This Special Issue aims to reflect on knowledge co-production and transdisciplinarity, exploring the mutual interaction between water governance and water research. We do so with contributions that bring examples from diverse parts of the world: Bolivia, Canada, Germany, Ghana, Namibia, the Netherlands, Palestine, and South Africa. Key insights brought by these contributions include the importance of engaging the actors from early stages of transdisciplinary research, and the need for an in-depth understanding of the diverse needs, competences, and power of actors and the water governance system in which knowledge co-production takes place. Further, several future research directions are identified, such as the examination of knowledge backgrounds according to the individual and collective thought styles of different actors. Together, the eight papers included in this Special Issue constitute a significant step toward a better understanding of knowledge co-production and transdisciplinarity, with a common thread for being reflective and clear about their complexity, and the political implications and risks they pose for inclusive, plural and just water research and governance.
Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M ; This paper examines alliances between scientists and local groups in the context of environmental justice conflicts. We analyze the trajectories of two white male scientific experts collaborating with activist groups in mining and nuclear conflicts around the world. We posit the knowledge co-production processes that take place in these collaborations can challenge (internal and external) power relations and hegemonic discourses around pollution. These collaborations can entail three types of co-production: (i) co-production of knowledge where new technical knowledge is co-created; (ii) co-production of interpretation through which knowledge is contextualized technically and politically; and (iii) the co-production of the mobilization of knowledge where different expertise collaborate in the elaboration of strategies based on their (scientific, local, Indigenous, traditional or experiential) knowledges and networks. Whilst knowledge co-production provides legitimacy and confidence to local groups; knowledge interpretation and its mobilization provide public legitimacy, visibility, and political leverage. This paper unsettles seemingly colonial processes pointing to the importance of locally driven alliances, the collaborative dynamics at play merging local and scientific expertise as well as the motivations and trajectories of scientists and local groups. Our approach makes visible how these alliances are the result of supra-local networks of support that connect scientists with local groups struggling against extractive activities.
The governance of modern science requires a heightened sensitivity to societal issues in relation to, and in particular within, the life sciences. Current opinion about practices, potential achievements and applications of genomics research oscillates between hope and fear; promise and realization; intended and unintended consequences; knowledge and non-knowledge; understanding and misunderstanding—on all sides, including scientists. Governments, research funding agencies and industry seem to have learnt, to some extent, that what was once fittingly called "organized irresponsibility" (Beck, 1995) must be transformed into 'organized responsibility' if scientific research, new therapies and diagnostics, improved health care, and new consumer products and services are to stand any chance of being accepted by society.
This article explains the emergence of civil society movements around deforestation issue in Indonesia as contestation over knowledge claims that defines 'deforestation' as a political term. The term 'deforestation', which is translated into 'perusakan hutan' in Indonesian forestry laws and regulation, is a product of political epistemology that serve the needs to sustain state-reinforced developmentalism. It is imposed by valorization of modern scientific and technocratic values as well as bureaucratization of the forestry sector. Engaging with critical political ecology literatures, this study unpacks the constitutive interactions among various ways of seeing that redefine state forestry and its implications to the reproduction of political order. 'Perusakan hutan' is continuously re-negotiated in the relations between the state and its formative societal elements. Knowledge on addressing deforestation is organized around three contesting epistemologies: conservation, redistribution, and indigeneity. Each epistemology seeks to claim political space in the institutionalization of knowledge that fortifies state's policies in the forestry sector. Politics of knowledge co-production operates at two levels: between hegemonic knowledge construct and its counter knowledge formation, and within the formation of counter-knowledge through alternative epistemologies.
