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Since the nineteenth century, knowledge has gradually been categorized as falling within distinct academic disciplines. Key elements in this process have been various forms of compartmentalization: some of these forms are cognitive (e.g. bibliographical classification), and others organizational (e.g. departments in universities). This compartmentalization of knowledge has become a major site of intellectual contestation, legitimizing or marginalizing bodies of knowledge (Collins and Ben-David 1966, Gieryn 1983). This compartmentalization has helped to displace pre-modern Western knowledge and marginalize contemporary cross-disciplinary knowledge (Foucault 1970, Messer-Davidow, Shumway, and Sylvan 1993). However, the ways in which disciplinary compartmentalization has affected indigenous knowledge in non-Western cultures remain largely unexplored.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-015-9399-1_6

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