, hence their potential to transcend to the extent that it involves children, youth and the elderly. “The ritual is an act of renewal of the commitment of all communities in the recreation of life. It orders the fulfillment of the tasks that come, organizes the collectivities and encourages and invigorates the knowledge to adequately carry out the tasks of the members who participate in it "(Idem, p. 113)
Andean experiences fully express tacit knowledge, insofar as their cultural world observes an integrated conception or known as holistic, sources of knowledge that transcend time and have allowed communities to survive. Furthermore, many of their knowledge was seized and declared as private property through patents.
In our understanding, Andean experiences maintaining their own senses and understandings can constitute a valuable contribution to the reconfiguration of knowledge as such, but above all to the sense of knowledge as a common heritage at the service of humanity as a service for the harmonious coexistence of humans and biodiversity.
The challenge is immense insofar as it is not a simple conversion of tacit to explicit knowledge, but rather a new synthesis and generation of knowledge for a new context and a new era of development. In this sense, the Reflections that are presented try to generate concerns to gather experiences and take on the challenge in a complex and participatory way.
III.-KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT AND CONSTRUCTION STRATEGIES
3.1.- Development as science and knowledge
In a compilation made by Wolfgang Sachs, nineteen authors address the analysis of the category "development", one of the implications is precisely related to science in which Claude Álvarez addresses the implications and political content.
In this regard, it is considered that, “The vigor to advance the great industry of the West was coupled by an equally powerful project to reorganize society in a scientific way, Augusto Comte outlined the general design. His vision of applying the principles of rationality, and enlightenment to human society in every detail has already had a pervasive influence on so-called advanced societies ”. (Alvarez, C. 1997, p. 40).
The statements that the knowledge presumed to offer were of such truth that the individual who refused to accept the basic scientific vision of the world risked being considered not only ignorant, but obscurantist, criminal or irrational.
With this principle, it was denied that people in their local spaces would use their knowledge in their own way, then, “once the epistemological rights of ordinary people are devalued, the State can proceed to use supposedly scientific criteria to supplant those rights with officially sponsored and defined perceptions and needs ”. (Idem, p. 43).
The logic of centralization and accumulation of capital in the framework of power captures knowledge as its own expression. “In this way modern science really tries to suppress even non-competitive, but different ways of interacting with man, nature and the cosmos. War to empty the planet of all the divergent currents of episteme to affirm the uncontested hegemony of its own baggage of rules and set of perceptions, these are clearly linked to the aggressive pressures of Western science ”(Idem, p.47)
In the name of science, an attempt was made to run over the emotional, religious, and cultural expressions of the communities and peoples. Among the most visible results is the increase in dependency, a decrease in autonomy capacities and, above all, the loss of creativity. An example of persecution is the attack against the forms of health care practiced in the communities for hundreds of years, the “midwives and healers” were accused and persecuted. The same thing happened in agriculture, it was tried to impose the proposal of the green revolution that consisted of a package of externalities to the cycles of the earth to standardize the seeds and the control from the elimination of insects, fungi with the application of chemicals.
Advantageously, today there is a growing acceptance of other practices that do not correspond to explicit knowledge, what is more, they are the subject of research and practices of important education centers, in the same area of health there are publications in relation to the healing and energizing power of the plants to indicate an aspect.
The risk is no longer on the side of recognizing the validity of tacit knowledge, but on its appropriation in what has been denounced as bio-piracy, of which there are countless cases that, taking advantage of tacit knowledge, have been processed and they are presented as intellectual property rights.
3.2.- Democratization of knowledge
" Freedom without knowledge is not freedom, it is pure appearance " (Ciurana, R. 2001, p. 5) sentence that in the first pages of the document on "The democratization of knowledge and education of (in) democracy" initiates the reflection that helps us to think about the thesis of the construction of knowledge.