Regional economies are continuously evolving shifting from more traditional manufacturing toward more service-oriented production systems. Despite the increasing relevance of services, however, the analysis of innovation at the regional aggregate level has mainly focused on manufacturing, gathering the attention on the role of R&D expenditure as input in the production process and, in some cases, accounting for research-based knowledge externalities. In this paper the role of Knowledge Intensive Business Services is studied and their contribution to the regional aggregate innovation is evaluated. The aim is twofold. First is to provide insights on the role covered by KIBS as a second knowledge infrastructure. Second is to examine the extent to which KIBS operate as bridges between the general purpose analytical knowledge produced by scientific universities and more specific requirement of innovative firms. A role commonly acknowledged to KIBS is in fact that of knowledge transferors. If on the one side it is however clear to whom they transfer knowledge, their client firms, on the other it is not as clear from whom the knowledge is originally transferred. For this reason a major attention in this work is dedicated to scientific universities considered as a primary source of knowledge. Being this knowledge analytical and highly codified, it probably can be more easily accessed by nearby located firms having higher opportunities of research collaboration and less easily by firms located in different regions. It is argued that KIBS, in transferring knowledge from universities to firms, are therefore specially important in the latter case. To test hese hypothesis a knowledge production function is estimated for a sample of 200 EU NUTS II regions including also information of university research and KIBS concentration. Parameters are estimated using the heteroschedasticity-consistent G2SLS estimator for spatial models and the evidence suggests that the contribution of KIBS to regional innovation is considerable. In fact accounting for the knowledge embedded in business services can considerably contribute to explain the cross-regional variation in innovative activities. Furthermore it is find that the KIBS contribution is more sizeable in regions in which there are not scientific universities. The highlighted results have important policy implications asking to rethink to how much effective an R&D-centered innovation strategy could be, at least in some regions.
Supporting the development of trusted and usable science remains a key challenge in contested spaces. This paper evaluates a collaborative research agreement between the North Slope Borough of Alaska and Shell Exploration and Production Company—an agreement that was designed to improve collection of information and management of issues associated with the potential impacts of oil and gas development in the Arctic. The evaluation is based on six categories of knowledge co-production indicators: external factors, inputs, processes, outputs, outcomes, and impacts. Two sources of data were used to assess the indicators: interviews with steering committee members and external science managers (n = 16) and a review of steering committee minutes. Interpretation of the output and outcome indicators suggests that the Baseline Studies Program supported a broad range of research, though there were differences in how groups perceived the relevance and legitimacy of project outcomes. Several input, process, and external variables enabled the co-production of trusted science in an emergent boundary organization and contested space; these variables included governance arrangements, leveraged capacities, and the inclusion of traditional knowledge. Challenges to knowledge co-production on the North Slope include logistics, differences in cultures and decision contexts, and balancing trade-offs among perceived credibility, legitimacy, and relevance. Reinforced lessons learned included providing time to foster trust, developing adaptive governance approaches, and building capacity among scientists to translate community concerns into research questions. ; La nécessité d'appuyer la production de données scientifiques fiables et utilisables demeure un défi important dans les espaces contestés. Le présent article évalue une entente de collaboration de recherche entre la municipalité de North Slope, en Alaska, et la Shell Exploration and Production Company, entente destinée à améliorer la collecte de renseignements et la gestion des enjeux liés aux incidences éventuelles de l'exploitation pétrolière et gazière dans l'Arctique. L'évaluation est fondée sur six catégories d'indicateurs de coproduction des connaissances : facteurs externes, intrants, processus, extrants, résultats et incidences. Deux sources de données ont été employées pour évaluer les indicateurs : des entrevues avec les membres du comité directeur et des gestionnaires scientifiques externes (n = 16), et l'examen des procès-verbaux du comité directeur. L'interprétation des indicateurs d'extrants et de résultats suggère que le programme d'études de base a appuyé un large éventail de recherches, mais qu'il y avait des différences dans la façon dont les groupes percevaient la pertinence et la légitimité des résultats du projet. Plusieurs variables d'intrants, de processus et de facteurs externes ont permis la coproduction de données scientifiques fiables dans une organisation frontalière émergente et un espace contesté. Ces variables comprenaient les mécanismes de gouvernance, les capacités utilisées et l'inclusion des connaissances traditionnelles. Parmi les défis propres à la coproduction de connaissances à North Slope, notons des défis de logistique, de différences sur les plans de la culture et des contextes décisionnels, ainsi que l'équilibre des compromis entre les perceptions en matière de crédibilité, de légitimité et de pertinence. Quant aux leçons apprises, notons la nécessité d'accorder du temps pour favoriser la confiance, d'élaborer des méthodes de gouvernance adaptatives et de renforcer les capacités chez les scientifiques pour traduire les préoccupations communautaires en questions de recherche.
