scholarly journals Decolonizing Knowledge. Starting Points, Consequences and Challenges

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-25
Author(s):  
Iris Clemens
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
North American ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Educational Science ◽  
Creative Processes ◽  
European North ◽  
Collective Creativity ◽  
Indian Epistemology ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

The call for the decolonization of knowledge refers to both its colonization and contingency and puts the focus on the multiplicity of knowledge. This contradicts European-North-American thinking and definitions of knowledge. Consequently, to advance an epistemological decolonization of knowledge, the actual process of defining knowledge will be analysed and the multiplicity of perspectives stressed at the epistemological level. Using Indian epistemology as an example, I will work out differences in definitions of knowledge and therefore basic diversifications in describing and explaining the emergence of knowledge. Truth-value-neutral forms of knowledge in particular challenge dominant European-North-American philosophical definitions, which incontrovertibly include assumptions of true or false knowledge. An interesting overlap between some Indian epistemologies and postcolonial theories can be observed with regards to the central role of the contextualization of knowledge production and the socially embodied nature of scientific knowledge in general. If the incentives gained are to be taken seriously, the consequences for educational science in general as well as educational practices must be discussed. According to the findings of organizational theory, emphasis on diversification and complication is also seen as an opportunity for the emergence of fresh meaning. Referring to Helen Verran’s concept of generative tension as a sign of collective creativity, encounters between diverse forms of knowledge and epistemological principles are seen as sources of creative processes and prerequisite for the emergence of new positions, perspectives etc., and thus as incubators for innovations.

Walking, knowing, and the limits of the map: performing participatory cartographies in indigenous landscapes

2021 ◽  
pp. 147447402110344
Author(s):  
Bjørn Sletto ◽  
Gerónimo Barrera de la Torre ◽  
Alexandra Magaly Lamina Luguana ◽  
Davi Pereira Júnior
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Participatory Mapping ◽  
Participatory Processes ◽  
Indigenous Methodologies ◽  
Critical Understanding ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

Post-representational cartography views maps as inherently unstable and unfinished, always in the making and thus singularly open for refolding and re-presentation. This perspective on maps calls for greater attention to the performances, negotiations, and contestations that occur during the ongoing production of maps, particularly in cases where maps are developed during collective, collaborative, and participatory processes in indigenous landscapes riven by conflict and struggle. In the following, we examine the role of walking for the continual (re)making of participatory maps, specifically engaging with work in indigenous methodologies to consider how an emphasis on performativity in map-makings may foster a post-representational perspective on indigenous cartographies. We understand walking as map-making, a form of knowledge production generated by performative and situated storytelling along paths and in places filled with meaning. Drawing on a critical understanding of ‘invitation’ and ‘crossing’, we build on our experiences from participatory mapping projects in Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Brazil to explore the ways in which the material, performative crossings of bodies through indigenous landscapes may inspire new forms of knowledge production and destabilize Cartesian cartographic colonialities.

Dynamic Boundaries

2021 ◽  
pp. 269-286
Author(s):  
Louise Bezuidenhout ◽  
Dori Beeler
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Practice Of Science ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

Historically, ethics discourse has reinforced the “othering” of the scientist as an individual who is different, held separate from society and other forms of knowledge production. This othering results in boundary creation that is contingent on where the lines are drawn and by whom. This presents an interesting challenge to current ethics discourse, necessitating flexibility and contextuality. In this challenge, virtue ethics can make a significant contribution. By focusing on boundary ethics, the infinitely variable social practice of science is presented as a negotiation of ever-changing boundaries. Subsequently, the scientist is understood as a morally robust individual who can flexibly deal with the fluctuating spaces created by boundaries without changing their ethical integrity. As such, understanding the role of boundaries affords a very different interpretation of what science is.

scholarly journals Coproducing Urban Governance

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liz Richardson ◽  
Catherine Durose ◽  
Beth Perry
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Local Practices ◽  
Daunting Task ◽  
Fit For Purpose ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