The relationship of democracy, knowledge and education are therefore the space where “the political future of society is at stake. As Kant would say: either you are supervised (otherwise very comfortable position for most because it solves the problem of responsibility) or you become aware that you are a citizen and you are obliged to enlighten yourself not only for your own good but for the benefit of the entire society. In this sense we can say that the only way to end a tutelary State is the cognitive development of civil society. ”(Ciurana, R. 2001, p. 3).
Implication that suggests an action of the democratization of knowledge as a condition for the constitution of social actors, in effect, "we need to know and have access to knowledge, we need as citizens, to have power capacity." (Idem, p. 5)
"A cognitive democracy is essential to not let the so-called" public opinion "take over the lack of public opinion, be it due to ignorance, ineptitude, passotism. A cognitive democracy is fundamental so that people can express their opinion in a way that is not induced by the images created by the media ”(Idem, p. 5).
Bearing in mind the concepts of development in their origin, but especially in their implications, the dispossession of knowledge and the policies of cultural homogenization are coherent in the construction of the single thought as openness, as a pioneering force that prepares the conditions for its domination. Samir Amín 1999 places these as five monopolies: technological monopoly, control of world financial markets, monopoly access to the planet's natural resources, monopoly of the media and monopoly of weapons of mass destruction.
Therefore, knowledge in its tacit or explicit form becomes an eminently political problem, a form of control and access to resources, and with this, it is assumed that the democratization of knowledge is a substantial part of political freedom, a condition that in the tacit knowledge present in the Andean communities it is an example of social construction. Indeed, learning is a work of the elderly towards the new generations whose initiation is part of the symbolic rituals of identity.
3.3.- Four steps for the construction of knowledge
This proposal begins its presentation by denouncing that "the dominant matrices, to which reference is usually made, do not allow us to advance in the knowledge about the social we need" (Villasante RT 1998, p. 45), includes knowledge "baptized" as scientific.
A perspective for a new scientific endeavor is located in four steps:
- “Going from the paradigm of objectivity to that of reflexivity” “Going from simplification, from causality in the processes, to the logic of complexity as a more open and creative contribution. The task of the social sciences is questioned at its level of work circumscribed to diagnoses and not "get involved with their generating potentialities, in their possible senses" The wanted and unwanted effects.
Leaps that are oriented in the construction of some probability calculations, then we can continue to build our knowledge up to where this is possible today. The sociology of science can illustrate enough of the more “abductive” methods (a mixture of demonstrations and intuition) than pure deductive or inductive methods, as they are usually used in many of the brilliant scientific discoveries or constructions that allow us to have a certain pride in their advances (Villasante RT 1998, p. 48)
A substantive contribution in the construction of knowledge in the framework of this proposal constitutes the starting point, the sensitive consciousness, symptoms that allow to open the dimensions of the manifest, latent, and deep
At the first level, what is manifest "are the data that we handle, the conscious, the most crystallized discourses, those that we answer in surveys, what we take for granted in private conversations." (Idem. Page 50)
"In the latent are the other discourses under construction, what is at a preconscious level, what comes out in interviews and discussion groups, the objectives that can be built among various subjects or groups in presence." (Idem. Page 51)
And finally there is the deep level, "where unconscious motivations are more difficult to bring to the surface, only through babbling, gestures, failed acts and other indirect, uncontrolled ways." (Idem. Page 51)
Villasante's contribution in locating the construction of knowledge in the manifest, latent and deep opens the recognition of a kind of treatment of the explicit and the tacit, especially the second at the level of the deep, as "that" that is not codified is validated as a source of inspiration and construction of knowledge, a fact that was generally marginalized because it was considered opposed to the world of the objective.
IV.- CAPITALIZATION OF EXPERIENCES AS CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNOWLEDGE
The subject that is addressed locates the foundations of initiatives in the construction of knowledge from the tacit, therefore, it implies a new relationship of subjects in future endeavors. It banishes and questions the division between experts and the “others” considered as unskilled labor, as is common in the presentation of development project initiatives.
It recognizes the tacit knowledge in its contributions and limits, puts into consideration some work experiences in the construction of knowledge from the existential, insists on the need to establish a code of ethics that takes into account social relations from the concept of biodiversity.
