scholarly journals Anticipating Other Worlds, Animating Our Selves: An Invitation to Comparative Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 138-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iveta Silova
Keyword(s):  
Connective Tissue ◽  
Comparative Education ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Opportunity To Learn ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Japanese Buddhism ◽  
Speculative Thought

Purpose: This article aims to reimagine education—and our selves—within the context of multiple, more-than-human worlds where everything and everyone are interrelated. Design/Approach/Methods: The aim is achieved by pursuing two speculative thought experiments to connect and bring into conversation seemingly unrelated knowledge systems across space and time—European “paganism” and 13th-century Japanese Buddhism, as well as excerpts from indigenous, ecofeminist, and decolonial scholarship. These thought experiments are conducted through a series of “and if” questions around education and schooling. Findings: The article proposes to radically reimagine education in two ways. First, it invites readers to reconfigure education as a “connective tissue” between different worlds, bringing together rather than hierarchizing them. Second, it proposes to reframe education as an opportunity to learn how to anticipate and animate our ongoing entanglement with more-than-human worlds. Originality/Value: Using the concept of “metamorphosis” as an antidote to Western metaphysics, the article re-situates education within a wider set of possibilities in relation to the taken-for-granted ways of knowing and being, as well as the notions of space and time.

Cultural Diversity and Critical Dietetics: A Scholarship of Cross-Cultural Engagement

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-31
Author(s):  
Craig Alan Hassel
Keyword(s):  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Cultural Engagement ◽  
Cultural Perspectives ◽  
Culturally Different ◽  
Classical Chinese Medicine

As every human society has developed its own ways of knowing nature in order to survive, dietitians can benefit from an emerging scholarship of “cross-cultural engagement” (CCE).  CCE asks dietitians to move beyond the orthodoxy of their academic training by temporarily experiencing culturally diverse knowledge systems, inhabiting different background assumptions and presuppositions of how the world works.  Although this practice may seem de- stabilizing, it allows for significant outcomes not afforded by conventional dietetics scholarship.  First, culturally different knowledge systems including those of Africa, Ayurveda, classical Chinese medicine and indigenous societies become more empathetically understood, minimizing the distortions created when forcing conformity with biomedical paradigms.  This lessens potential for erroneous interpretations.  Second, implicit background assumptions of the dietetics profession become more apparent, enabling a more critical appraisal of its underlying epistemology.  Third, new forms of post-colonial intercultural inquiry can begin to develop over time as dietetics professionals develop capacities to reframe food and health issues from different cultural perspectives.  CCE scholarship offers dietetics professionals a means to more fully appreciate knowledge assets that lie beyond professionally maintained parameters of truth, and a practice for challenging and moving boundaries of credibility.

Track 2.a Introduction

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sucharita BENIWAL ◽  
Sahil MATHUR ◽  
Lesley-Ann NOEL ◽  
Cilla PEMBERTON ◽  
Suchitra BALASUBRAHMANYAN ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Native Communities ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
Local Practices

The aim of this track was to question the divide between the nature of knowledge understood as experiential in indigenous contexts and science as an objective transferable knowledge. However, these can co-exist and inform design practices within transforming social contexts. The track aimed to challenge the hegemony of dominant knowledge systems, and demonstrate co-existence. The track also hoped to make a case for other systems of knowledges and ways of knowing through examples from native communities. The track was particularly interested in, first, how innovators use indigenous and cultural systems and frameworks to manage or promote innovation and second, the role of local knowledge and culture in transforming innovation as well as the form of local practices inspired innovation. The contributions also aspired to challenge through examples, case studies, theoretical frameworks and methodologies the hegemony of dominant knowledge systems, the divides of ‘academic’ vs ‘non-academic’ and ‘traditional’ vs ‘non-traditional’.

scholarly journals Natural Science and Supernatural Thought Experiments

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 389
Author(s):  
James Robert Brown
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
The Other ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Theological Thought

Religious notions have long played a role in epistemology. Theological thought experiments, in particular, have been effective in a wide range of situations in the sciences. Some of these are merely picturesque, others have been heuristically important, and still others, as I will argue, have played a role that could be called essential. I will illustrate the difference between heuristic and essential with two examples. One of these stems from the Newton–Leibniz debate over the nature of space and time; the other is a thought experiment of my own constructed with the aim of making a case for a more liberal view of evidence in mathematics.

A personal perspective on pedagogical structures and strategies that uphold Indigenous ways of knowing

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-140
Author(s):  
Justine Nabaggala
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Personal Perspective ◽  
Effect Change ◽  
Art Educator ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge Systems ◽  
Indigenous Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Learning Development

This article gives a brief background of where I come from and how my experiences in Africa and North America have framed the ‘philosophy of teaching’ that defines me as a visual art educator. I reflect on the postcolonial concept of ‘decolonization’ as a means to identifying possible pedagogical alternatives of practice. Acknowledging that my knowledge embraces both ‘western’ and ‘Indigenous’ ways of knowing, poses a question for me as an art educator about ways to design and implement pedagogies that embrace contextualized experiences in order to achieve meaningful learning within formal education. I conclude by stating that nothing will effect change within Uganda’s education sector, particularly in reference to visual art education and practice, without educators having a firmer grasp of their scholarly standpoint on knowledge and learning. Development of concrete ways of bringing together diverse ontological, epistemological and axiological positions of western and Indigenous knowledge systems as well as art pedagogies to facilitate learning, will require educators to develop structures and strategies that progress from the bottom up in order to benefit from the values, beliefs and ways of knowing within diverse local communities.