The relationship between the energy-food-water nexus and the climate is non-linear, multi-sectoral and time sensitive, incorporating aspects of complexity and risk in climate related decision-making. This paper seeks to explore how knowledge co-production can help identify opportunities for building more effective, sustainable, inclusive and legitimate decision making processes on climate change. This would enable more resilient responses to climate risks impacting the nexus while increasing transparency, communication and trust among key actors. We do so by proposing the operationalization of an interdisciplinary approach of analysis applying the novel methodology developed in Howarth and Monasterolo (2016). Through a bottom-up, participative approach, we present results of five themed workshops organized in the UK (focusing on: shocks and hazards, infrastructure, local economy, governance and governments, finance and insurance) featuring 78 stakeholders from academia, government and industry. We present participant's perceptions of opportunities that can emerge from climate and weather shocks across the energy-food-water nexus. We explore opportunities offered by the development and deployment of a transdisciplinary approach of analysis within the nexus boundaries and we analyse their implications. Our analysis contributes to the current debate on how to shape global and local responses to climate change by reflecting on lessons learnt and best practice from cross-stakeholder and cross-sectorial engagement. In so doing, it helps inform a new generation of complex systems models to analyse climate change impact on the food-water-energy Nexus.
This article aims to explore knowledge co-production through a critical (and self-critical) reflection of experiences with doing evaluation within the Fostering Multi-Lateral Knowledge Networks of Transdisciplinary Studies to Tackle Global Challenges (KNOTS) project. KNOTS started as a collaborative project to explore the possibilities and increase the expertise of seven institutions from Europe and Southeast Asia in teaching a transdisciplinary approach at their higher education institutions. Planned as a capacity-building tool for higher education, its main objectives were to create a teaching manual and to es- tablish sustainable networks and knowledge hubs in this field of knowledge production. This was to be achieved mainly by means of summer schools and fieldtrips in Southeast Asia, which would enable learning through practical application of the knowledge developed. The realization of this ambitious conceptual formulation turned out to be pretty complex and this holds for the very process of evaluation itself as well. We discuss and illustrate the specific problems of a strict evaluation in such a complex transdisciplinary project. The notorious complexity of interdisciplinary and the more transdisciplinary projects was further increased by the intercultural, respective, transcultural dimension involved. Topics discussed include structurally immanent difficulties, unintended effects of financial and political constraints, complications caused by hierarchies and language, and effects of cultural differences, especially different university science cultures. In the form of lessons learned during the evaluation process, we give some hints for the development and implementation of the transdisciplinary approach as a new tool for reaching socially relevant knowledge, especially in cross-cultural settings.
