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Introduction to knowledge politics - body text
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Knowledge is a tricky thing and an ' introduction to knowledge ' is virtually impossible. How do we know this? (see what I mean) All beginnings start with the self as the knower, and some people suggest that it all ends with the self. So, the briefest introduction to knowledge is: "Know Yourself " (the Socratic injunction.) This self can be re-membered as community, society and the world environment.Some say that knowledge is objective and neutral (as claimed by modernism and positivist research), others that it is personal and subjective (subjectivism), cultural (constructivism), or others that it is political (as claimed by critical theorists). What is your view on the issues? A sensitive issue are cultural variations in knowledge that lead to interesting "fluctuations in the fabric of reality", or rather different contructions of reality. For example for some groups the word "community developer" suggests the enemy and a front person for an oppressive government. For others they are benign philantropists (See "Whose Reality Counts: Putting the Last First" by R. Chalmers, 1997, Intermediate Technology Pub). Another issue is how overt or hidden power issues influence the addoption of a specific definition and conceptualisation (i.e. "the knowledge") of a problem? We know that the definition of any given situation or problem largely determine the possible solutions. The following table serves as an approximation of the fields of knowledge production in the social sciences and humanities. It is only a heuristic. Because of its generalised nature it does not adequately reflect all the various paradigms and "takes" on reality. The loss of complexity provides a simple overview of the field that helps as an abitrary entry point and provides a framework for understanding various theories and paradigms. This map is not the reality of the maps of reality  ...   It simply provides a good starting point for the bewildered and lost (and possibly helps the lost to feel OK with being lost.)TABLE UNDER RE-CONSTRUCTION <table border="1"><tbody><tr><td> </td><td>Positivism</td><td>Postpositivism</td><td>Constructionism</td><td>Critical Theory</td></tr><tr><td>1. Ontology (the nature of reality)</td><td>The world is real and knoweable "naive realism" or "objectivism"</td><td>The real reality is imperfectly knoweable through probabilties. "critical realism"</td><td>Realities are local and specifically constrcuted within time-space-culture and other contexts "relativism" (or "interpretivism") Multiple subjective realities co-exist.</td><td>We live in a virtual reality shaped by social, political, cultural, economic, ethnic, gender, age, etc. values that crystalise and change over time. "historical realism" Multiple realities co-exist. Misunderstanding of the world abounds and is linked to the oppression of groups.</td></tr><tr><td>2. Epistemology (how we can know about reality )</td><td>Dualist (mind "vs" body), objectivist. Findings are true knowledge (truth).</td><td>Modified dualist (subjective knower and objective world), objectivist, critical community, findings are true to a degree of probabality.</td><td>Transactional, subjectivist, we co-create the findings.</td><td>Transactional, subjectivist, findings are mediated by values.</td></tr><tr><td>3. Methodology (procedures/methods of inquiry)</td><td>Experimental, hypotheses testing (verification of hypotheses), quantitative methods.</td><td>Modified experimental, hypotheses testing, critical multiplism, falsification of hyotheses, includes quantitative and qualitative methods.</td><td>Hermeneutic, dialectical, interactional, interpretive, qualitative.</td><td>Dialogic, dialectical, decontructive, discourses.</td></tr><tr><td>4. AIMS</td><td colspan="2">Explain in order to predict and/or control.</td><td>Understanding (verstehen), reconstruction,</td><td>Critique, transformation, restitution, emanicpation.</td></tr><tr><td>5. VOICE / GUISE</td><td colspan="2">Disinterested scientist informs the scientific community, decision makers and change workers.</td><td>"passionate participant"as facilitator of multivoice reconstruction.</td><td>"transformative intellectual" as advocate or activist.</td></tr><tr><td>6. VALUES/ MECHANISMS</td><td colspan="2">Reliability, validity, rigour, generalisation, cause and effect, objectivity. Control, manipulate, deceive (double blind experiment), expert position of researcher.</td><td>Trustworthiness, aunthenticity. Co-construction of text, dialogue, story-telling, inclusive. </td><td>Historical situatedness, address ignorance and misaprehension, analyse deep structure of society and culture, (action, activism), inclusive.</td></tr><tr><td>4. Politics of Knowledge (Whose interests are served, hegemony)</td><td>The funders, the status quo powerful, the leaders, the "discipline", industry, self-interest: publish for publication sake, publish to gain promotion/ tenure/ funding.</td><td>(often ineffectual) "helping/saving the oppressed", advocacy and activism.</td><td>Inquiry with and through the participants as "co-researchers", liberal agenda, political awareness, researcher's personal identity issues.</td><td>Empowerment, emanicipation, social justice focus. Seek recognition and input. Researcher's personal identity issues. </td></tr><tr><td>The nature of knowledge</td><td colspan="2">Verified or nonfalsifiable hypoteses that are (probable) facts or laws. Knowlegde is an cummulation of ojbective facts, is devoid of any personal or politicial interests. Belief in the eternal progress of knowledge, and knowledge seen as solution to all problems. </td><td>"Individual reconstructions coalesing around consensus" (Lincoln & Guba, p.170)</td><td>Knowledge is infused with political interests, and is embedded within the subjectivity of its creators. Knowledge is in service of moral values toward emancipation of oppressed groups. Structural and historic-social-political insights.</td></tr><tr><td>Action</td><td>Prefer no action.</td><td>Activism and advocacy.</td><td>Critical-reflexive, sometimes action toward social justice and transformation.</td><td>action toward social justice and transformation, critical-reflexive practice, </td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><tr><td>Achilles Heels: terms of criticism.</td><td colspan="2">Essentialism, reification, colonialism, patriarchal, gerontocratic, middle-classist, Eurocentricism, the oppressed remain invisible and unempowered, homophobic, bureaucratic, rationalist (a-emotional), technicist.</td><td>Everything goes, anarchism, meaninglessness, </td><td>Elitism, Intellectualism, Incomprehensible Language (mindflck), Western bias, </td></tr><tr><td>Example theories, approaches, paradigms</td><td>"hard core statistics"</td><td> ..........</td><td>Constructivist, constructionist, radical contructivism, </td><td>Marxist, Critical Pedadgogy, Critical Psychology, </td></tr><tr><td>Mixed theories</td><td> </td><td> </td><td colspan="2">Cultural Studies, Ethnic Paradigm (Afrocentric), Feminist Paradigm, Queer Theory, </td></tr><tr><td>The Good Life</td><td>Individualism and self-concern, accumulation of wealth and power, supports capitalist forms of economy and societal organisation. </td><td> .........</td><td> ..........</td><td>Supports democratic-socialism, socialist, Marxist, and other communal forms of societal organisation.</td></tr></tbody></table>Table adapted from the following sources: * Yvonna Lincoln & Egon Guba "Paradigmatic controversies, contradiction, and emerging confluences", Chapter 6 of "Handbook of qualitative research" (2nd ed) by Norman Denzin & Yvonna Lincoln, SAGE, 2000) (primarily); and * Isaac Prelliltensky & Dennis Fox, "Introducing critical psychology: Values, Assumptions and the Status Quo", Chapter 1 of "Critical psychology: An Introduction" by Isaac Prelliltensky & Dennis Fox, SAGE, 1997) * Terre Blanche & Durrheim: Research Methdology. UCT Press, Cape Town, 1998. * Dirky Uys: Unpublished memoirs.