Knowledge systems

Harnessing the collision of four ways of knowing

By Adrian Wolfberg.

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Adrian Wolfberg (biography)

How can solving today’s most complex challenges reckon with four fundamentally different ways of knowing? How can the collision of their distinct epistemic strengths and blind spots be harnessed for innovation in threat assessment and decision-making on complex problems?

Let me unpack these four ways of knowing and how they shape, support, and sometimes undermine each other. Here, I use the example of climate security intelligence, but the insights and lessons are likely to apply to a wider range of complex societal and environmental issues. The four ways of knowing are:

  1. Scientific knowledge from the physical sciences
  2. Scientific knowledge from the social sciences
  3. Judgment under uncertainty by knowledge-producing professionals
  4. Practical decision-making by practitioners who are senior executives.

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Breaking boundaries: Transforming research with co-production and bridging knowledge systems

By Truphena E. Mukuna and Alemu Tesfaye Shekunte.

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1. Truphena E. Mukuna (biography)
2. Alemu Tesfaye Shekunte (biography)

What role do communities play in shaping research that affects their lives? How can academia break free from the constraints of traditional disciplinary boundaries to foster more inclusive knowledge production? We explore these questions based on our experience in researching forced displacement.

The challenge of traditional research methodologies

Historically, much research in the Global South has been dominated by Western perspectives and methodologies. These often lack cultural relevance and fail to engage meaningfully with the communities they study. Consequently, the resulting body of knowledge can be disconnected from the lived realities of those studied. In addition, disciplinary biases often overshadow the philosophical underpinnings of research methods. Researchers may adopt a ‘positivist’ or ‘constructivist’ stance or prefer ‘quantitative’ over ‘qualitative’ methods.

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Embracing Afro-centric philosophies to decolonize research

By Truphena Mukuna

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Truphena Mukuna (biography)

How can researchers ensure that they de-centre Western-centric research methodologies, methods and theoretical frameworks so that the research is localized, and the researcher and relevant community voices are heard? How can Afro-centric philosophies be mainstreamed to ensure that the research deconstructs the epistemic injustice that currently exists?

In this i2Insights contribution I explore four African philosophies – Sankofa, Ubuntu, Ujamaa, and Harambe – to show how they can provide valuable insights and foster more inclusive and transformative research practices. Although my work is on forced displacement, these philosophies are relevant to a broad range of research in the African context.

Sankofa: Learning from the Past

The Akan concept of Sankofa, symbolized by a bird looking backward while moving forward, emphasizes the importance of learning from the past to build a better future.

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Bringing an evidence mindset to commercial products

By Natalia I. Kucirkova

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Natalia I. Kucirkova (biography; photo by Elisabeth Tønnessen)

Picture this: science seamlessly woven into commercial products for a better world. How can we foster more effective integration of science into commercial products? How can we help companies cultivate an evidence mindset?

An evidence mindset is a habit of mind committed to thoughtful engagement with research to guide understanding and actions. As a research professor leading a network of scientists supporting educational companies in integrating learning sciences into children’s products, I aim to help such companies balance their social mission with financial viability. This includes nurturing an evidence mindset.

When our researchers collaborate with companies, we assist them in establishing a research library, guiding them to actual studies instead of relying on vague phrases. We include research studies that support their ideas but also studies that contradict them.

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Four approaches to shifting mindsets for decolonising knowledge

By Peter Taylor and Crystal Tremblay

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1. Peter Taylor (biography)
2. Crystal Tremblay (biography)

In the context of knowledge for development, what does it require to deconstruct the dominant narratives and personal privileges embodied in our race, class, gender, etc.? And, in a knowledge landscape littered with potential minefields, how do we go about shifting the mindsets that shape the ways in which ‘we’ understand the world and our subsequent values, behaviours, and attitudes?

Drawing on our own experiences, and learning that has emerged through many valued interactions with others, we have identified four approaches which we believe may help to make a difference.

1. Identifying what, and whose, knowledge is valued, counted, and integrated into development processes

Researchers often fail to recognise or value the different knowledges needed to address some of the world’s greatest challenges, because of where knowledge resides and who has generated it.

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Decolonising research capacity development

By Maru Mormina and Romina Istratii

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1. Maru Mormina (biography)
2. Romina Istratii (biography)

Why do many countries in the Global South remain behind when it comes to knowledge production and use, despite decades-long efforts to strengthen research capacity?

We think this is because the North still looks at the South with a ‘deficit mentality,’ according to which the latter has the problems and the former the solutions. From this standpoint, northern-led capacity development initiatives fail to recognise the South’s rich and diverse knowledge traditions and systems. Instead, they continue to impose monolithic blueprints of knowledge production, therefore re-inscribing colonial patterns of intellectual Western hegemony.

Of course, in many countries, research systems need support but current approaches are at best producing mixed results. A decolonial lens can help us identify alternative models.

Decolonising research capacity development in principle

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Navigating intercultural relations in transdisciplinary practice: The partial overlaps framework

By David Ludwig, Vitor Renck & Charbel N. El-Hani

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1. David Ludwig (biography)
2. Vitor Renck (biography)
3. Charbel N. El-Hani (biography)

How can local knowledge be effectively and fairly incorporated in transdisciplinary projects? How can such projects avoid “knowledge mining” and “knowledge appropriation” that recognize marginalized knowledge only where it is convenient for dominant actors and their goals? In addition, how can knowledge integration programs avoid being naive or even harmful by forcing Indigenous people into regimes of knowledge production that continue to be dominated by the perspectives of external researchers?

On the other hand, how can transdisciplinary projects avoid an exclusive focus on difference that risks creating an artificial divide between Indigenous/local and scientific knowledge and that contributes to further marginalization by denying the very possibility of meaningful dialogue?

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Visions of knowledge systems for life on Earth and how to get there

By Niko Schäpke and Ioan Fazey

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1. Niko Schäpke (biography)
2. Ioan Fazey (biography)

How should formalized knowledge systems, including universities, research institutes and education, transform to keep pace with wider and inevitable societal transformations associated with accelerating global change? What kinds of changes are needed in these knowledge systems and how can they be encouraged?

These questions were explored by participants of the Transformations 2017 conference and in subsequent research (Fazey et al., 2020). This included highlighting current challenges, envisioning future systems and the policy and actions required for the transition. These are summarized in the figure below.

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The interplay between knowledge and power / La interacción entre el conocimiento y el poder

By Cristina Zurbriggen

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Cristina Zurbriggen (biography)

An English version of this post is available

La mayoría de los recientes enfoques para abordar problemas complejos no incluyen la dimensión política. Por otra parte, la ciencia política, así como los estudios de política pública y de gobierno contemporáneo han realizado escasas contribuciones al tratamiento de los procesos de toma de decisiones desde dinámicas complejas.

¿Cómo podemos desarrollar marcos innovadores que incorporen la dimensión política? ¿Cómo podemos articular la producción conocimiento considerando también la forma en que pensamos acerca de la política, la rendición de cuentas y la responsabilidad social? En concreto, ¿cuál es la dimensión política del proceso de co-creación de conocimiento y cuáles son las implicaciones de la participación política, la experimentación y el aprendizaje colectivo?

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