Never Ask for a Lighter Rain but a Stronger Umbrella

In a recent editorial in the journal Nature Sustainability, the editors raised the concern that journal submissions on water studies appear too similar. The gist of the editorial: “too many publications and not enough ideas.” In this response, we contest this notion, and point to the numerous new ideas that result from taking a broader view of the water science field. Drawing inspiration from a recently hosted conference geared at transcending traditional disciplinary silos and forging new paradigms for water research, we are, in fact, enthusiastic and optimistic about the ways scientists are investigating political, economic, historical, and cultural intersections toward more just and sustainable human-water relations and ways of knowing.

Indigenous Trans-Systemic Research Approach

Indigenous trans-systemic approach is a lifelong unlearning and relearning process, with no endpoint. Indigenous peoples have long called for decolonizing minds so as to support self-determination, challenge colonial practices, and value Indigenous cultural identity and pride in being Indigenous peoples. Indigenous trans-systemic approach is also a political standpoint toward valuing and revitalizing Indigenous knowledge and methodologies while weeding out colonizer biases or assumptions that have impacted Indigenous ways of knowing, doing, and being. Drawing from Indigenous Participatory Action Research (IPAR), I explained how I learned the meanings of trans-systematic knowledge from Indigenous Elders and Knowledge-keepers.

The Translanguaging Pedagogies Continuum

Translanguaging pedagogy is an approach to educational equity that harnesses multilingual learners’ communicative repertoires (e.g., home languages, non-standard varieties, and gestures) by strategically incorporating them in the classroom to ensure students’ active participation and meaningful learning. This paper proposes a research-informed continuum that captures a range of possibilities for integrating translanguaging in language and literacy instruction. This continuum provides insight into how educators may make socially just instructional and curricular decisions that are based on recognizing multilingual students' languages, cultures, and ways of knowing as valuable assets in the classroom.

Reaching into the basket of doom: Learning outcomes, discourse and information literacy

Learning outcomes form a type of arrangement that holds the practice of information literacy within higher education in place. This paper employs the theory of practice architectures and a discourse analytical approach to examine the learning goals of five recent English-language models of information literacy. Analysis suggests that the practice of information literacy within higher education is composed of 12 common dimensions, which can be grouped into two categories, Mapping and Applying. The Mapping category encompasses learning outcomes that introduce the learner to accepted ways of knowing or what is valued by and how things work within higher education. The Applying category encompasses learning outcomes that encourage the learner to implement or integrate ideas into their own practice, including to their own questions, to themselves or to their experience. Revealing what is prioritised as well as what is less valued within the field at the present time, these findings also raise questions about supposed epistemological differences between models, the influence of research, and the language employed within these documents. This paper represents the third and final piece of work in a research programme that is interrogating the epistemological premises and discourses of information literacy within higher education.

Adventures in Libraries

This essay recounts lessons learned over a career studying medieval manuscripts and the stories of those who made, used, and collected them. Medieval books long outlast their intended or original audiences and have fascinating cultural interactions that extend to the present. What this most pressingly throws up for me is ways of knowing things, and the epistemological value of memory. One needs to store away the little anomalies that one encounters — and be prepared for them to surface without bidding in some new context where they might prove generative. If humility might be a first perquisite of scholarly work, certainly memory would be a second. The essay originated as a lecture, delivered remotely in March 2021 for the Renaissance Studies Center at the Newberry Library in Chicago, IL.

Jars of Light

The 21st century adult male learner lives a multidimensional life with multiple identities impacted by their notion of masculinity and manhood. Traditional notions of masculinity offer consequential stakes for college men which can impact student success and retention. This chapter presents a study designed to examine experiences of diverse undergraduate male learners as they explore the ways of knowing and make meaning of their own notions of how they experience their masculinity regulated and how their perception of other men's notion of masculinity shape their relationship with other men. Utilizing Queer Theory as a framework, educators can reimagine how masculinity impacts lives and boldly reimagine what an affirming and inclusive identity looks like for college men. This chapter will help stakeholders serve as an anchor for men willing to contest dominant ideologies surrounding masculinity while offering strategies to support male student retention through culturally inclusive practices.

Creating the [Insert Name Here] Methodology

In this chapter, the author uses a first-person narrative to describe her dissertation journey as she shifted from deductively hunting for the “right” methodology in order to follow an inductive process as she developed the “Melissa Methodology” of value-creative dialogue inspired by Ikeda's philosophical perspectives and practice. She illustrates one way that non-Western ways of knowing, being, and doing might inform curriculum studies student researchers. In addition, she highlights the importance of having supportive advisors and colleagues who pose and answer questions that push one's thoughts in new directions. Finally, she discusses implications for doctoral students based on her observations as an instructor of doctoral research methods courses. By sharing her journey, she hopes to provide an example of how doctoral students can be guided by their pursuit of what is worth knowing in creating their own research methodology.

Researching climate justice: a decolonial approach to global climate governance

This article addresses the broader question of the special issue by reflecting on the coloniality of knowledge production in a context of global climate governance. Drawing on the rationale of the special issue, we highlight key dynamics in which knowledge shape climate policies and propose a decolonial approach at the nexus of academic knowledge production and policy formation by accounting for diverse ways of knowing climate justice. To this end, the article asks how to develop a decolonial approach to researching climate justice in order to identify the meaning-in-use of climate justice by affected people in what we describe as sensitive regions of the Arctic and the Mediterranean. To this end, the article develops a research design that accounts for diverse ways of knowing. The article proceeds as follows: first, we will discuss how diverse ways of knowing are related to global climate governance and climate justice; second, we outline our practice-based research framework that addresses research ethics, decolonial approaches and norm contestation; and third, we discuss how our approach can inform not only the co-production of research in climate governance, but also current debates on climate justice.