An important aspect is that the recognition and assessment of the contributions to the knowledge of processes based on deep experiences has begun and that in their daily life they give outputs according to their own conditions, in this sense, for example, the contributions to therapies of oral rehydration and vaccines adapted to the living conditions of the villages generated by doctors of Bangladesh that are collected in the United Nations report: Human development: past, present and future 2001, are a sample.
To close this reflection, knowledge construction processes are presented from experience and from methodological tests that privilege participation, since the most important thing is found in the actors of the process and their undertakings.
4.1.- Capitalization of experiences
We assume the capitalization of experiences such as: ”Collect and express all kinds of contributions and sensitivities in order to contribute to a progressive recomposition of knowledge and practices, a necessary recomposition considering the responses of reality (From the most macro to the most micro) to the multiple ideologies and models advocated during the last decades. " (Zutter, P., 1994, p. 31)
From the cited author's proposal and from personal experience in the Community Forestry Development Project and other fraternal projects, I allow myself to express capitalization as a form of knowledge construction, for which it is necessary to keep in mind the following reflections:
People in their daily lives have a potential for creativity not captured by classical research, they thrive in tragic and difficult conditions, they endure the effects of drastic policies, social and racial segregation and other aggressions that would seem to be enough to cut off existence itself.. However, in that daily life, strategies, relationships, ties, hugs between neighbors, families and acquaintances are intertwined to alleviate and "continue living", in that world the actors have much to contribute to understand and learn economics, sociology, anthropology social and other forms for the better learning of society
The experiences constitute the strength of this practice of building knowledge, many of them are unnoticed, they seem common every day and for that very reason important, unlike the evaluation that aims to intentionally find the lessons of success, collect failures, successes, chances, successes that often do not have these adjectives, they are simply experiences. The important thing is to contribute to improve the practices, discover how they were carried out, what factors came into play, what inspired them, the reflections that provoke more from deep and trustworthy dialogue than from pre-established formats that can lead to wanting to know what in advance is anticipated and looks like a "mold to be filled".
The elaboration of the capitalization of experiences, therefore, requires trust so that it flows as natural, without ornaments and makeup, oriented to “understand and not to convince” (Zutter, P, 1994, p. 30)
"It is, therefore, a matter of covering a maximum of elements to discover everything that can be a source of knowledge and not only that which serves to elaborate the desired system." (Idem. Page 31); Likewise, of being less ambitious, that is, of not trying to forge, here and now, the ideal system of thought and action, and, at the same time, of being more ambitious and of contributing to a global recomposition of knowledge and practices on the basis of diversity.
“In this way, capitalization does not start from a pre-established“ frame of analysis ”, since it is not only interested in the information contained in the experience but also in the categories that different cultures and ways of thinking use to live and understand it. Try then that these categories express themselves as best as possible and to achieve this multiply forms and means of communication in order to better welcome this diversity.. ”(Idem. Page 31)
"Capitalization is therefore not obsessed with order and coherence in an exchange" within "the construction of the system and does not reduce subjectivity to ideology. Nor does it require that the experience be thoroughly analyzed. His concern resides above all in favoring sharing, encouraging each actor to offer the best of what he believes he has learned and what he thinks can be useful to others, in order to achieve dialogue and enrich each other ”(Idem. P. 31).
One of the important achievements as a result of the "exercise" of capitalization that occurs is the esteem of the participants, discovering oneself as an author, feeling as a contributor to the legacy of knowledge and thereby valuing their culture and knowledge.
4.2.- Knowledge construction experiences: DFC capitalization sheets
In 1997, the initiative to work the capitalization tokens was launched from the following considerations:
Why?
Because very few practices of professionals, technicians and farmers have been recovered, written and even less reflected.
Because it is necessary to document the daily experience.
Because the knowledge that technicians and farmers acquire in their daily practice must be shared with other technicians and other farmers and
Because we need to have this knowledge organized.
For what?
So that they can really become knowledge and motivate technicians and farmers from the revaluation of experience.
