Knowledge Managers are referring increasingly to parallel uses of KM's governing principles, as witness the appearance at excited utterances (Joy London's award winning KM blog), of items like this one on November 24, 2003: Knowledge for Its Own Sake? "[T]he Warwick Business School will host a seminar entitled "Knowing as Desiring: Mythic Knowledge and the Knowledge Journey in Communities of Practitioners."
Now for more crossover, read Michael F. Brown, Lambert Professor of Anthropology and Latin American Studies at Williams College.
Writing for Cultural Commons, website of the Center for Arts and Culture, Brown makes a thoughtful report on the 32nd General Conference of UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), which met in October at the organization's headquarters in Paris. In "Safeguarding the Intangible" Brown reports, "the convention's goal is to provide a framework for promoting the survival of traditional folklore, knowledge, and artistic expressions throughout the world...."
Echoing KM's concerns around what it calls tacit knowledge, Brown writes convincingly that UNESCO's concern about the survival of intangible heritage is warranted, "in view of the general trajectory of cultural change today..." but that "...simmering resentment about the developed world's intellectual property practices" hobble UNESCO's best intentions. "Once documented, [intangible property] is more readily commandeered by musicians, novelists, pharmaceutical companies, the motion-picture industry--indeed, by anyone positioned to take advantage of an intellectual property system that favors individual or corporate creativity over the collective inventiveness of folk traditions, which are considered to reside in the public domain." Indigenous groups themselves are resisting, edging toward greater secrecy and cultural closure. And global behemoths like the U.S. are also refusing to sign on. UNESCO policies favor closer management of intellectual property. But "[a]s the world's biggest exporter of copyrighted media products," writes Brown, "the U.S. opposes this approach to cultural preservation." Naturally.
KMers will also recognize the challenge of UNESCO's call for taxonomies. October's General Conference insists that each signatory nation prepare one or more inventories of the intangible cultural heritage present in its territory. "How", asks Brown, "does one turn the complexity of even a single culture into a list?"
Sound familiar? But solutions are discoverable, and crucial to achieve, for, as Brown writes, "...culture is more than a set of performances. It rests on deep-seated values and emotional dispositions so implicit that they may not be fully recognized even by culture-bearers themselves." Looks like KMers will need to sharpen their soft skills (don't we all?), in order to reap the tacit knowledge of the wise ones of their tribes, firms and corporations.
Ciao for nao!
12/08/2003 10:57:29 AM
