Indigenous knowledge and cognitive justice: Towards co-

production of knowledges

Presentation to SOTL@UJ on 11 September 2014By Carina van Rooyen

Outline of presentation

Indigenous knowledge and its critique - Thea

Cognitive justice - Gert

Co-production of knowledges - Carina

Departure pointsCJ is “an ethical principle to guide a dialogue of knowledges”; it demands inclusion of IK in dialogue (van der Velden 2006:13)CJ requires that different ways of knowing be treated equal ito “participation in dialogues of knowledges” (van der Velden 2006:14)Ideas of “knowledge diversity”, “knowledge practices”, “knowledge traditions” (Green 2008:144, 149), but not to be trapped by cultural relativism• When talk plurality of knowledges it is not ito IK as counterpoint to

Science; move away from binaries • take cue of van der Velden (2006) in that Science with capital S

indicates understanding that science is only source of valid knowledge, while science with small s talks of science as a form of knowledge

• Knowledges dynamic: “bodies of knowledge continually influence each other demonstrating the dynamism of all knowledge systems” (Le Grange 2007:83)

Focus on how knowledge is generated, actively maintained and transformed• About science adopting to poverty and ecology, rather than to

capital (Green 2012:2) Knowledge production (process, i.e., how) foregrounded, not actual knowledge (content, i.e., what)

About ‘how to’ of cognitive justice

Critique by Lesley Green (2012:5) that cognitive justice “has not set its horizons wide enough”• For one, use of term IK perpetuates its

artificial distinction from ‘Science’

Cognitive justice is a principle; how to do (practice) is issue

What is co-production of knowledge?Comes from science and technology studies; associated with Sheila

Jasanoff“ways in which we know and present the world are inseparable from the ways we choose to live in it” (Jasanoff 2004:2)“knowledge refers not to information in the mind but rather to the skilful attuning of one's perceptual abilities to the tasks and processes with which one is continually involved.”“reconceptualisation of knowledge as constantly produced and reproduced in interactions. Knowledge, in this view, is not the acquisition of unmediated facts, nor is it the unmediated apprehension of intellectual heritages or indigenous knowledge. There are always mediations – and as such, knowledge studies are at their strongest when focused on careful study of how knowledge objects come to be generated. Such an approach is not a cultural relativism but instead brings to conversations about the democratisation of knowledge an attention to the ways in which research processes bring particular realities into being.” (Green 2012:6)“polycentric, interactive, and multiple process of knowledge making” (Jasanoff 2003:235)Raise public involvement in co-construction of knowledge - work of Bruno Latour, Isabelle Stengers, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Tim Ingold

Ontology of co-productionRelational ontology

• not underpinned by ‘culture’ or debate on wether real, but by interaction /engagement with ‘thing’ (Green 2012:5) - dialogue

• different levels of reality of object & corresponding different levels of reality of the subject

• embedded, embodied, situated, emergent• shift from representationalism to performativity

Science / knowledge as representation - about what (IK distinctive from Science)Science / knowledge as performance - about how“A representationalist (what knowledge is) view of knowledge can foster poisonous paternalism on the one hand, and blind romanticism on the other. However, if the performative side of knowledge (how knowledge is produced) is emphasised, then all knowledges are perceived as local…” (Le Grange 2004:90)Turnbull’s (1997:560) ‘third spaces’ or ‘interstitial spaces’ (Le Grange 2004:85)

Epistemology of co-production

“Between Foundationalists (or pure proceduralists) who emphasise universal laws for the production of knowledge, and the coherentists (or consensualists) who argue that knowledge is a product of social consensus (Elgin 1996)” (Green 2008:153) there is a midpoint. “The scope of contemporary thought in the field of epistemology is not limited to either a universalist or a relativist position … Knowledge, then, is constituted by what is ‘true enough’ for the task at hand (Elgin 2004), rather than by access to an absolute truth” (Green 2008:147) - about ‘acceptance’ (Green 2008:154)“situated messiness of all knowledge production processes” (Le Grange 2007:586)“Different reasons to know produce different objects of attention, or different facts – or, to use Latour’s phrase, different matters of concern” (Green 2012:7)“Catherine Elgin calls reconfiguration – ‘reorganising a domain so that hitherto overlooked or underemphasised features, patterns, opportunities, and resources come to light” (Green 2012:7)

New mode of knowledge production (Gibbons et al 1994), post-normal science (Funtowicz & Ravetz 1993), uncertain knowledge (Beck), post-academic science (Zinman 2000) – destabilising the ‘expert’

Modes of knowledge productionMode 1 - traditional

way Mode 2 - new wayAcademic context Context of applicationMono-disciplinary Trans- & interdisciplinary

