Indigenous peoples all around the world have kept unique perspectives on their cultural experiences that aid in their survival. Tribal knowledge, often known as aboriginal knowledge, refers to these understandings.
Tribal knowledge systems are intergenerational wisdom that has been passed down through the generations via millennia of experience and study.
While mainstream knowledge and culture have evolved with comparable traits, tribal knowledge systems are distinct in that they:
Due to their constant proximity to forests, plants, and species, tribal societies have current knowledge of nature.
Mainstream societies have shifted to an agricultural economy, and their cultural knowledge is based on memories of a tribal past that no longer exists.
Source of Knowledge: While mainstream knowledge systems are built on challenging ideas, science, reason, and the evolution process, tribal knowledge systems are founded on knowledge conservation.
Tribal knowledge is passed down down the generations through stories, songs, dances, carvings, paintings, and performances, whereas mainstream information is kept through books and recordings.
Tribal knowledge systems believe in generating generalists because they foster integrated learning for the community.
However, knowledge and learning have been divided into specialised subjects in mainstream society, and these societies are primarily concerned with developing specialists.
Equality:
Tribal knowledge systems are non-discriminatory and characterised by fairness.
Barriers to mainstream knowledge systems include schooling costs, patent protections, social discrimination, and so on.
Tribal and mainstream communities do not have to be mutually exclusive. Both have benefited from constant interaction and mutual dependence. As a result, a bridge of mutual learning should be built to further improve both civilizations.
One thing to remember is that tribal knowledge is at the heart of indigenous identity, culture, languages, legacy, and livelihoods, and it must be conserved, preserved, and fostered from generation to generation.
Facilitating Women’s Empowerment:
There are a number of indications of women’s empowerment, particularly in the number of female students enrolled in higher education.
UJJAWALA, Mudra Yojana, and Pradhan Mantri Yojana are just a few examples. Women are the biggest beneficiaries of government initiatives, according to the Jan-Dhan Yojana.
With equality in marriage age, women’s empowerment will be boosted even more.
Decision-making difficulties:
Financially disadvantaged women are unlikely to benefit: Though the goal appears to be worthwhile on paper, simply raising the marriage age without also raising social awareness and improving access to health care is unlikely to benefit the community it seeks to serve: young women who are not yet financially independent and who are unable to exercise their rights and freedoms while still bound by familial and societal pressures.
Despite the fact that the law barring marriage before the age of 18 has been in effect in some form since the 1900s, child marriage has persisted largely unabated until 2005, when nearly half of all women aged 20-24 had married under the legal minimum age.
There’s No Guarantee That Child Marriages Will Be Obsolete: With nearly 60% of women of marriageable age marrying before the age of 21, the population of women of marriageable age will be enormous.
The inability to prevent women from marrying before the age of 18 shows no proof that it would be prevented by raising the age to 21.
Way forward:
- Assuring Equality in Objectives: Any argument, biological, sociological, or data and research-based, cannot justify the age gap between men and women when it comes to
- Empowering Disadvantaged Women: To empower disadvantaged women, more effort must be made in addressing the inherent structural disadvantages that women who marry young
- Women’s Education and Awareness: Taking steps to counsel girls about early pregnancies and give them with a network to improve their health is an excellent, but difficult, strategy to attain the stated goal.