Researching Indigenous Ways of Knowing-and-Being

2017 ◽  
pp. 22-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norma Ruth Arlene Romm
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Ecological Niche ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Relational Thinking ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge Systems ◽  
Socio Economic Development ◽  
Indigenous Ways Of Knowing

This chapter focuses on exploring the contributions of indigenous-oriented relational thinking-and-being in terms of implications for the quality of social living and for sustaining relationships with everything in our ecological niche. It offers an account of how we can treat Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) as envisaging socio-economic development differently from economic models of growth which thus far can be said to govern processes of globalization. The chapter attempts to demonstrate that resuscitating IKS is not so much a matter of researchers' documenting and respecting the content of indigenous knowledge that has been created to date. More important is to direct research with the aim of drawing out and revitalizing the styles of knowing and living that can be interpreted as characterizing indigeneity. Examples are provided of how research can be directed with this in mind.

Multiple Voices, Multiple Paths

2019 ◽  
pp. 517-542
Author(s):  
Rutendo Ngara
Keyword(s):  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Medical Systems ◽  
Global Knowledge ◽  
Multiple Voices ◽  
Knowledge Brokerage ◽  
Cognitive Justice ◽  
Multiple Paths ◽  
The Right

The Western knowledge paradigm – with its ways of knowing, ways of seeing and its notions of reality - has dominated the global knowledge arena, rendering many indigenous knowledge systems as invalid, illegitimate and irrelevant. This is particularly true for indigenous medical knowledge systems, which have struggled to articulate their voices from the marginalisation imposed by colonialism, globalisation and modernity. This chapter outlines paradigmatic tenets and key conceptions underpinning Western Biomedicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Traditional African Medicine. It explores areas of synergy and contradiction, as well as points for potential dialogue between the medical systems. The chapter suggests that if carefully excavated, explorations into such ontologies and epistemologies can make meaningful contributions to knowledge brokerage, thus promoting inclusivity and ethics in knowledge societies. It therefore makes a case for cognitive justice – ‘the right of different traditions of knowledge to co-exist without duress'.

Reality

2019 ◽  
pp. 92-117
Author(s):  
Paul Thagard
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Naturalistic Approach ◽  
Group Minds

Following a naturalistic approach to metaphysics, this chapter argues that materialism and scientific realism are much more plausible than their major alternatives: idealism and social constructivism. The appropriate philosophical method is to use inference to the best explanation of evidence rather than thought experiments and a priori speculation. Natural philosophy legitimately accepts the existence of objects, properties, relations, changes, events, processes, mechanisms, groups, space, and time. All of these concepts and hypotheses are subject to revision as science and philosophy generate more evidence and alternatives. However, skepticism is appropriate concerning the existence of other entities such as souls, gods, spirits, facts, and group minds. If evidence and inference to the best explanation support the existence of an entity, then we are justified in concluding that it exists.

An Invitation to Unknowing

2011 ◽  
Vol 113 (6) ◽  
pp. 1154-1174
Author(s):  
Lalitha Vasudevan
Keyword(s):  
Personal Growth ◽  
Comparative Education ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Educational Practice ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Language And Literacy ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Wide Range

Background/Context This essay is part of a special issue that emerged from a year-long faculty seminar at Teachers College, Columbia University. The seminar's purpose was to examine in fresh terms the nexus of globalization, education, and citizenship. Participants came from diverse fields of research and practice, among them art education, comparative education, curriculum and teaching, language studies, philosophy of education, social studies, and technology. They brought to the table different scholarly frameworks drawn from the social sciences and humanities. They accepted invitations to participate because of their respective research interests, all of which touch on education in a globalized world. They were also intrigued by an all-too-rare opportunity to study in seminar conditions with colleagues from different fields, those with whom they might otherwise never interact given the harried conditions of university life today. Participants found the seminar generative in terms of ideas about globalization, education, and citizenship. They also appreciated what, for them, became a novel and rich occasion for professional and personal growth. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study At a time when there is increased hybridity in local and global citizenship, language and literacy practices, and performances of cultural identity and affiliation, narrowing of our ways of knowing can detrimentally impact how educators and scholars engage in intellectual inquiry and educational practice. This essay uses the mode of questioning to create a dialogue about the discursive, rhetorical, and even physical postures that educators and scholars might embrace when re-imagining everyday practices of teaching, learning, and research to be open to unexpected trajectories. Questions are woven together with descriptive vignettes of films, excerpts from research studies, personal narratives, and reflective analyses that invoke texts from a wide range of scholarly traditions in order to propose unknowing as a stance through which to engage more fully with and be responsive to a changing world. Conclusions/Recommendations Unknowing is proffered as a stance and a lens through which to re-imagine practices associated with educational practice and research to be more open to new ways of knowing. Rather than offering definitive recommendations, this essay concludes with an invitation for the broader educational community, and especially institutions of education, to reclaim an ethos of inquiry and possibility in the daily acts of seeing, being, becoming, belonging, and storying through which knowing and knowledge are enacted.

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