Integrating Indigenous Knowledge into Westernised Disaster Risk Management Policy and Legislative Frameworks of the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality

Abstract

Although the local people have utilised indigenous knowledge since time immemorial as a mechanism to survive disastrous events and health ailments, it is still undervalued, and it is side-lined in disaster risk management. The main challenge is that indigenous knowledge is passed down orally through generations without any documents to serve as a point of reference and some of those who had the historical context of this knowledge have already passed on. This is one of the reasons why the disaster risk management practitioners and stakeholders' question and doubt its application in the development practice. As a result, indigenous knowledge is not given the attention it deserves since it is seen as being incompatible with modern society and development. For this reason, western knowledge is used more frequently than indigenous knowledge in disaster risk management, and this creates a gap that needs to be filled by integrating the two knowledge systems. However, disaster scholarship and research are advocating for the simultaneous use of the indigenous knowledge into westernised disaster risk management. The simultaneous use will empower the people that are involved in disaster management to take all initiatives that are aimed at reducing the likelihood of disasters. Moreover, one prominent area of intervention is in the disaster risk management legislations and policies which represent the governments' goals in resolving the problems and the demands that are affecting the local communities. These intervention areas are significant because they have an impact on the Disaster Risk Management practice. Unfortunately, there is currently no framework that illustrates how the indigenous and the western knowledge systems can be integrated into the disaster risk management policies. The aim of the study is to evaluate whether both indigenous knowledge and western knowledge are integrated into disaster risk management policy and legislative frameworks of the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality. The study was carried out by using a qualitative approach with data being collected through the content analysis of the legislative and the policy documents as well as through semi structured face-to-face interviews from study participants such as community members' political leaders, proportional representation councillors, traditional leaders and participants from various departments within the municipality. Content analysis, and more especially the conventional content analysis methodology was applied to ascertain whether the indigenous and western knowledge are integrated or used into the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality's disaster risk management policy and legislative frameworks. There were 13 policy documents from the BCMM that were reviewed. The study found that only the western knowledge dominates in the BCMM's disaster risk management policy which does not integrate both the IKS and the WKS. Furthermore, a total of 58 participants were purposefully selected to participate in the study. The study participants were carefully chosen through snowball sampling, considering their understanding of both western and indigenous knowledge systems for disaster risk management in line with the policies. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from the individuals in the community, as well as from the traditional authorities, the political leaders and from the officials within the different BCMM directorates. The collected data was analysed using content analysis and it was presented thematically. Moreover, the findings of the semi-structured interviews reveal that the majority of the participants are not familiar with how the IKS and the WKS are integrated into the disaster risk management policies. This is so despite the use of the IKS and the WKS methodologies by the BCMM locals as survival techniques and as disaster prevention strategies. To lessen the negative effects of such disaster risks, the study gave BCMM the means it needs to develop a framework or policy that is based on integrating the IKS and the WKS. Essentially, this is crucial in developing a policy that concentrates on the causes and the effects of the disaster risks inside the municipality to address the scope and the ramifications of such disasters, their broad effects as well as the reported and the unreported casualties. The study makes a number of recommendations, some of which include developing and putting into practice a variety of plans, policies, and strategies on using the IKS and the WKS simultaneously in disaster risk management as this will assist to increase the capability and the effectiveness of these systems in the disaster-related situations. The study also recommends that more research must be done to ascertain how to bridge the gap between the use of the IKS and the WKS in the disaster risk reduction policies and frameworks to discover a long-term and resilient solution to the current disaster difficulties. More importantly, the study created valuable awareness to the political leaders, the councillors and the senior managers of the BCMM on the importance of incorporating the IKS in the policies and in the legislative documents not only for DRM but for other fields as well. For the purposes of this study, integrating the IKS and the WKS is an important strategy to create a community that is resilient from disasters and to put policies in place that lessen the threat of the physical hazards and the linked human, sociological, and cultural factors that intensify the disasters. Taking into account a number of multi-hazard situations that often affect the locals in the BCMM, it is crucial to develop a DRM policy that integrate both the IKS and the WKS to addresses the severity and the ramifications of such disasters.