Suchergebnisse

Background:Post-positivist critics of the linear-rational understanding of the role of knowledge in decision making have long argued the need for the construction of socially robust knowledge to illuminate policy problems from a variety of perspectives, including lived experiences.
Aims and objectives:This article charts the attempts of researchers to employ a creative method, digital storytelling, alongside more traditional scientific data in stakeholder deliberations to inform local food governance in South Africa.
Methods:Four storytellers from a marginalised group created and introduced their digital story about a 'time when they had to make a difficult choice about what food to purchase or get' to a public governance forum and the reactions of the audience self-reported.
Findings:The digital stories were emotionally compelling and gave granular detail to the more top-down perspective of the scientific data. There were concerns, however, for the welfare of the storytellers when introducing their stories in the forum.
Discussion and conclusion:Our findings highlight the multi-functionality of digital storytelling as a method of creativity within the process of co-production, not just as a technique to make visible knowledge from marginalised groups, but also as a mechanism (when used and viewed in a wider governance context) to promote knowledge mobilisation and alternative ways of knowing. The use of digital storytelling in these wider governance contexts, or social learning spaces, however, also surfaces ethical and other risks.

The highly concentrated formal agri-food sector holds enormous power in the governance of the food system in South Africa. Yet the concept of food democracy holds that all people should have an equal opportunity to participate in (re)shaping their food system. To contribute to decision making, however, stakeholders not only need access to knowledge about the food system, but should also be able to inform what is considered relevant knowledge. Communities of practice—groups of people who share a common interest or concern and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis—provide novel spaces for stakeholder involvement in food governance. This article sets out the process of establishing and maintaining a community of (food) practice in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Through participant observation, analysis of unpublished documents, as well as in depth interviews, the core elements of the community of practice are charted over its 3 yr history. The article demonstrates the informal and evolving nature of communities of practice as social learning structures that can gain credibility and potentially develop into more formal democratic institutions over. ; The DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security, South Africa ; https://wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/uar2 ; hj2022 ; Political Sciences

Communities of Practice are sites of social learning for the co-production of knowledge. Building on recent literature on Transdisciplinary Communities of Practice, this article reflects on the experiences of an emergent 'Food Governance Community of Practice' in South Africa that brings together multiple stakeholders to co-produce knowledge to inform local food policy and governance. Our results show the following lessons for managers and participants engaged in establishing similar 'third spaces' for knowledge co-production: 1) make inevitable power asymmetries explicit; 2) the identity of the group should not be built on a particular normative position but emerge from discursive processes and 3) create a balance between supporting peripheral learning and maintaining the specialist cutting edge discussions needed for co-production. Furthermore, the most beneficial legacy of a Community of Practice may not be the outputs in terms of the co-produced knowledge but the development of a cohesive group of stakeholders with a new shared way of knowing.