Community Knowledge

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://knowledgedemocracydspace.com/handle/123456789/1071

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    The future begins today: Nature as teacher in environmental adult popular education
    (Elsevier, 1997) Hall, Budd L; Clover, Darlena E
    The future begins today is a review of the importance and role of learning, specifically environmental adult and popular education, in working with communities and community-based organizations on planning, organizing and revisioning life from an ecological perspective. The authors report on their work based at the Transformative Learning Centre in Toronto, Canada which explores the role of nature as both teacher and site of learning. Theoretical and practical illustrations are included. All education, up to our present moment, has never countenanced the possibility of planetary destruction from the destruction of the life-support system. This viability of planetary existence was never an issue for educators because it was not, until now, part of our cultural understanding. (Hall and O'Sullivan, Transformative Learning: Contexts and Practices, 1994) The human enterprise cannot be separated from the natural world even in our minds because no such separation exists in nature.(Wackernagel and Rees, Our Ecological Footprint, 1995).
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    "All means All": Social movement learning and the inclusion movement
    (2010) Hall, Budd L; Hall, Richard
    In this paper, Budd L. Hall and Richard Hall reflect on social movement learning through a personal experience. It begins with a phone call in February 2011, when Richard learned that his health coverage in Arizona would end as part of cuts affecting about 230,000 people. The authors recall Budd’s earlier view that learning happens in social movements in three ways: through organised activity, through informal learning by members, and through the learning of people outside the movement. They then turn to the inclusion movement and its principle that “all means all”. Friends in the movement quickly connected the brothers with advocates and lawyers, and both learned fast. Richard reflects on how one person’s experience can grow into collective action.
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    Inequality, Higher Education and Knowledge Democracy
    (Newsletter of Association of Commonwealth Universities, 2020) Hall, Budd L
    In this article, published in the Spring 2020 newsletter of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, Budd L. Hall looks at inequality and what it asks of higher education. It begins with the scale of poverty and homelessness in places as different as Victoria and India, and with research by Wilkinson and Pickett showing that both rich and poor fare better in more equal societies. The article then asks what a knowledge democracy movement might look like, drawing on John Gaventa’s idea of a knowledge strategy and on the work of Nyerere and Freire. Such a movement is kept apart from the knowledge economy, community engagement and open access to information, which are treated as supports rather than the movement itself. It closes by asking how community-university partnerships can strengthen knowledge democracy.
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    Gracias Companero: An appreciation of Orlando Fals Borda
    (SAGE Publications, 2008) Hall, Budd L
    I first met Orlando Fals Borda in April of 1977. He was standing in the lobby of an older colonial style hotel in the city of Cartagena, Columbia. He was sur-rounded by a group of very earnest younger and older Latin Americans who were holding very heated discussions about the nature of knowledge, the role of intellectuals in revolutionary change and the age-old question in times of need: 'What is to be done?". The occasion was a meeting of 56 scholar-activists from all over the world, whom Orlando Fals Borda had brought together to this Caribbean city of coastal Colombia to embark on a daring new idea: to break the positivist hold on science by means of recognizing channels of valid knowledge production by and with the common people, with the purpose of social recon-struction and participation. Some of those scholars had been working to these ends since the late 1960s outside of academic confines. Orlando traced his lineage in Participatory Action Research and related approaches from that meeting. At the time, I was a newly appointed research officer working with the International Council for Adult Education, fresh from five years working in Tanzania where a number of us began the work which we coined 'participatory research'. A number of us were working on the building of an international par-ticipatory research network and we needed Orlando's ideas and support to move our work forward.
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    Knowledge democracy: Opening our doors to all knowledge systems
    (UNESCO, 2020) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
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    Lambatlaya
    (Institute of Social Work & Community Development (ISWCD), 1984) Abad, Henedina; Hall, Budd L; Gawasnon, Banika; Sadulla, Jaime; Veneracion, Ma. Corazon J; Tolentino, Carmina; Freire, Paulo; Lanot, Marra P.L; Lacaba, Jose F; Tan, Rene; Torres, Amaryllis T; Magno, Neng
    This bulletin is about participatory research as an alternative to traditional social science research practice in the Philippines, particularly research “with” and “for” the people. The contributions review research practices in which professional social scientists assume total or partial responsibility for defining problems, collecting, analyzing, interpreting data, and presenting findings to poor and vulnerable communities as if they are only research subjects. This bulletin draws lessons from the authors’ varied experiences in community development, adult education, health, rural and urban organizing, and social action. Participatory research is discussed as a praxis, that is, a process of inquiry, reflection, learning, and action. Participatory Action Research, participatory conscientizing research, community participation in research, alternative approaches to research, and building community research capacity are some of the issues taken up. Emphasis is placed on people’s participation in problem definition, data collection, analysis and interpretation, decision-making, and action. The contributions also take up issues of professional researchers’ monopoly over knowledge production, people’s concepts and analysis, community organization and empowerment, connecting research with action, and people’s participation in development planning. The bulletin further raises questions concerning methodology, research evaluation, community participation indicators, scientific validity, cost effectiveness, and research linkages with development planning. The contributions are by Henedina Abad, Rene Tan, Budd L. Hall, Amaryllis Torres, Neng Magno, and Ma. Corazon J. Veneracion. This bulletin also contains bibliographic essays by Jaime M. Sedullo, Ma. Corazon J. Veneracion, and Carmina Tolentino.
