Interfaces between Science and Society

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Interfaces between Science and Societyedited by ngela guimares pereira, sofia guedes vaz and sylvia tognetti


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Interfaces betweenScience

andSocietyEdited by ngela Guimares Pereira, Sofia Guedes Vaz and Sylvia Tognetti


2006 Greenleaf Publishing Ltd

Published by Greenleaf Publishing LimitedAizlewoods MillNursery StreetSheffield S3 8GGUKwww.greenleaf-publishing.com

Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire.Cover by LaliAbril.com.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by anymeans, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,without the prior permission in writing of the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN-10: 1-874719-97-7ISBN-13: 978-1-874719-97-7


Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Sofia Guedes Vaz and ngela Guimares Pereira

Part I: Communicating among plural perspectives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

1 When communication fails: a study of failures of global systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Jerome Ravetz

2 Science for sustainable development: articulating knowledges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Gilberto Gallopn and Hebe Vessuri

Part II: Managing uncertainty, complexity and value commitments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

3 Reflexively dealing with uncertainty and complexity in policy-related knowledge: what can it mean? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Matthieu Craye

4 Uncertainty, assumptions and value commitments in the knowledge base of complex environmental problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Jeroen Van der Sluijs

5 Science for governance: the implications of the complexity revolution . . . . . . . . . . . 82Mario Giampietro, Tim Allen and Kozo Mayumi


6 Reflexivity and modesty in the application of complexity theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100Roger Strand and Slvia Caellas-Bolt

7 Precaution as an invigorating context for scientific input in policy processes . . . 118Cato C. ten Hallers-Tjabbes, David Gee and Sofia Guedes Vaz

Part III: Knowledge assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

8 Why knowledge assessment? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138Silvio Funtowicz

9 Deliberating foresight knowledge for policy and foresight knowledge assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Ren von Schomberg, ngela Guimares Pereira and Silvio Funtowicz

Part IV: Transparency, openness and participation in science policy processes . . . . . 175

10 Transparency, openness and participation in science policy processes . . . . . . . . . . . 176Maria Eduarda Gonalves

11 Interfaces between science and policy for environmental governance: lessons and open questions from the European Platform for Biodiversity Research Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Sybille van den Hove and Martin Sharman

12 Patents at the interfaces among science, society and the law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209Emanuela Gambini

13 Evaluating public and stakeholder engagement strategies in environmental governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Jacquelin Burgess and Judy Clark

Part V: Community-based research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

14 Community-based research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254Jennifer A. Bellamy

15 Science and society in place-based communities: uncomfortable partners . . . . . . 261David Waltner-Toews, Ligia Noronha and Dean Bavington

6 interfaces between science and society


16 Science shops as sciencesociety interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278Henk A.J. Mulder, Michael S. Jrgensen, Laura Pricope, Norbert Steinhaus and Anke Valentin

Part VI: Emerging styles of governance and new ICT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

17 Building knowledge partnerships with ICT? Social and technological conditions of conviviality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Martin OConnor

18 CSLoTs: communication of science to non-scientific audiences. VGAS: exploration of energy, lifestyles and climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

Tiago de Sousa Pedrosa and ngela Guimares Pereira

19 Worldwide virtual network of practitioners working on science and society issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

Merc Agera Cabo and ngela Guimares Pereira

Abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

About the contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

contents 7


2Science for sustainabledevelopmentarticulating knowledgesGilberto Gallopn and Hebe Vessuri

Reaching a useful and usable understanding of the sustainability, dynamics, vulnera-bilities and resilience of the complex socio-ecological systems that are the basis of sus-tainable development will require a strong push to advance focused scientific research.This will include building up classical disciplinary knowledge from the natural and thesocial sciences, and an even stronger development of interdisciplinary and trans-disci-plinary research (Schellnhuber and Wenzel 1998; Kates et al. 2001; ICSU 2002).

But the challenge goes beyond scientific knowledge itself; many discussions and con-sultations on the role and nature of science and technology for sustainable develop-ment emphasise the importance of incorporating knowledge generated endogenouslyin particular places and contexts of the world, including empirical knowledge, knowl-edge incorporated into technologies, into cultural traditions, etc. (ICSU 2002). Indeed,science and technology for sustainable development create historic opportunities touse inputs from other forms of knowledge by exploring the practical, political and epis-temological value of traditional/local/empirical/indigenous knowledge. The incorpo-ration of lay experts in the processes of public decision-making and the researchagenda makes good sense in terms of using the expertise that is available, even whenit is found in unexpected places (Collins and Pinch 1998).