There are many critiques of existing forms of urban governance as not fit for purpose. However, what alternatives might look like is equally contested. Coproduction is proposed as a response to address complex wicked issues. Achieving coproduction is a highly complex and daunting task. Bottom up approaches to the initiation of coproduced governance are seen as fruitful, including exemplification of utopian alternatives though local practices. New ways of seeing the role of conflict in participation are needed, including ways to institutionalise agonistic participatory practices. Coproduction in governance drives demands for forms of knowledge production that are themselves coproductive. New urban governing spaces need to be coproduced through participative transformation requiring experimentation and innovation in re-designing urban knowledge architectures. Future research in this field is proposed which is nuanced, grounded in explicit weightings of different democratic values, and which mediates between recognition of contingency and the ability to undertake comparative analysis.

scholarly journals Fracking and epistemic injustice: A feminist critique of knowledge formation

2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442110364
Author(s):  
Yasminah Beebeejaun
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Women Activists ◽  
Spatial Planning ◽  
Feminist Critique ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Knowledge Formation ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

The expansion of fracking, an intensive form of hydrocarbon extraction, has been met with increasing public hostility, spanning a diverse range of interests and political allegiances. However, to date, few authors have engaged with the role of gender and women activists. In this paper, I consider how gender and gendered ideas have been used as a resource to underpin fracking protests in the USA and UK. I find that a problematic gendered binary has emerged that undermined the veracity of anti-fracking protestors’ opposition and aligns with modes of planning governance that valorize universal and objective forms of knowledge. Drawing upon a feminist epistemological stance, I turn to a planning dispute over noise levels in Lancashire, England, to explore the limits to current forms of knowledge production. I argue that specific actors, behaviours, and forms of knowledge become framed as gendered and unreliable in the sphere of technical decision making, diminishing our understanding of the complexities of human experience and subjectivity within spatial planning.

Gender Indeterminacy in Translation: the Case of R. L. Stine’s Give Yourself Goosebumps Gamebooks via Portuguese Translation

2018 ◽  
pp. 329-345
Author(s):  
Ana Brígida Paiva
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Second Person ◽  
The North ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Gender Neutral ◽  
Literary Systems ◽  
Second Person Perspective ◽  
Neutral Language

As works of fction, gamebooks offer narrative-bound choices – the reader generally takes on the role of a character inserted in the narrative itself, with gamebooks consequently tending towards being a story told in the second-person perspective. In pursuance of this aim, they can, in some cases, adopt gender-neutral language as regards grammatical gender, which in turn poses a translation challenge when rendering the texts into Portuguese, a language strongly marked by grammatical gender. Stemming from an analysis of a number of gamebooks in R. L. Stine’s popular Give Yourself Goosebumps series, this article seeks to understand how gender indeterminacy (when present) is kept in translation, while examining the strategies used to this effect by Portuguese translators – and particularly how ideas of implied readership come into play in the dialogue between the North-American and Portuguese literary systems.

The Keystone Role of Bison in North American Tallgrass Prairie

BioScience ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan K. Knapp ◽  
John M. Blair ◽  
John M. Briggs ◽  
Scott L. Collins ◽  
David C. Hartnett ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tallgrass Prairie ◽  
North American

Fluid Multilingual Practices among Youth in Cameroon and Mozambique

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torun Reite ◽  
Francis Badiang Oloko ◽  
Manuel Armando Guissemo
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Urban Youth ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
The South ◽  
African Cities ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
The Social

Inspired by recent epistemological and ontological debates aimed at unsettling and reshaping conceptions of language, this essay discusses how mainstream sociolinguistics offers notions meaningful for studying contexts of the South. Based on empirical studies of youth in two African cities, Yaoundé in Cameroon and Maputo in Mozambique, the essay engages with “fluid modernity” and “enregisterment” to unravel the role that fluid multilingual practices play in the social lives of urban youth. The empirically grounded theoretical discussion shows how recent epistemologies and ontologies offer inroads to more pluriversal knowledge production. The essay foregrounds: i) the role of language in the sociopolitical battles of control over resources, and ii) speakers’ reflexivity and metapragmatic awareness of register formations of fluid multilingual practices. Moreover, it shows how bundles of localized meanings construct belongings and counterhegemonic discourses, as well as demonstrating speakers’ differential valuations and perceptions of boundaries and transgressions across social space.

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