ISBN 978-2-7380-1284-5. ; International audience ; The co-production of knowledge within sustainable agriculture. The techno-science based model of development, which relies on a joint process of acceleration (implementation of a speed society) and space destruction (both material and symbolic) is currently showing its limits. It is indeed causing an ecological, social and meaning crisis. As a result, it calls for the implementation of new modes of production (and of consumption) which re-structure the economic, ecological and social spheres of agricultural activity. These new modes of production are implemented by a great number of farmers which often belong to knowledge co-production spaces. This paper aims at showing how these new modes of production are based on the construction of peasant knowledge which relies on the hybridization of lay knowledge (inherited from tradition) and expert knowledge (produced by modernity), that is of knowledge resulting from revisited tradition. ; Le modèle de développement technoscientifique, qui repose sur un processus conjointd'accélération (mise en œuvre d'une société de la vitesse) et de destruction (physique etsymbolique) de l'espace, montre aujourd'hui ses limites. En effet, il est à l'origine d'une triple crise :écologique, sociale et du sens. Par conséquent, il appelle la mise en œuvre de nouveaux modesde production (et de consommation) qui réarticulent les différentes sphères (économique,écologique, sociale) de l'activité agricole. Ces nouveaux modes de production sont mis en œuvrepar de nombreux agriculteurs qui appartiennent souvent à des espaces de coproduction de savoirs.L'objectif de cette communication sera de montrer en quoi ces nouveaux modes de productions'appuient sur la construction de savoirs paysans qui reposent sur l'hybridation de savoirs profanes(hérités de la tradition) et de savoirs savants (produits de la modernité), c'est-à-dire de savoirsissus d'une tradition revisitée.
ISBN 978-2-7380-1284-5. ; International audience ; The co-production of knowledge within sustainable agriculture. The techno-science based model of development, which relies on a joint process of acceleration (implementation of a speed society) and space destruction (both material and symbolic) is currently showing its limits. It is indeed causing an ecological, social and meaning crisis. As a result, it calls for the implementation of new modes of production (and of consumption) which re-structure the economic, ecological and social spheres of agricultural activity. These new modes of production are implemented by a great number of farmers which often belong to knowledge co-production spaces. This paper aims at showing how these new modes of production are based on the construction of peasant knowledge which relies on the hybridization of lay knowledge (inherited from tradition) and expert knowledge (produced by modernity), that is of knowledge resulting from revisited tradition. ; Le modèle de développement technoscientifique, qui repose sur un processus conjointd'accélération (mise en œuvre d'une société de la vitesse) et de destruction (physique etsymbolique) de l'espace, montre aujourd'hui ses limites. En effet, il est à l'origine d'une triple crise :écologique, sociale et du sens. Par conséquent, il appelle la mise en œuvre de nouveaux modesde production (et de consommation) qui réarticulent les différentes sphères (économique,écologique, sociale) de l'activité agricole. Ces nouveaux modes de production sont mis en œuvrepar de nombreux agriculteurs qui appartiennent souvent à des espaces de coproduction de savoirs.L'objectif de cette communication sera de montrer en quoi ces nouveaux modes de productions'appuient sur la construction de savoirs paysans qui reposent sur l'hybridation de savoirs profanes(hérités de la tradition) et de savoirs savants (produits de la modernité), c'est-à-dire de savoirsissus d'une tradition revisitée.
ISBN 978-2-7380-1284-5. ; International audience ; The co-production of knowledge within sustainable agriculture. The techno-science based model of development, which relies on a joint process of acceleration (implementation of a speed society) and space destruction (both material and symbolic) is currently showing its limits. It is indeed causing an ecological, social and meaning crisis. As a result, it calls for the implementation of new modes of production (and of consumption) which re-structure the economic, ecological and social spheres of agricultural activity. These new modes of production are implemented by a great number of farmers which often belong to knowledge co-production spaces. This paper aims at showing how these new modes of production are based on the construction of peasant knowledge which relies on the hybridization of lay knowledge (inherited from tradition) and expert knowledge (produced by modernity), that is of knowledge resulting from revisited tradition. ; Le modèle de développement technoscientifique, qui repose sur un processus conjointd'accélération (mise en œuvre d'une société de la vitesse) et de destruction (physique etsymbolique) de l'espace, montre aujourd'hui ses limites. En effet, il est à l'origine d'une triple crise :écologique, sociale et du sens. Par conséquent, il appelle la mise en œuvre de nouveaux modesde production (et de consommation) qui réarticulent les différentes sphères (économique,écologique, sociale) de l'activité agricole. Ces nouveaux modes de production sont mis en œuvrepar de nombreux agriculteurs qui appartiennent souvent à des espaces de coproduction de savoirs.L'objectif de cette communication sera de montrer en quoi ces nouveaux modes de productions'appuient sur la construction de savoirs paysans qui reposent sur l'hybridation de savoirs profanes(hérités de la tradition) et de savoirs savants (produits de la modernité), c'est-à-dire de savoirsissus d'une tradition revisitée.
