There’s been some interesting thoughts floating around the internet about rural, tacit and generational knowledge that we as a species are loosing.
It seems strange to think that we could loose knowledge, especially in today’s world of information on demand, but if you think about it, certain skills and know how are hard to come by.
At the end of 2008, over one half of the world’s population lived in urban areas. Urban lifestyles come with their own characteristics and culture and so do rural lifestyles. Urban populations don’t have ready access to many of the experiences as rural populations do. General knowledge of where our food comes from for example, the simple act of gardening, knowing the planting seasons, identifying plants and knowing when to harvest; having the understanding of why bees are important, is not something that city dwellers grow up experiencing and knowing.
Based on this, I consider myself very luck to have grown up in a semi-rural area. I was close enough to a city but within easy distance to farms, lakes and rural towns. I learned many things because of this, both craft related and non-craft related and continue to acquire various tactile knowledge (err tacit, but I like tactile better) and I hope to never stop.
About This Article
The article Crafting Knowledge, An Endangered Species? is syndicated for use on EcoFunctional. The original content in it’s entirety can be found here.