Technocratic ParticipativeCertain Uncertain

Predictive ExploratoryHomogeneity Heterogeneity

Universal SituatedHierarchical DemocraticAutonomy Reflexivity / social

accountability(sub) national

funding (trans) national fundingUniversity as main

work siteClusters of excellence &

project networks

Adapted from http://sspp.proquest.com/archives/vol3iss2/0703-007.kemp.html

How to co-produceMultiple stakeholders cooperating - democratic discussion: objectivity “is secured through the participation of all socially relevant perspectives in the community engaged in the critical construction of knowledge” (Helen Longino quoted in van der Velden 2006:9-10)• “zones of awkward engagement” (Tsing 2005:xi)• Levels of stakeholder participation: informed, consulted,

involved, control (Tress et al :18) Politics of cognitive authority - science & politics intermingle: “who gets to participate in inquiry, who listens and who defers to whom, who claims authority to speak…, and on what grounds, how the community of inquirers decide what (who) is a worthy subject of study, and what (whose) questions about it are worth taking seriously” (Elizabeth Anderson quoted in van der Velden 2006:10) Situated knowledge: “foregrounds the way in which ‘knowers are situated in particular relations to what is known and to other knowers’ (Anderson 2003). This foregrounding helps to understand how this situatedness affects how and what a knower knows.” (van der Velden 2006:9)

“The metaphor of a ‘bridge’ to overcome the divide between different disciplines and knowledge systems is often used to advocate for more inclusive approaches” (Cundill et al 2005)

“We argue that a boat navigating between unknown shores may be a more appropriate metaphor than a bridge, whose starting and end points are fixed and known” (Cundill et al 2005)Vogel and colleagues (2007:351) therefore, instead of using metaphors of ‘bridging’ knowledge systems and fields, prefer to use the imagery of “complex labyrinths of communication and engagement”

Articulation (Stuart Hall)• Expressing• Co-joining / transforming

Not integration, but articulationSource : http://i1 19.ph otobuc ket.com

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Co-production in research:

TransdisciplinarityIs about transgressing boundariesIt is to transcend and connectTranscend not only disciplinary boundaries, but also scientific knowledge systems; it is about dialogue across knowledge systems

Characteristics of transdisciplinarity (Russell et al 2008:461)

• problem focus: research that deals with and is contextualised in ‘real-world’ complex problems) (Apgar et al 2009:4), “under conditions of scientific uncertainty” (Scoones 1999:495)• evolving methodology: research that involves iterative, reflective processes responsive to particular questions, settings and groupings• cooperative / collaboration between science disciplines and external actors

“collective dialogical processes” (Apgar et al 2009:5), “complex processes of epistemic negotiation” (Wynne quoted in Scoones 1999:495), in which there is no reification of one knowledge system or field over another (Agrawal 1995) What is crucial is the scrutiny of evidence sources through dialogue. Produce knowledge that is scientifically reliable, socially robust and politically acceptable (Hollaender & Leroy 2001:221)

What it means for T&L

Open educationMultiple participants (beyond students enrolled)Open accessOpen educational resourcesOpen educational practicesOpen knowledgeOpen scienceetc.

T&L ‘theories’Social constructivism

Situated learning (Jean Lave)

Authentic learning, problem-based learning

Communities of practice / social spaces of learning (Etienne Wenger)

Collaborative learning

Network learning / Connectivism (George Siemens)

Dialogic learning

Teachers learning to shut up

Reflection on role of lecture• e.g., flipped classroom

Active participation of students

Role of other stakeholders in T&L?

T&L toolsVisual images / photography / sketching

Role-play

Narratives

Experiential: excursions / visits / game-based

Different assessment approach, including self- and peer assessment

How, not what“Capacity to generate & apply

knowledge - and not the knowledge itself…” (Gómez-Baggethun & Reyes-

García 2013:646)

Content is no longer king!What does this mean for subject

curriculum?

“We are not students of some subject matter, but students of problems. And problems may cut right across the boundaries of any subject matter or discipline” - Karl

Popper

Source: http://cdn.com

luv.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Content-Is-King.jpg?a7be

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List of referencesBrydon D 2010 Globalisation and higher education: Working toward cognitive justice. Available at http://myuminfo.umanitoba.ca/Documents/2263/Brydon_interdisc.pdf

Gómez-Baggethun E & Reyes-García V 2013 Reinterpreting change in traditional ecological knowledge. Human Ecology 41: 643-647

Green L (ed) Contested ecologies.

Le Grange L 2007 Integrating western and indigenous knowledge systems: The basis for effective science education in South Africa? International Review of Education 53: 577-591

Le Grange L 2004 Western science and indigenous knowledge: Competing perspectives or complementary frameworks? South African Journal of Higher Education 18(3): 82-91

Tress B, Tress G & Fry G Defining concepts and the process of knowledge production in integrative research.

Turnbull D 1997 Reframing science and other local knowledge traditions. Futures 29(6): 551-562

Van der Velden M 2006 A case for cognitive justice. Available at www.globalagenda.org/file/24