Scientific research is nourished by many roots, including the earlier work of other sci-entists. The imagination of scientists often draws also on another, quite different,extra-scientific type of source. Such hints point to paths that historical scholarship onscience have explored reluctantlytracing cultural/epistemic roots that may havehelped shape scientific ideas in the first place. So far, there have been comparatively


few such investigations that encompass the wider, intellectualcultural directions. Thefull understanding of any particular scientific advance requires attention to both con-tent and context. But the meaning of context is much broader than what is conven-tionally accepted in sociology of science, not to mention science, involving eventuallyother knowledges as well.

New challenges in a growing number of cognitive fields force science to take intoaccount further knowledge systems and, in so doing, revise its own standards of effi-ciency and efficacy. In recent years, there has been a steadily growing recognition that,in fields from medicine to agriculture, the modern world has paid a high price forrejecting traditional practices and the knowledge (however expressed) that underpinsthem. But we lack a comprehensive framework regarding the multiplicity of localknowledges that could be used as inputs for scientific research and have thus farremained largely unrecognised by formal research systems as potential sources of inno-vation. A point of contention has been that the key knowledge generated by the locallay experts is often contextual, partial and localised, and has not been easy to translateor integrate into a more scientifically manageable conceptual framework.

The participation of other social actors, in addition to science and technology pro-fessionals, in the different phases of the scientific and technological research processand in related decision-making can be crucial for a number of reasons (ECLAC 2002):

Ethical. The right of the groups affected to participate in decisions that havea bearing on their well-being (such as the installation of a nuclear plant intheir area) is undeniable

Political. It is essential to guarantee societys control over research and devel-opment outputs, particularly those that have an impact on health and theenvironment

Pragmatic. In certain cases (e.g. new agricultural technologies, new healthtreatments), it can be especially important to encourage the social groups whoare the intended beneficiaries to have a sense of ownership over the scientificand technological knowledge. For this it may be essential to engage thesegroups in the R&D phases in order to incorporate their interests and percep-tions into the process

Epistemological. The complex nature of the sustainable development prob-lematique, in which biogeophysical and social processes usually overlap, oftenmakes it necessary to consider the different perceptions and objectives of thesocial actors involved

The need to include other knowledges and perspectives in the science and technologyenterprise poses important methodological challenges to science and technology forsustainable development as it requires the adoption of criteria of truth and quality thatare more sophisticatedand better able to incorporate complexitythan those con-ventionally accepted by the science and technology community, yet not less solid andrigorous (otherwise the relevance and credibility of science and technology could begravely damaged). To what degree, in which situations, what type and in what formextra-scientific types of knowledge will need to be incorporated into science for sus-tainable development are open questions that need to be addressed (Gallopn 2004).



In this chapter, we analyse the nature of knowledge (scientific and otherwise) andthe need for, and characteristics of, articulating knowledges as part of scientificresearch on sustainable development. We then discuss the different types of knowledgebefore ending with the identification of four important questions that can help todefine a scientific research agenda for the articulation of knowledges in research forsustainable development.

The nature of knowledge

For the present discussion, knowledge, including scientific knowledge, is defined as abody of propositions that a community routinely adheres to and uses to claim truth(Feyerabend 1987). We are including within knowledge not only the know that butalso the know how (i.e. skills), and indirect knowledge (or knowledge by description)as well as knowledge by acquaintance, and embodied knowledge (the knowledgeembedded in artefacts and technology in general).

Philosophers have been concerned primarily with the truth claims of science (andthus with epistemology) and have generally neglected its rhetorical dimensions, tend-ing to contrast truth and rhetoric: mere rhetoric is often considered to be the refugeof false opinions and therefore to have no legitimate place in science. However, unlesswe are to believe that truth is manifest, we need to view rhetoric as an integral part ofscience. Indeed, far from being rhetorically free, modern scientific prose appears tohave become the most potent instrument of persuasion in our culture (Gooding et al.1993: 161). Theories are not checked by comparison with a passive world with whichwe hope they correspond. We invent devices that produce data and isolate or createphenomena; and a network of different levels of theory is true to these phenomena.The process of modifying the workings of instrumentsboth materially (we fix themup) and intellectually (we redescribe what they do)furnishes the glue that keeps ourintellectual and material world together. This is what stabilises science. Thus thereevolves a curious tailor-made fit between our ideas, our apparatus and our observa-tions. A coherence theory of truth? No, a coherence theory of thought, actions, mate-rials, and marks (Hacking 1992: 57-58).

