Participation and democratization of knowledge: living theory research for reconciliation

Abstract

This presentation is intended to develop ideas from the 8th May 2015 ARNA Town Hall meeting in Toronto to the June 2017 ARNA conference in Cartagena, Colombia. It is focused on emerging understandings of knowledge democracy with convergences among those creating knowledge. We will show how Living Theorists draw on diverse approaches including living-cultures-of-inquiry, participatory frameworks, narrative inquiry, self-study and various forms of action research. Data from epistemologies of the South, East-Asian epistemologies and Western epistemologies, are analysed and used to show the mutual exclusion of different forms of rationality. In contrast to the exclusion expressed as 'epistemicide' by de Sousa Santos (2014) the living-logics of Living Theory research are used to show how different knowledges can be reconciled to contribute to the evolution of knowledge for the flourishing of humanity without denying the rationality of a different perspective. Multi-media narratives with digital visual data from a range of professional and community practices are used to clarify and communicate the meanings of embodied expressions of ontological and relational lifeaffirming values. These values are being used as explanatory principles in the explanations of individuals of their educational influences in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the social formations that influence practice and understandings.