Marginalized Knowledge: An Agenda for Indigenous Knowledge Development and Integration with Other Forms of Knowledge

Definition of Concepts

It is worth defining some of the concepts involved in this research such as: street child, homeless youth, imikhukhu, family, family disintegration, network, cultural competency, organisations, hard-core, curfew laws, neo-naticide, The Social-exclusion theory, Ecosystem Theory and evaluation.

A Street child is defined as a youth or adolescent who lives on or near the streets of urban areas in relative independence from his or her parental home (Baker, 1999:130). Homeless youth is a term referring to a child with a condition of being without a home. Imikhukhu refers to informal settlements. Family is a primary group whose members assume certain obligations towards each other and generally share common residences. Evaluation refers to a process of determining whether a given change or effort was worthwhile (Kirk-Ashman & Hull, 2001:230). Network refers to a formal or informal linkage of people or organisations that may share resources, skills, contact and knowledge with one another. Programs on the other hand are relatively permanent structures designed to meet ongoing client needs. Cultural competency is a set of congruent behaviours, attitudes, policies and structures which come together in a system, agency or amongst professionals and enables that system to work effectively within the context of cultural difference. Organisations are social entities that are goal directed, designed and deliberately structured with coordinated activity systems and are linked to the external environment (Kirk-Ashman & Hull, 2001:240). Hard-core is a child who has lived on the street for more than three months. Curfew laws are regulations that specified persons, for example children restricted off the streets at a set hour of the evening. “Umalume” (uncle) is a Zulu name referring to somebody’s mother’s brother not biologically related. Social-Exclusion Theory is a theory that focuses on social inequality in terms of economic, political, land and cultural competence (Figueroa, 1999). Ecosystems Theory is the study of laws, conditions, principles and ideas which are concerned on the one hand with a human’s immediate physical environment and on the other hand with the human’s nature as a social being and the study of the relationship between the two factors (Carol, 1999).