Despite its many advantages, teaching transdisciplinary is a costly enterprise. Transferring diverse theoretical, methodological, and practical skills may require several teaching staff; developing meaningful stakeholder interaction is time-intensive; and managing the research process demands significant efforts in logistics and coordination. This article seeks to make two distinct contributions. Conceptually, it introduces a framework for distinguishing between soft, inclusive, reflexive, and hard transdisciplinarity, based on the notion that there are diminishing returns to all features of the practice. Empirically, it examines a classroom simulation – the Sustainable Development Indicator Exercise (SDIE) – as an example of soft transdisciplinarity. In the SDIE interdisciplinary student groups play the role of policy advisers. Building on a concrete transdisciplinary research project, they explore their understanding of sustainability, develop a multi-criteria decision making method for assessing sustainability criteria and indicators, elaborate and present their results, and reflect on their experience. All aspects of the exercise follow the logic of role playing: organizing group interaction, distributing responsibilities, interacting with their political principal, presenting their findings, and evaluating their progress. Experience from the simulation reveals insights into ways students address and express concerns with objectivity, transparency, deliberation, and balancing sustainability; it also points to ways for moving beyond soft transdisciplinarity.
Over the past decade, co-production and co-creation have become central buzzwords throughout society. The terms engender a funda-mental participatory ethos, entailing an increasing involvement in decision-making processes of a variety of people across diverse con-texts, who should be given a voice in a wide range of practices to a higher degree than previously done. To a large extent, this participatory wave thus creates new challenges and dilemmas for employees in contemporary organizations. For instance, many public employees (frontline workers) experience challenges regarding translating (and/or enacting) co-creative/co-productive policy objectives into (in) their practices. A central obstacle seems to be the fact that exist-ing organizational frameworks and conditions are often rooted in contradictory management paradigms and reified institutionalized practices, complicating participatory aspirations and processes in various ways. In different ways, the contributions in this issue critically address and discuss a variety of challenges related to co-production and co-creation in contemporary society.
In this article, I begin with the position that knowledge production and reproduction is partial and situated. Through an examination of academic research on and teaching of religion in Singapore, I demonstrate how scholarly interventions at once re-present and conceal religion as experienced and lived. I posit that the partiality of such interventions is due to the influential official narrative about religion in Singapore, so that what is studied and taught reflects certain dimensions of religious life and religious-secular relations that dominate official discourse. In particular, through academic writing (and to a lesser extent, teaching), religion in Singapore is constructed as a particular mosaic of social, cultural, and political life, socially relevant, culturally rich, spatially manifested, transnationally linked, politically delicate, and historically steeped. Drawing from this reflection on Singapore, I emphasize the need to recognize the geography, sociology, and politics of knowledge (re)production, and to decenter the notion that there is an emerging "Asian religious studies."
This is an article about the struggle for control of knowledge in a divided society. It starts off by describing Belgium as a consociational democracy — that is, a society organized around integrated pillars of society (Catholic, secular), each of which provides a wide range of services (educational, training, health, health insurance, social care, family planning, leisure) to 'its' people. This special politico-institutional arrangement inherited from the past, though it has evolved, still has profound implications for the way knowledge circulates (or not) and for the way it is used (or not) and perceived both within pillars and across the policy realm: the co-existence of distinct communities requires a form of discretion. The article then goes on to describe the specific incidents that occurred in the course of a recent research project: the authors' written reports produced unexpected effects. They try to make sense of these events by reflecting on how the specific Belgian context can affect and be affected by the production of knowledge about itself. Finally, they extend their reflection to other contexts by emphasizing the general process behind their observation: the transformative effect of knowledge. Knowledge needs to be understood as an act (of construction) that can affect its very object of analysis.