scholarly journals What Should We Do as Intellectual Activists? A Comment on the Ethico-political in Knowledge Production

2021 ◽  
pp. 247-258
Author(s):  
Anna Lundberg

AbstractThis research comment makes an argument on the need to develop epistemic communities of belonging. These are spaces facilitating conversations about and enabling transformative ethico-political research. A research practice that can invoke attentiveness, responsibility, curiosity, and awareness to the field we study. Rather than answering what we should do as intellectual activists to maintain ethically integrity, the author here investigates the spaces we may develop as intellectual activists. Based on her work in the transformative collective initiative, the Asylum Commission and the reading of the Caring for Big Data book, the author proposes two concepts that are valuable for the creation of such spaces: epistemic injustice and hope.

Leonardo ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Davis

This article presents a reflection on a body of creative work carried out during four years of Ph.D. research that explored the relationship between complexity theory and music. The article highlights conceptual problems that arose during the creation of the work, especially those associated with the exploration of scientific models for the creation of art. The author does not attempt to offer any final solutions but rather presents the journey undertaken through the combined artistic and research practice as a way of documenting the strategies he developed during this period of creative practice.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aziz Choudry

Research is a major aspect and fundamental component of many social struggles and movements for change. Understanding social movement networks as significant sites of knowledge production, this article situates and discusses processes and practice of activist research produced outside of academia in these milieus in the broader context of the ‘knowledge-practice’ of social movements. In dialogue with scholarly literature on activist research, it draws from the author’s work as an activist researcher, and a current study of small activist research non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with examples from movement research on transnational corporate power and resistance to capitalist globalization.. It explicates research processes arising from, and embedded in, relationships and dialogue with other activists and organizations that develop through collaboration in formal and informal networks; it contends that building relationships is central to effective activist research practice. In addition to examining how activist researchers practice, understand and validate their research, this paper also shows how this knowledge is constructed, disseminated and mobilized as a tool for effective social action/organizing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Dular

“Mansplaining” is by now part of the common cultural vernacular. Yet, academic analyses of it—specifically, philosophical ones—are missing. This paper sets out to address just that problem. Analyzed through a lens of epistemic injustice, the focus of the analysis concerns both what it is, and what its harms are. I argue it is a form of epistemic injustice distinct from testimonial injustice wherein there is a dysfunctional subversion of the epistemic roles of hearer and speaker in a testimonial exchange. As these are roles of power and are crucial to our existence and functioning within epistemic communities, the wrong and harms suffered from this injustice are serious and, I argue, distinct from other types already discussed in the literature. I close by considering an alternative model of mansplaining as a form of silencing, as well as briefly diagnosing its general underlying cause and possible solutions.


Dependability ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-52
Author(s):  
A. М. Zamyshliaev

Aim.The digital transformation of the traffic safety management system in JSC RZD involves top-level integration with the operating processes of all business units in terms of integral assessment of the risk of possible events and achievement of specified indicators. The result will be the merger of the traffic safety management system with the processes of all levels of the company’s management enabled by an integrated intelligent system for managing processes and services whose functionality includes real-time traffic safety management.Methods. The paper uses system analysis of existing approaches and methods of processing of large quantities of structured and unstructered data.Results. The paper examines the development stages of train traffic safety management, as well as automated information and control systems that enable traffic safety management. General trends in the creation of systems for collection and processing of information are analyzed. The applicability of such technologies as Big Data, Data Mining, Data Science as part of advanced control systems is shown. The paper examines the performance of the above technologies by analyzing the effect of various factors on the average daily performance of a locomotive, where, at the first level, such factors as average daily run of a locomotive, average trainload are taken into consideration; at the second level, the focus is on the service speed, locomotive turnover at station, etc.; at the sixth level, the focus is on the type of locomotive, its technical state, etc. It is shown that statistical methods of factor analysis and link analysis combined with such other methods of Data Mining as methods of simulation and prediction, the average daily performance of a locomotive can be planned proactively. The author proposes a procedure of migration towards a digital traffic safety management system that would be based on models of interaction of safety and dependability factors of all railway facilities at all railway levels of hierarchy, as well as in association with other factors that have no direct relation to dependability, yet affect the safety of the transportation process.Conclusions. The primary benefit of migration towards Big Data consists in the development of a dynamic model of traffic safety, the elimination of human factor in control systems. Most importantly, it enables the creation within the Russian Railways company (JSC RZD) of an integrated intelligent process and service management system that enables real-time traffic safety management. An extensive process of development and deployment within the company of the URRAN Single Corporate Platform (SCP) enabled executive decision support as regards risk-based functional dependability and safety of transportation facilities. Thus, the URRAN SCP sets the stage for the digital transformation of the traffic safety management system in JSC RZD.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guro Parr Klyve

