Introduction
Until recently, little attention was given to "local innovation" stemming from traditional knowledge as well as management practices and institutions developed by communities and local actors. There is still a widespread tendency to regard traditional knowledge as unorganized and 'primitive' or as a treasure to store and document for posterity before it is lost, rather than seeing the dynamics that underpin the creation and dissemination of knowledge, in which local communities are key protagonists.
Innovation is still often viewed as being mainly science-led and created from the outside, and subsequently transferred to technology users, such as local communities, considered the recipients, of such innovation. This approach is a based on a clear institutional separation between innovation users and creators. Similarly, innovation is associated with activities linked to knowledge seeking and generation, that are organized separately from the activities involved with knowledge transfer and application [
1]. There is thus a division of labour whereby scientific bodies are conventionally organized into a hierarchy of institutional structures with a uni-linear flow of resources and information from top to bottom [
2]. In general, development and innovation is still thought as coming from the North and scientific enterprises towards the South and populations. In this paper, we analyze the initiatives of two non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in India to see how innovation rather stems from all actors implicated while being strongly influenced by current leading global networks.
Following the above considerations, this paper explores the issues linked to the participation of the community and of other local actors in the creation of knowledge through relationship building, community planning, decision-making and action within local institutions. Our focus is to understand the community participation process and the interaction that takes place between the various partners involved in the generation and dissemination of knowledge.
The key questions addressed in this paper revolve around understanding how communities and local actors build on their social and cultural traditions and practices to create and adapt their knowledge in order to favour innovation; how their capacity to learn and innovate can be recognized and facilitated to contribute to local development; and how local capacity is built to facilitate continuous learning that sustains innovation.
Understanding this dynamic is important to gain insight on the mechanisms and processes that allow the use of traditional knowledge to enhance socio-economic development. The issues studied go beyond understanding how to perform efficiently in a capitalist environment; our focus is to understand how local skills and knowledge are enhanced in order to promote innovative results that will benefit the community on a social level.
Regarding definitions, some authors [
3,
1] affirm that an innovation
process consists of putting knowledge into use, whether it is new, accumulated or simply used in a creative manner in response to market opportunities or other social needs. This process is characterised by the presence of diverse agents and complex interactions between them [
2]. Innovations are seen as social constructs and, as such, they reflect and result from the interplay of different actors, often with conflicting interests and objectives, and certainly with different degrees of economic, social and political power [
4].
The
innovation systems [[
3,
5,
6], and [
2]] concept provides an alternative framework to look at
innovation processes from a systemic perspective. In the current development discourse, the innovation system concept is increasingly referred to as a metaphor to indicate the need for a much wider perspective on relevant decision-making procedures than what has been used in the past. The
innovation systems concept can be seen as non-linear and reflexive [
7]. The
innovation systems framework "opens the 'black box' of innovation" [
1] to include the roles of different innovation agents, the types and quality of interactions between them, and the formal and informal institutions that structure innovation processes [
3]. The notion that innovations are the product of networks of social and economic agents interacting with each other and, because of this interaction, create new ways to deal with social or economic processes, is explicit in the innovation system concept. As [
5] argue, this concept highlights the critical importance of idiosyncratic, inter-personal and interorganizational relationships and partnerships for innovation. 'Social capital', that is, the ability to form cooperation relationships, is a key ingredient of effective innovation systems.
Innovation agents are individuals or organizations from the public or private domain who have the ability to bring about change, or have the power 'to say' and 'to act' upon the actions of others [
8]. In effective innovation networks, the various partners must bring resources and capacities that are valuable to the rest and that contribute to the common goal; that is why closed networks of "poor people with poor people" are often not particularly effective in producing useful and sustainable innovations [
9].
