Spaces for indigenous knowledge: examining participatory conceptual approach and practices in khasi community

Participation as empowerment has taken essential locus today in working with different sections of the cohort and community in general. Stemming from the development conceptual designs for participatory approach in 1980s and 90s, aims to enable people to analyse their own knowledge to plan and act. However, this desideratum in practice seems to be in discord with its own principles and values as to arrive at a predetermined end by external agencies, seeing participants as mere service receivers. Further, there is a question of ontological orientation of indigenous systems in such practice and in the expanded field of knowledge construction and legitimisation. The paper expounds on the indigenous concepts of power and participation from the Khasi worldview and seeks to place such concepts within their lived experiences. Attempts will be made to call in question the preponderant established thoughts on the subject matter. It will also set out to explore the notion in the field of knowledge and research practices and argues that there is a need to revisit participatory thoughts from an indigenous paradigm and re-examined empowerment in the substratum of knowledge-power relations.