Cultivating knowledge: Development, dissemblance, and discursive contradictions among the Diola of Guinea‐Bissau

ABSTRACT Development practitioners are eager to “learn from farmers” in their efforts to address Africa's deteriorating agricultural output. But many agrarian groups, such as Diola rice cultivators in Guinea‐Bissau, regulate the circulation of knowledge—whether about agriculture, household economy, or day‐to‐day activities. In this article, I thus problematize the assumptions that knowledge is an extractable resource, that more knowledge is better, and that democratized knowledge leads to progress. I consider how the Diola tendency to circumscribe information both challenges external development objectives and contours the ways Diola themselves confront their declining economic conditions. agrarian change, knowledge, development, Africa, secrecy, Guinea‐Bissau