Folk experiments

• DOI: 10.1007/s10460-006-9017-1
• Publication Date: 2006-11-07T13:26:30Z
• Authors: Jeffery W. Bentley
• Keywords: Inscribed figure; Capital (architecture); Folk religion

Folk experiments in agriculture are often inspired by new ideas blended with old ones, motivated by economic and environmental change. They tend to save labor or capital. These notions are illustrated with nine short case studies from Nicaragua and El Salvador. The new ideas that catalyze folk experiments may be provided by development agencies, but paradoxically, the folk experiments are so common that the agencies that inspire them usually pay little attention to them. Some folk experiments are original, but others simply copy innovations that farmers have seen somewhere else. Unlike formal scientific research, in which results are consistently written, folk experiments are rarely “inscribed,” because the results are for use by individual farmers and need not be shared with an audience.