Technologies of the second industrial age can be characterized as knowledge-intensive, & knowledge now dominates machinery, raw material, & labor in production. In knowledge-intensive production, the human factor is recorded in the machinery & in the organization of production. However, though knowledge increases productivity, it does not increase employment or wages. Since knowledge costs almost nothing to duplicate, capitalists are concerned about locking in knowledge, & making it private property. In this sense, the workplace struggle is not about wage levels, but about property & social relations. M. Pflum
Front Cover -- Comparative Urban Research from Theory to Practice -- Copyright information -- Table of contents -- List of figures and tables -- List of abbreviations -- Notes on the editors -- Notes on contributors -- One Introduction: from unilocal to comparative transdisciplinary urban co-production of knowledge -- Co-production as a research approach -- Global challenges and the urban -- Mistra Urban Futures: a centre for transdisciplinary co-produced research on urban futures -- From local to comparative research -- Overview of the book's contents -- Notes -- References
Purpose – In developing countries there is a growing recognition that co-production offers more cost effective and responsive service delivery options in low income areas. The purpose of this paper is to explore the way co-production initiatives are managed in developing country, Pakistan.
Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative comparative case study design is used. Data are collected through 25 semi-structured interviews and document analysis and applies institutional analysis and development framework for analysis.
Findings – The study suggests that challenges to co-production are more than a managerial problem which require a different set of capabilities on the part of the actors in order to achieve anticipated goals in the joint production of services. Co-production initiatives require formal structures and processes to involve the local community and third sector to work with the public sector as effective partners. Political and bureaucratic commitment in regional and local government and community willingness to engage act as a catalyst for the successful management of co-production.
Originality/value – The study extends understanding of what makes co-production work, a less researched area on co-production, drawing on a comparative analysis of two different institutional arrangements of co-production.
Abstract As one of the major causes of climate change, there is an urgent need for a fundamental transformation of the food system. Calls for greater sustainability underscore the importance of integrating civil society and the local knowledge of citizens in this transformation process. One increasingly relevant organisation that can actively engage a plurality of actors from across civil society is the Food Policy Council (FPC). In this paper, we explore the potential role of FPCs in sustainability politics to create an alternative food system, with a focus on the co-production of knowledge for policy-making. We propose that the co-production of knowledge requires knowledge inclusion, exchange and transmission, and we focus on the challenges that can arise for FPCs. Our paper shows that bottom-up emerging FPCs constitute a new form of alternative food organisation that can integrate and support the critical capacity of civil society in food system transformation, but also face potential struggles in the co-production of knowledge for sustainable food policy-making. The paper further highlights that co-producing knowledge in and for sustainability transformation is fundamentally a political process, with politics broadly conceived. It not only has relevance for the institutions of formal politics, but emerges in and is intrinsically linked to the grassroots collective action of contentious and prefigurative politics in civil society. FPCs (re)politicise food by combining these various kinds of sustainability politics, which constitutes their transformative potential.
Abstract As one of the major causes of climate change, there is an urgent need for a fundamental transformation of the food system. Calls for greater sustainability underscore the importance of integrating civil society and the local knowledge of citizens in this transformation process. One increasingly relevant organisation that can actively engage a plurality of actors from across civil society is the Food Policy Council (FPC). In this paper, we explore the potential role of FPCs in sustainability politics to create an alternative food system, with a focus on the co-production of knowledge for policy-making. We propose that the co-production of knowledge requires knowledge inclusion, exchange and transmission, and we focus on the challenges that can arise for FPCs. Our paper shows that bottom-up emerging FPCs constitute a new form of alternative food organisation that can integrate and support the critical capacity of civil society in food system transformation, but also face potential struggles in the co-production of knowledge for sustainable food policy-making. The paper further highlights that co-producing knowledge in and for sustainability transformation is fundamentally a political process, with politics broadly conceived. It not only has relevance for the institutions of formal politics, but emerges in and is intrinsically linked to the grassroots collective action of contentious and prefigurative politics in civil society. FPCs (re)politicise food by combining these various kinds of sustainability politics, which constitutes their transformative potential.
It has become commonplace to employ dialogue-based approaches in producing and communicating knowledge in diverse fields. Here, "dialogue" has become a buzzword that promises democratic, participatory processes of mutual learning and knowledge co-production. But what does "dialogue" actually entail in the fields in which it is practised and how can we analyse those practices in ways that take account of their complexities? The Promise of Dialogue presents a novel theoretical framework for analysing the dialogic turn in the production and communication of knowledge that builds bridges across three research traditions - dialogic communication theory, action research, and science and technology studies.It also provides an empirically rich account of the dialogic turn through case studies of how dialogue is enacted in the fields of planned communication, public engagement with science and collaborative research. A critical, reflexive approach is taken that interrogates the complexities, tensions and dilemmas inherent in the enactment of "dialogue" and is oriented towards further developing dialogic practices from a position normatively supportive of the dialogic turn.
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."