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    Mobilizing community and academic knowledge for transformative change: The story of the UNESCO Chair in community based research and social responsibility in higher education
    (The Canadian Commission for UNESCO’s IdeaLab, 2017) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
    What role can higher education play in advancing knowledge democracy and fulfilling its social responsibility? This paper co-authored by Dr. Budd L. Hall and Dr. Rajesh Tandon reflects the establishment, evolution, and contributions of the UNESCO chair in community-based research and social responsibility in higher education. Established in July 2012 as a unique co-chair partnership bridging the University of Victoria (Canada) and Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA, India). This paper outlines the effectiveness of a distinctive global North-South co-chair method in connecting academic institutions with grassroots practitioners to promote knowledge and democracy. The paper explores how universities should collaborate with communities in the co-creation of knowledge to promote social responsibility, inclusion, and sustainable development. Through its three core domains, knowledge mobilization, policy advocacy, and capacity building, the chair has generated substantial, systemic impact. Through global reports, policy dialogues, and training programs, the Chair has influenced higher education policy, fostered international networks, and contributed to embedding engagement and participatory research into the everyday functions of universities. This paper demonstrates how universities can contribute to social change by working closely with communities, promoting sustainable development, and strengthening their social responsibility.
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    Knowledge as a commodity and participatory research
    ( Prospects, UNESCO, 1979) Hall, Budd L
    What is knowledge? How is it formed? Who has the authority to “make” it? and who does it ultimately serve? These are the central questions Dr. Budd Hall raises in this article. He critiques the way traditional intellectuals such as scientists and scholars, often trained in elite universities and supported by international funding agencies, are institutionally positioned as the legitimate producers of knowledge. Embedded within particular class locations, this group often produces knowledge that serves its own class interests and maintains dominant social relations. In this process, organic intellectuals engaged in critical reflection and grassroots organising are sidelined as knowledge makers. Drawing on the works of Freire, Mao and others, Hall reflects on the role of intellectuals. He advances a systematic critique of survey research and outlines the guiding principles of participatory research. The article is a critical inquiry into the nature of knowledge within the new international order. It calls for moving beyond viewing knowledge as intellectual commodities such as papers and conferences and toward recognising and valuing local and indigenous knowledge systems, while developing more decentralised ways of legitimising people as producers of knowledge.
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    Bridging knowledge cultures: A guide for community practitioners and community organizations
    (UNESCO Chair, 2024) Lepore, Walter; Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
    This guide by Walter Lepore, Budd Hall and Rajesh Tandon is about helping community practitioners and organisations build stronger research partnerships with universities. It draws on the larger Bridging Knowledge Cultures project, which studied ten K4C hubs across Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Colombia and Canada. The book explores partnerships in areas such as fishing communities, maternal health care, waste management, and early childhood education. Community knowledge is rooted in lived experience and oral tradition, while academic knowledge is typically validated through peer review and disciplinary standards, a gap that often leaves community knowledge undervalued within formal academic settings. It closes with practical recommendations for practitioners facilitating collaboration between communities and universities, pointing to trust, mutual respect, and the recognition of practices like storytelling as legitimate forms of knowledge
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    Creating knowledge: A monopoly? Participatory research in development
    (Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 1982-06) Hall, Budd L; Gillete, Arthur; Tandon, Rajesh
    This book is about participatory research as a political process bound up with questions of power and knowledge production, rather than merely a set of methods. It opens with the Jamaican Drama for Progress literacy project, where a shift from delivering pre-written messages to villagers toward enabling them to write and perform their own material captures the move from research done on people to research done with them. Drawing on the Latin American tradition of investigación acción and Paulo Freire's thematic investigation, the collection questions who is authorised to produce knowledge about poverty and underdevelopment. Five theoretical essays address participation, power and alternative methods, followed by seven case studies from Indonesia, Senegal, Tanzania, England, Chile, Canada and India, and a concluding section of critical reactions. Rather than success stories, what emerges are unresolved questions about initiating participatory work, sustaining ties with political organisations, and balancing theory with praxis in research committed to social transformation.