ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the semantic field of ‘knowledge’, ‘sciences’ and ‘concepts’, prefixed by the term indigenous. ‘Indigenous knowledge’ as a concept has been in currency for over half a century among anthropologists and movements struggling for the rights of ‘first’ or ‘indigenous peoples’. But over the last four decades, the concept has acquired a surprising elasticity and its academic canvas has since widened. The term has been adapted to a number of social science disciplines, which means that the referents of the term have multiplied, and so have the associated meanings. This chapter briefly discusses the genealogy of the term in the works of historians, philosophers and sociologists of science and knowledge. It is argued that in addition to referring to the knowledge of ‘indigenous people’, the terms indigenous knowledge, indigenous science and indigenous concepts possess a contestatory force, and operate as a metatheoretical concept within social theory and histories, or theories, of knowledge.
