Discourse Of Indigenous Knowledge Of Crop Cultivation In South Wolo A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Farmers Voices And Practices

For crop cultivation development in Ethiopia, recontextualizing the discourse ofrnindigenous farming knowledge is needed. Thus, the central purpose of this thesis is,rnrnthrough recontextualization process, to explore the discourse of indigenous croprncultivation knowledge in South Wolo, and to analyze it critically. As its point ofrndeparture,the study poses four problems:what discourse farmers use to construct andrnrecontextualize their crop cultivation activities; how the farmers use discourse tornconstruct, to make use of and to preserve their indigenous farming knowledge; whetherrnfarmers’ use of the discourse of indigenous knowledge of crop cultivation enhances orrnretards crop cultivation practices; and the status of the discourse of indigenousrnknowledge of farming in the discourse used by modern agricultural technology.rnIn order to find answers to these four major questions,it is indispensable to situate thernstudy within the qualitative methodology of ethnographic fieldwork and use qualitativernmethods of data collection, namely interviews (personal and group), two types of focusrngroups, non-participant observation and collecting relevant documents.Relevant socialrntheories such as the Appraisal Theory (AT),Symbolic Interactionism (SI),StructurationrnTheory (ST) are utilized to guide both data collection and for the analyses process.rnFifty-eight(58) purposively sampled farmers participated in the interviews, focus grouprndiscussions, and were observed on-farm activities about the way they carry out twornspecific activities –ploughing and seed acquisition–and some general topics around croprncultivation.The assumption is that it is possible to reconstruct indigenous knowledge ofrncrop cultivation from farmers’ recontextualizations of the ways they carry out the twornspecific crop cultivation activities, and some topics around crop cultivation. The studyrnalso uses these different research instruments to triangulate the data gathered in order tornverify the data and ensure plausability and dependability.rnThe farmers’ texts and discourses obtained from the research instruments are analysedrnthoroughly and qualitatively using Fairclough’s (1992) model of critical discourse analysisrn(CDA) in combination with Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Appraisal Theory in thernaspects of the experiential, interpersonal, textual and attitudinal meanings of language asrnpracticed in the two specific crop cultivation activities and some general topics around croprncultivation. Moreover, some dimensions from the theory of Symbolic Interactinism and thernStructuaration Theory are used to back up the analysis of discourse practice and social practicernof indigenous knowledge of crop cultivation.rnThe analysis on textual level reveals that transitivity, modality, theme and rheme construct thernfarmers as agents of various activities of crop cultivation by dominantly drawing upon therndiscourse of indigenous knowledge. On the level of discourse practice, the analysis of force ofrnutterance, intertextuality, interdiscursivity, and participants’ text production strategies show highrnlevel of indigenous knowledge, but low level of the discourse of modern farmingrnknowledge/technology. The analysis on the level of discourse as social practice reveals thernexistence of a gap between the discourse of indigenous knowledge of crop cultivation and therndiscourse of modern agricultural technology. The discourse of indigenous knowledge of farmingrnis found to exist being dominated, but it is found to be the major farming knowledge farmers drawrnupon to cultivate crops. Finally, the study suggests a framework that positions indigenousrnfarming knowledge at the centre,and its integration with modern agricultural technology inrndeveloping modern farming knowledge to enhance the practice of crop cultivation development

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