Indigenous People's Knowledge and Informal Agricultural Extension and Research in Southern Amazonia: the case of the Mynkys.

The status of local agricultural knowledge in relation to the formal scientific, institutionalised agricultural knowledge of the research and extension services in southern Amazonia is analysed through detailed case study of the experience of the Mynky Indians of Mato-Grosso, Brazil. In this case study, the internal dynamic of the agricultural knowledge systems and practices of the Mynky Indians is examined in relation to other rural inhabitants of Amazonia, church as well as state. It discusses land-use systems and agriculture, Mynky social structure and the historical interaction between the Mynky and the development process. Finally, the paper looks at rural people's knowledge versus theoretical basis of scientific rationality.