Participatory action research and the challenges of knowledge democracy

ABSTRACT

Participatory action research investigates the living and working conditions of people by actively involving them in the research process and thus broadening their horizons and empowering them to improve their situation. The radical idea of knowledge democracy is to recognize and respect the existing knowledge and epistemologies of traditional communities, ethnic tribes, socially marginalized groups and grass roots movements as valuable resources, essential for the comprehensive understanding required to find solutions to complex local as well as global problems. Nevertheless, the question arises whether science and alternative knowledges really are compatible and on an equal footing? Is science not superior to all other knowledge systems? On the other hand, is science and its exclusive claim to rationality and universalism not the back side of the colonial project of ‘epistemicide’ – the subjugation and eradication of all traditional knowledges worldwide? Do not some of these knowledges offer ways of thinking that are valuable and eye-opening but inaccessible to science? Well known examples of a fruitful dialogue between different epistemologies are ethnobotany, complementary medicine and ethnomathematics. Knowledge democracy means appreciative exchange of different perspectives which through collaboration and partnership between local people and researchers can lead to sustainable solutions of complex problems, more self-consciousness and emancipation from social constraints.     

Reflections on quality education in African higher education

Abstract

Worldwide the diverse ills in society are often seen as a manifestation of the weaknesses and poor quality of the education systems practiced, especially those founded on traditional approaches – highly disciplined patriotic regimens, with a great deal of memorisation and not much room for reflecting and questioning, in contrast to the contemporary education mission which seeks to produce free citizens, citizens who are free not because of wealth or birth, but because they can call their minds their own (Nussbaum, 1998). This paper critically explores both the basics of traditional education regimens, and the contemporary education mission as espoused by some renowned intellectuals, and concludes that a sound education system ought to cultivate humanity – a citizenry that can think critically, solve problems and apply new skills and techniques in diverse contexts, a citizenry that is knowledgeable about the care and wise use of the environment.     

明代桐城《庄子》研究

明代桐城《庄子》研究之风十分兴盛,学者们主要通过以儒解《庄》和会通《易》《庄》的方法来阐释《庄子》,以表达自己的哲学思想,表现出独特的学术文化特色。同时方以智、钱澄之等人,又因遗民身份,借《庄子》研究来表达故国之思、爱国之情,使明代桐城《庄子》学具有了鲜明的时代色彩,为庄子学增添了新内容。     

理念性存在:教师实践性知识的人学思考

教师实践性知识作为教师在教育教学情境中对自身与他人教育经验的借鉴与升华形成的客观知识,对于提升教师职业专业化、增强教师主体性存在等具有重要意义。基于教师实践性知识作为理念性存在的前提下,对现行教师实践性知识研究进行批判,且以其主体——教师为视角对其开展全新研究,并积极探索立足于生活、建构、理解、实践基础上的教师实践性知识研究体系。     

Conversations on cultural sustainability: stimuli for embedding Indigenous knowledges and ways of being into curriculum

While Australian higher education agendas and literature prioritise Indigenous knowledges and perspectives across policy, curriculum and pedagogy, enacting this in practice remains problematic and contentious. Often the result is the inclusion of simplified Indigenous knowledges, rather than sustained engagement with and embedding of multiple and ‘messy’ ontological and epistemological positions. This paper explores ways of engaging with this ‘messiness’. Taking messiness as a focal point within our own context of teacher education at a regional university, this agenda and tension inform an ongoing dialogue about ways of assuring a conscious approach to cultural sustainability to embed, value and foreground Indigenous knowledges and ways of being and doing in curriculum. This endeavour can be conceptualised as a heuristic project, an ongoing conversation in response to multiple stimuli rather than a fixed endpoint or framework. In response to this exploration, this paper presents the stimuli for our conversation: situated, plural and reflexive knowledges that work together in inherently relational ways to nourish the cultural sustainability of Indigenous knowledges.     

Exploring the applicability of the Semantic Web for discovering and navigating Australian Indigenous knowledge resources

ABSTRACT

Semantic Web ontology files can be flexibly programmed to delineate metadata relationships in machine-readable formats to create relational pathways for discovering resources both on and off the Internet. There is a global community of Semantic Web developers and users across a broad multi-disciplinary range of interests who create and share extensible open-source ontologies. In this article, the author will explore the functionality of Semantic Web techniques for representing the ontologies of relatedness through kinship that typically underpin Australian Indigenous knowledge systems, and investigate their potentials for meeting persistent demands among leading Australian Indigenous collections creators and users to be able to search and discover their hereditary knowledge resources in ways that reflect and reinforce their enduring cultural values, ways of knowing and rights-management concerns.     

Decolonising the curriculum: using graduate qualities to embed Indigenous knowledges at the academic cultural interface

The context of this paper is a strategy at a large Australian university that involves embedding a new graduate quality ‘cultural competence’ and lifting the profile of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, experiences and histories. It has been argued that the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges is essential for the decolonisation of our higher education institutions. Decolonisation involves removing the barriers that have silenced non-Western voices in our ‘multi-cultural’ higher education system and combatting the epistemic injustices of a system dominated by Western thought. In this paper, we suggest that our university’s suite of graduate qualities can provide a locus for work at the cultural interface between Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledges. While these qualities may be firmly embedded within Western ways of knowing, being and doing, they can nonetheless be used to interrogate and revisit Western disciplinary knowledge construction and pedagogy so as to help bring about institutional change.     

Academic mothers finding rhyme and reason

In this paper I argue that the ‘balancing two lives’ approach to motherhood and work has particular limitations for academic mothers. I interrogate the perceived oppositionalities in being mother, traditionally associated with nurturing, love and emotion, and being academic, traditionally associated with reason and logic. My purpose is to show that motherhood needs to be inscribed into intellectual work if the academic mother is to find a wholeness of self. A related point I make is that separating motherhood from intellectual work is tantamount to abandoning thinking and intellectual labour to be the preserve of a masculine terrain from which motherhood, emotion, love, nurturing is excluded.     

教育研究的认识论视野

人生活在印象、语言和知识之中，集体行动也这样建立在认识和理解的基础之上。正因为如此，管理首先就是以某种知识为基础而推行的对知识的管理。对行动逻辑的思考促使我们在考察教育行动时采取一种认识论视野，这一视野就其内核而言就是一种新的知识观，以及依此对知识和实践之间相互关系的重构。其中最为重要的是关注制度和知识之间的关联，从而摒弃知识分子所惯有的导师心态，走出理性自负和知识输入的泥沼，将教育实践中的知识增长托付给一种超主体的社会过程。