In this essay, I will discuss the importance of having an awareness about epistemic justice, epistemic ignorance and epistemic injustice, and why this awareness is important in connection to children and patients in mental health care. I also suggest ways to avoid epistemic injustice when working with, and doing research with, children in mental health care. In doing so, I tie this to feminist epistemology where conceptions such as knowledge, knowers and objectivity are questioned, and dominant conceptions and practices of knowledge production are perceived as a systematic disadvantage of women and other subordinated groups (Anderson, 2017). I am as well linking this to queer epistemology which differs from feminist standpoint epistemology in the idea of the identity being “a point of departure for shared consciousness” (Hall, 2017, p. 163).


2020 ◽  
pp. 57-70
Author(s):  
Tom Sorell

Sorell focuses on two state (police) uses of big data that have elicited concern: the creation of DNA databases and the use of past data to predict future crimes and criminals. In response to the former, Sorell argues that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with large-scale, indiscriminate databases of DNA profiles. These do not constitute an invasion of privacy, and nor do they necessarily render an entire population suspect, although he accepts that in the current climate they may be interpreted that way. As regards predictive policing, Sorell’s argument is that these uses are more concerning, basing future decisions on past information that may no longer be pertinent and could well be discriminatory.


2021 ◽  
pp. 155-179
Author(s):  
Andrea Bianchi

How knowledge of international law is produced, by what forces and processes it is shaped, how one can determine what issues are deemed relevant to the field, what questions can be competently raised by the members of the profession and the discipline, and who has the authority to provide them with an answer, are all issues that lie at the heart of this chapter. Particular attention will be paid to the concepts of both epistemic communities and discursive policies. In light of the interaction of the different forces and actors at play in the production of knowledge, an attempt will be made to sketch out the main trends of the contemporary episteme of international law. The final part of the chapter tackles the issue of how to bring to light and make visible the invisible frames of knowledge production in international law, by using critical theory and the power of legal imagination.


Author(s):  
Steve Case ◽  
Phil Johnson ◽  
David Manlow ◽  
Roger Smith ◽  
Kate Williams

This chapter examines the means by which different forms of knowledge are created in criminology and what it means to know about crime, with particular emphasis on the empirical research methods used by criminologists. It also discusses the complex interplay between subjectivity, supposition, and study in producing knowledge in criminology; the benefits and limitations of different research study methods on the creation of criminological knowledge; criminological theory as knowledge; and various research methods in criminology such as experiments, surveys, bservations, and secondary analysis. Finally, it considers how subjectivity, supposition, and study interact with, and impact on, understanding and knowledge production in criminology.


SAGE Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401990125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guangchao Charles Feng

China’s scientific achievement has received considerable international attention due to a large amount of research and development (R&D) spending. This article aims to study the performance of China’s R&D expenditures (in the form of research funding) by examining the research performance of individual researchers based on bibliometric measures. This study concludes that research practice is not merely determined by capital possessed. Besides, international collaboration primarily accounts for research performance of scholars, whereas research funding and publishing in Chinese-based journals do not impact research performance significantly.


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