eMKambo Vibes – 18 September 2017
How external expertise can undermine local community knowledge Many rural communities in developing countries are now more familiar with external experts and consultants who visit them to ask questions about their situation and go away never to be seen again. Using consultants and external experts to gather information or conduct evaluations is not an entirely bad idea. Outsiders can sometimes better see what is hidden in local people’s plain sight. Like a fish which does not see the water in which it is swimming, local people may no longer be conscious of their situation. However, from views recently gathered by eMKambo from smallholder farmers, traders and community leaders, organizations which use consultants and external experts to gather information or conduct evaluations may be blind to several downsides of this practice.
Instruments of social control Besides undermining local people’s judgment, external consultants and experts are often used to assert social control in ways that do not recognize local people’s collective capacity to generate wisdom and value their resources. The fact that much of the data collected by external experts and consultants does not come back to inform local institutions and decision-making implies people are left with no dependable sources of evidence. It becomes difficult to know what is real and what is not authentic. Local people end up favoring facts that justify what they already know when alternative views could be more beneficial. Use of external expertise without building local expertise also undermines people’s capacity to form bonds of common interest based on common experience. In fact, the underlying message of such practices is that local people cannot trust themselves but should follow experts in every aspect of their lives such as nutrition, food production, health, environmental management, income generation, education and many 1