Interdisciplinary Communication in a Winrock International Seed Project

I worked at the On-farm Seed Project of Winrock International Institute for Agriculture from October 1991 to October 1992. The On-farm Seed Project (OFSP) was managed from Morrilton, Arkansas and coordinated and implemented in two West African countries; Senegal and The Gambia. While working for OFSP, I discovered that the institutional and project culture were characterized by a scientific mindset. I realized this more fully as I reread Larry A. Samovar and Richard E. Porter\u27s Communication Between Cultures where science was described as the predominant cultural characteristic of the West. Science is a way of thinking, according to Samovar and Porter, based on a set of epistemological assumptions - assumptions about how we gain knowledge. Science is also defined in the West as the development of knowledge depending on deductions from self-evident, physical and natural truths. Scientists are practitioners of science and may be found throughout the world identifying themselves as such