So that it becomes knowledge and facilitates a continuous training process.
So that dialogue and learning can be deepened in a direct and horizontal way between technicians and farmers, in addition to documenting the history of these processes.
To know where, how to consult it and how to share it.
To organize the knowledge construction work through the capitalization cards, a guide was generated in which it is recommended to keep four aspects in mind:
- General aspects: Where the author or authors are located, name of the experience, place, dates, among other information. It refers above all to highlighting the authorship of the experience. Context: It is about locating the conditions of the geographic and social space in which the experience was generated, in general it is aimed at understanding and locating the environment. Story: Describing the experience of the most informal way, trying to adhere as much as possible to the experiential. Learning: From the description, locate the learnings that the narrated experience suggests.
At the end, a box to support the classification of experiences in which it is suggested to locate: Descriptor, keywords and others.
To motivate participation in the capitalization of experiences, a contest was proposed, which allowed the collection of approximately sixty files, in which the following are expressed: methodological procedures, agroforestry techniques and technologies, organization processes, project management and effects of the project intervention.
One of the files tells of the use of bromeliad crops in orchards following level curves in order to maintain adequate humidity by taking advantage of the water retention capacity. It definitely shows a system similar to the so-called drip irrigation.
The learning of the promoter and the self-esteem that the handling of the methodological and technical tools provokes is narrated as the way through which "shyness" is broken. Knowledge as power is the lesson of this capitalization sheet.
Another experience in this field that we have promoted is the combination of the peasant experience and the application of conventional methods to build knowledge.
Examples of this initiative are generated in the management of high mountain areas known as Páramos through an agreement with the ECOPAR project, the peasant organization and DFC.
Peasant practices were approached in control plots to show the variants of fertilization with the same resources in the zones, as a starting point for the improvement of practices. Likewise, the authors in the first instance feel that they are generators of technology, they improve their production conditions without having to go through the so-called “technology transfer” methods, and they have a better way of relating to the technicians.
It would take a long time to collect the experiences, but what it is about is to reflect on the provocations that work on development strategies means to build knowledge from the tacit point of view.
The capitalization files, in turn, gave way in part to a second moment: The promoters in the training school as a requirement for their graduation required to present research in relation to community management of natural resources, the files were used as their initial input. Thirty investigations related to: Studies of native species, soil conservation, plantation management, silvopastoral, organic production, agroforestry, gender, micro-watersheds, and participatory methodologies were presented. Initiative that contributes to knowledge and to the extent that it is part of the reflection that is lived, it allows an immediate impact on transformational processes, both in what to do and in the way of conceiving the processes.Lessons that when published have achieved recognition from the University of Loja and other educational bodies as significant contributions to knowledge.
In this sense, at the risk of losing the richness of the processes, a synthesis allows us the following reflections:
- Knowledge at the change of time means the greatest added value of goods and services, the understanding of knowledge accounts for the explicit and tacit, therefore, one is in a position to assume the construction of knowledge from the emerging features in the way creative possible, an important support is the ability of the actors to relate with diverse processes to enrich knowledge.There are different ways of building knowledge, they depend on cultural and historical processes and the actors in particular, it is not about putting them in normalized codes but, on the contrary, open to other creative expressions. The possibility of learning from tacit knowledge passes through feeling the experience in the most experiential way possible. From the reflections of Mires, F.The changes and transformations are in those elements that we never dreamed of, that perhaps due to living them daily we do not realize, the generation of questions, open dialogues, participant observations are a possibility of capturing them.The invitation to reflect and assume the complexity to get closer to Understanding our environments shows powerful procedures for research and training. Perhaps from a particular process, but in development projects we feel that they are formulated from a rigidity of sought-after results, in which "concrete" indicators of relevance are observed and are not they contemplate knowledge construction processes,The understanding of the future as "knowledge societies" requires incorporating them as conditions of dispute of meaning and direction of society The capitalization of experiences still suffers from observations that show its validity, however the particular experience observes a path that invites us to travel it to suggest better understandings.
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