Knowledge co-production in BearWatch: Difference between revisions

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To this purpose, BearWatch researchers have collected and analysed TEK through workshops and individual interviews, coupled with participatory mapping. This focus on documenting and compiling TEK, rather than the more complex endeavour of engaging with Inuit Quajimajatuqangit (IQ) and reconciling two different systems of knowing and being as part of reconciliatory approaches to research, fits within a convention of western science, to selectively incorporate those elements of Inuit knowledge that can be processed and measured as ‘data’ (Agrawal, 2002; Nadasty, 1999). Such ‘data’ is often, as was the case within the Bearwatch project, translated into geographical polygons and markers on a map. Among other goals, such mapping had the objective of guiding future on-the-land field sampling.  
Most of the IQ and TEK that had been collected in the project was part of an informative strategy to determine sampling locations in the field, rather than part of a decisive strategy where Inuit Knowledge is engaged across multiple stages of research decision making. Interviews with elders and hunters had revolved around observations and spatial demarcations under the nominator of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) marked on maps.  


Underlying this approach was an assumption that knowledge integration is a “technical problem”.In such technical approaches, knowledge integration is approached as the challenge of integrating two compartmentalised bodies of knowledge consisting of codifiable data, to be solved by applying the most appropriate interface (see Nadady, 1999). Such a view leads to Indigenous knowledge being seen as simply a new form of "data" - to be incorporated into research and existing management bureaucracies. The choices that were made within the project as part of this desire to ‘integrate’ TEK into western-based sciences and the subsequent processes of analysing the gathered knowledge, have led to the disconnection of such TEK from IQ - and has therefore lost the distinguishable characteristics that would make this TEK, “traditionally” Inuit.
This observation is not to discount the insights, observations, and contributions to research that such TEK can provide for monitoring research. However, as a process of meaningfully engaging with Inuit knowledge on its own terms, beyond a data-driven focus, this narrow focus on TEK falls short. Instead of approaching knowledge conciliation as an epistemological question of data, it should be considered as an invitation to rethink the ontological bassumptions that underly contemporary processes of research and polar bear management.
[[File:Slideshow knowledge is creation.png|border]]


This observation is not to discount the insights, observations, and contributions to research that such knowledge can provide for monitoring research. However, as a process of meaningfully engaging with Inuit knowledge on its own terms, beyond a data-driven focus,  this narrow focus on TEK falls short. Instead of approaching knowledge conciliation as a question of data, Indigenous knowledge should be considered as an invitation to rethink the basic assumptions, values, and practices underlying contemporary processes of research and polar bear management. Many Indigenous people, for example, share an understanding of knowledge not as simply understanding relationships within Creation, but rather as Creation itself (McGregor 2004). Knowledge is something one does.


[[File:Slideshow knowledge is creation.png|frame]]
<div class="next_choice"> One of the ways with which the BearWatch research have started to respond to the challenge of knowledge co-production beyond a data-driven agenda, is by exploring the possibilities of “wayfaring”.  


'''"Take a Detour to Cut 2"''' if you are curious to find out more about a small pilot study that we have done.




<span class="detour link" data-page-title="Another_point_of_beginning_Wayfaring_method" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Another point of beginning Wayfaring method|Detour:different (knowledge) conciliation practices]]</span>
Otherwise,


<span class="return link" data-page-title="Voices_of_Thunder" data-section-id="15" data-encounter-type="return">[[Voices of Thunder#5.4 Relational accountability|Return to Voices of Thunder]]</span>
 
'''"Return"''' to our testimonial reading.</div>
 
<span class="detour to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Another_point_of_beginning_Wayfaring_method" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Another point of beginning Wayfaring method|Detour to Cut 3: Different (Knowledge) Conciliation Practices]]</span>
 
<span class="return to-cut-1 link" data-page-title="Multiple Voices" data-section-id="10" data-encounter-type="return">[[Multiple Voices#Relational Accountability|Return to Cut 1: Voices of Thunder]]</span>

Latest revision as of 13:46, 26 February 2025

Most of the IQ and TEK that had been collected in the project was part of an informative strategy to determine sampling locations in the field, rather than part of a decisive strategy where Inuit Knowledge is engaged across multiple stages of research decision making. Interviews with elders and hunters had revolved around observations and spatial demarcations under the nominator of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) marked on maps.

This observation is not to discount the insights, observations, and contributions to research that such TEK can provide for monitoring research. However, as a process of meaningfully engaging with Inuit knowledge on its own terms, beyond a data-driven focus, this narrow focus on TEK falls short. Instead of approaching knowledge conciliation as an epistemological question of data, it should be considered as an invitation to rethink the ontological bassumptions that underly contemporary processes of research and polar bear management.


One of the ways with which the BearWatch research have started to respond to the challenge of knowledge co-production beyond a data-driven agenda, is by exploring the possibilities of “wayfaring”.

"Take a Detour to Cut 2" if you are curious to find out more about a small pilot study that we have done.


Otherwise,


"Return" to our testimonial reading.

Detour to Cut 3: Different (Knowledge) Conciliation Practices

Return to Cut 1: Voices of Thunder

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