Local Knowledge Takes Many Forms

I have two anecdotes that illustrate the nature of local knowledge. Both are set in Apia, the capital of Western Samoa.

Some years ago I was visiting Apia as a consultant with a UN agency. I happened to dine in a restaurant, with a government official, when a mother pig with twelve piglets wandered down the street.

Having been raised on a mixed farm - peanuts, dairy and pigs - this scene raised questions for me. Pigs on the loose had always triggered an emergency for my dad and his neighbours. Wanderers were soon rounded up and fences were mended.

In Apia no one seemed to be noticing these wandering pigs. I turned to my host with my question: “How do families in Apia know which pigs belong to each household?” My host contemplated my question as he watched the pigs, smiled and gave me a neat answer: “Well we don’t need to worry about that. The pigs know!”

Local knowledge takes many forms. Pacific Islanders have unique ways of working with local knowledge. When its pigs and people no one needs to worry. When its international aid and people that’s a different matter.

Some years after my ‘Pigs Know’ moment, I was attending an international meeting on water resources in the Solomon Islands. Among participants was the engineer responsible for Apia’s town water supply.

Water in Pacific Islands is critical to public health. Typhoid and other water born diseases are endemic, so town water must be well filtered and carefully chlorinated.

A bilateral aid agency had been welcomed by the Government of Western Samoa to design and build a water treatment and reticulation system for Apia. The agency sat down with the Government to plan a $20m project.

The Samoans urged the aid agency to design a system that would deliver 650 litres per person per day. The agency was not impressed and responded in words like this: “That would be a vastly over designed system – the world standard is 250 litres a day.” Armed with this standard, the designers built their world class system.

Having rehearsed this moment, my colleague from Apia went on to say: “Water is so plentiful in Samoa, people just leave taps running. I can’t get treated water to the ends of my water mains. Worse still, the government is now making me augment supply by pumping untreated river water into the lines. We could have a typhoid outbreak!”

The take home message ……… “Learn to listen well and take notice of what the locals say. Knowledge sometimes resides in surprising places.”

Use ‘The Pigs Know’ principle to listen laterally, gain and rightly evaluate local knowledge. Insightful and lateral listening is the essence of good design.