Bridging Knowledges and Practice: Understanding how Mangrove Swamp Rice Farmers Predict the Tides in Guinea-Bissau

We advance understanding on the relationship between smallholder farmers’ practices and their knowledge on the environment through a case study of the water management of mangrove swamp rice (MSR) farming in Guinea-Bissau. In a theoretical framework of practice epistemologies and bridging ontologies we analyse how MSR farmers’ understanding of tides shapes their water management practices in relation to local and scientific knowledge. Our findings show that MSR farmers have a holistic understanding of the tides and other environmental factors affecting the tides such as wind. We argue that the farmers’ understanding of the environment as well as their practices are often tacit in nature. Moreover, their water management practices involve constant adaptation and sometimes improvisation, responding to socio-economic and environmental dynamics. Lastly, we argue that knowledge and practice are mutually embedded and that scientific and local knowledge can be bridged if we move away from the strict dichotomy and instead look into the multiple forms that knowledge may take.