Peer Evaluation Can Reliably Measure Local Knowledge
Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Übersichtsarbeiten › Forschung
Authors
We assess the consistency of measures of individual local ecological knowledge obtained through peer evaluation against three standard measures: identification tasks, structured questionnaires, and self-reported skills questionnaires. We collected ethnographic information among the Baka (Congo), the Punan (Borneo), and the Tsimane’ (Amazon) to design site-specific but comparable tasks to measure medicinal plant and hunting knowledge. Scores derived from peer ratings correlate with scores of identification tasks and self-reported skills questionnaires. The higher the number of people rating a subject, the larger the association. Associations were larger for the full sample than for subsamples with high and low rating scores. Peer evaluation can provide a more affordable method in terms of difficulty, time, and budget to study intracultural variation of knowledge, provided that researchers (1) do not aim to describe local knowledge; (2) select culturally recognized domains of knowledge; and (3) use a large and diverse (age, sex, and kinship) group of evaluators.
Originalsprache | Englisch |
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Zeitschrift | Field Methods |
Jahrgang | 28 |
Ausgabenummer | 4 |
Seiten (von - bis) | 345-362 |
Anzahl der Seiten | 18 |
ISSN | 1525-822X |
DOIs | |
Publikationsstatus | Erschienen - 01.11.2016 |
Extern publiziert | Ja |
- Ökosystemforschung