Capacity, like sustainability, is an elusive concept. In literature, it is described as both a process and an outcome, as dynamic and multidimensional [
10]. In our analysis, we will refer to the following definition:
"Capacity strengthening is an ongoing process by which people and systems, operating within dynamic contexts, enhance their abilities to develop and implement strategies in pursuit of their objectives for increased performance in a sustainable way" [
11]. This definition seems appropriate for the approach we are pursuing since it emphasises the dynamism and sustainability elements of capacity building. In our analysis, we propose to elaborate on the notion of "ethnomedicine capacity", which refers to the capacity of enhancing traditional ethnomedicinal knowledge to open up new avenues for the socio-economical development of local populations.
In this article, we refer to healing-related practices with the terms traditional medicine (TM) or ethnomedicine. A general characteristic of these practices is their integration into daily life as well as the overall lack of documentation and standardization [
12]. In this sense, we use TM or ethnomedicine to describe a very dynamic form of local knowledge. The indigenization of global health knowledge fits well into this understanding of ethnomedicine in the sense that biomedical or scientific practices are always localized [
13]. Nevertheless, we will focus on what early anthropologists and, later, the WHO and most NGOs today refer to in terms of TM or ethnomedicine: in a very broad sense, all healing practices at the periphery of the global health networks, meaning they are visible to global health networks but are considered the weaker 'other'. TM can further be distinguished between 'guided' knowledge (the expert knowledge of the healers, which relies upon relations with the ancestors, the earth, among other things) and 'non-guided' knowledge (common knowledge) [
14], while only the latter can be grasped by these initiatives to promote ethnomedicine. In the more classical sense of the term, ethnomedicine implies documenting and transforming parts of TM (the non guided knowledge) into measurable entities. For scientific classification, standardization and translation purposes, the term ethnomedicine has largely been narrowed down to the properties of natural
materials used in their wild form, or part of a preparation or mixture. These materials include plant-based or "
herbal medicines", as well as animal parts and minerals. "Folk" traditions and other TM systems use a large number of medicinal plants. Because of the extensive use of plants, the concept of TM is more often linked to plant-based medicines. Although based on natural products, indigenous medicines are not "found" in nature but are rather products of traditional knowledge. TM includes knowledge concerning medicines and their use (appropriate dosage, how they should be administered, etc.) as well as the procedures and rituals applied by healers in their traditional healing methods. When TM encounters biomedicine, it is reduced to its measurable entities. However, when these entities maintain their link with a local culture, they become what we have called an 'ethnomedicine capacity'.
The processes through which this capacity is created and reinforced constitute innovation. As we will see, this form of innovation centred on TM involves several actors. These health traditions are dynamic, innovative and evolving, and consist of various health practices based on local epistemologies and empirical experience [
15]. Since our analysis will mainly focus on ethnomedicine capacity creation and dissemination at different levels and among various stakeholders, we have decided to adopt a double approach to analyze
capacity development: we will use an organizational
approach and a
participatory process approach at the community level. The
organizational approach focuses on identifying the capacity elements or components within an organization [[
16,
17], and [
18]]. Since the capacity development capacity is, by its very nature, multilevel, holistic and somewhat interrelated, in the sense that each system and part is linked to another, we will use a combined "closed" and "open" system perspective. Our analysis will also focus on the influences coming from the external environment since the organization is part of the network. The
participatory process approach at the community level is based on a vision, which sees development as people-centred and non-hierarchical. Based on this approach,
capacity development must be a participatory and empowering partnership that allows those involved to feel a high degree of ownership in order to achieve the intended results. Among individuals, networks of positive social relations are known as "social capital" [
19,
20]. The notion of social capital can be extended to relations among associated groups of more formal organizations, with each organization operating within the network. Such an infrastructure of relationships provides organizations with greater access to resources and helps structure relations among them [
21].
We will examine the partnerships between the local communities and the Foundation for the Revitalization of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT) and the Covenant Centre for Development (CCD), two related Indian NGOs based in Bangalore (Karnataka) and Madurai (Tamil Nadu) respectively. Their aim is to revitalize Indian local health traditions through a range of field activities and research and extension programs.