Local knowledge cannot be engineered

I set out a challenge for Elizabeth Anderson’s case for the promotion of local knowledge through affirmative action. The challenge is to implement affirmative action without relying on the very structures that promote technē at the expense of mētis. I argue that affirmative action is susceptible to two distinct but related forms of capture: value capture and elite capture, and that its institutionalization therefore faces a dilemma between effectiveness and sensitivity to local knowledge.