Co-Construction of Knowledge

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://knowledgedemocracydspace.com/handle/123456789/1081

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Start date: 2020Subject: search.filters.subject.Knowledge Democracy

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    Reconnecting society and science: Trajectories of the knowledge democracy movement
    (Sage, 2026-02-12) Tandon, Rajesh
    As interrelated global wicked problems increasingly engulf all sections of life on this planet, searching for knowledge solutions to address them has become urgent. While scientists in modern science establishments (labs) are busy finding answers to COVID (and other pandemics) and climate disruptions, communities and societies continue to struggle and use their own wisdom and capacity to find meaningful measures for local adaptations. This disconnect between societal actors and science has become critical. So, professional science communicators have critical responsibilities for rebuilding mutually respectful connections between society (and its diverse actors) and science. How can science communicators play such important roles in bridging society and science? Let me illustrate the ways it is being attempted in diverse contexts.
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    The power of collaboration, creativity and art in knowledge mobilization: Reflections from international work
    (2020) Tandon, Rajesh; Hall, Budd L
    In this paper, Dr. Budd Hall and Dr. Rajesh Tandon examine how knowledge mobilization (KMb) can become a more effective tool for social transformation when it is integrated throughout the research process rather than treated as a final dissemination activity. Drawing on over four decades of community-based participatory research (CBPR) across the global South and excluded North, the authors contend that KMb is most powerful when embedded in research from the outset, rather than added after the fact. Working within a knowledge democracy framework through the UNESCO Chair in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education, the paper explores how creative and arts-based methods have served as powerful vehicles for sharing research with communities, policymakers, and the broader public. Through four case studies—domestic workers in India using a hand-stitched saree to document sexual harassment, waste recyclers in Brazil producing participatory videos for policy advocacy, immigrant women in Toronto presenting through spoken word at City Hall, and a community health fair in rural South Africa the paper illustrates how art reaches people and places that conventional academic outputs cannot. The paper concludes that creativity is not decorative in KMb; it is essential, particularly when research aims at social transformation and meaningful community change.
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    Against epistemicide: Decolonising higher education
    (2020) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
    How have knowledge systems been shaped by histories of enclosure and dispossession? In this reflective essay, Dr. Budd Hall and Dr. Rajesh Tandon examine how colonisation and the enclosing of knowledge are embedded within the same paradigm through which capital was accumulated by dispossession, as theorised by David Harvey. Drawing parallels with the enclosure movement in England, they argue that common lands were gradually privatised, displacing those who depended on them. In a similar way, wealth extracted through colonisation helped build universities that enclosed knowledge within their walls, regulating who could access it and who could legitimately produce it. These enclosures determined which knowledge systems were recognised and legitimised and which were dismissed as irrational, reinforcing distinctions between knowers and non-knowers. The essay traces how these processes continue to shape contemporary academic institutions and their authority over what counts as legitimate knowledge. In response, the authors describe the establishment of the UNESCO Chair in Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education as a deliberate effort to reverse the colonisation of knowledge systems by creating structures and processes for the co-creation of knowledge with social movements and civil society partners, grounded in a commitment to epistemic justice.
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    Knowledge, democracy, and epistemic in/justice: Reflections on a conversation
    (2020) Hall, Budd L; Godrie, Baptiste; Heck, Isabel
    The focus of the article is on how knowledge is created, who creates knowledge, how is knowledge co-constructed, whose knowledge is excluded and how is knowledge being used to challenge inequalities and strengthen social movement capacity? This article grew from a fascinating conversation that the three of us had in Montreal in September of 2019. We decided to share our stories about knowledge and justice with a wider audience in part as a way for us to reflect further on the meaning of our initial conversation, but also to invite others into the discussion. The three of us are Baptise Godrie works in a research centre (CREMIS) affiliated with Quebec’s health care and social services system, Isabel Heck with the anti-poverty organization Parole d’excluEs, both affiliated to universities, and Budd Hall from the university of Victoria and the Co-Chair of the UNESCO Chair in Community-Based research and social responsibility in higher education.