I recently started reading the book titled "Seeing like a state: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed" by James C. Scott [1] which talks about how starting with a simplified idea of how to structure a complex system (i.e. a system with many interdependencies) without taking into account details at the ground level end up in disaster.

Using that idea of "legibility" that Scott proposes, not accounting for indigenous "tribal knowledge" in planning for their "betterment" does not work. Common language that reflects this happening is when such knowledge is trivialized or rejected using words like "unscientific".

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-Condition/d...