Knowledge does not stand outside of practical activity: it is made and sustainedthrough situated practical activity. Saying this, however, is not very helpful, beyondadmitting that it is embedded in streams of practical activity. What are the practices bywhich different types of scientific knowledge are made and how has their credibilityevolved in the modern age? In tracing the social history of scientific truth, Shapin(1995) concentrates on the role of cultural practices in the making of factual knowledgein 17th-century England. He argues that pre-existing gentlemanly practices providedworking solutions to the problems of credibility and trust that presented themselves atthe core of the new empirical science. In securing our knowledge we rely on others, andwe cannot dispense with that reliance.

Thus the role of trust appears to be crucial in building and maintaining the cognitiveorder. The making of knowledge in general takes place on a moral field and mobilisesparticular appreciations of the virtues and characteristics of types of people. Who to

2. science for sustainable development Gallopn and Vessuri 37


trust is a key question. The identification of trustworthy agents is necessary to the con-stitution of any body of knowledge. The non-eradicable role of people-knowledge inthe making of thing-knowledge is important just because the stabilisation of the latterpervasively involves rendering the former invisible (Shapin 1995). What we know ofcomets, icebergs and neutrinos irreducibly contains what we know of those people whospeak for and about these things, just as what we know about the virtues of people isinformed by their speech about things that exist in the world.

The social order has always been recognised to be trust-dependent as witness a longliterature from Cicero, in classical Rome, to Luhmann, Giddens, or Ezrahi (1990). Incontrast, the role of trust and authority in the constitution and maintenance of systemsof valued knowledge has been practically invisible. Much modern epistemology hassystematically argued that legitimate knowledge is defined precisely by its rejection oftrust. If we are heard to say that we know something on the basis of trust, we are under-stood to say that we do not possess genuine knowledge at all. It is unwise to take theworld on trust. Trust and authority stand against the very idea of science. Knowledge issupposed to be the product of a sovereign individual confronting the world; reliance onthe views of others produces error. The very distrust which social theorists have iden-tified as the most potent way of dissolving social order is said to be the most potentmeans of constructing our knowledge.

Nevertheless, despite the rhetoric against trust, the very identity and solidarity of thescientific community stem from members need to trust each other if each individual isto add to the stock of credible knowledge. Without need to argue for the role of trustagainst that of experience and its modes (including replication), it is valid to drawattention to how much of our empirical knowledge is held solely on the basis of whattrustworthy sources tell us. There is a non-eradicable role of trust, even in the scepticalsearch for an individual and independent grounding of knowledge. Kuhn (1962)offered a detailed insight into the nature of scientific training and described how thetransmission of knowledge and competence relied on trust and the acceptance ofauthority. He pointed out the continuing importance of authority and collectivelyagreed judgement in the process of research itself.

Neither scientists nor lay people have experience, as it were, by itself: wheneverexperiments are performed and the results of empirical engagement with the world arereported and assessed, this is done within some system in which trust has been laid andbackground knowledge taken for granted. When we have experience, we recognise itas experience of a certain sort only by virtue of a system of trust through which ourexisting state of knowledge has been built up. Our schemes of plausibility, whichbecome so naturalised that they appear wholly independent of trust, were themselvesbuilt up by crediting the relations of trusted sources. The appearance of plausibility asan independent criterion is the result of a massively consequential evaluation, splittingjudgements of what is the case from the everyday relations by which knowledge ismade, sustained, and transmitted. Plausibility incorporates judgements of trustwor-thiness at a distance. It is trust institutionalised.

The exercise of retrieving the role of trust in the construction and maintenance of ourmost valued systems of knowledge is beset with particular difficulties. A philosopher ofscience (Kitcher 2001) recently criticised the doctrine of the solitary scientific knower.Kitcher argues against those who deny the epistemological relevance of the social char-acter of scientific and mathematical knowledge. He draws attention to the fact that



individuals knowledge is rooted in the authoritative knowledge of their communityknowledge that is, in turn, historically grounded in the authoritative knowledge of pre-ceding communities. His argument recognises a division of cognitive labour in science,but, in his view, the grounds on which individuals are trusted and deemed to be author-itative are empirically adjudicable and rationally explicable.

So to the aggregate of individuals we need to add the morally textured relationsbetween them, notions such as authority and trust, and the socially situated normsabout which identify who is to be trusted, and at what price trust is to be withheld.

Articulation of knowledges

Scientific research about complex, self-aware systems such as those typical of sustain-able development issues have to deal with a compounding of complexity at differentlevels. The interplay between the factors across the different levels and layers adds tothe complexity intrinsic to each of the layers. There are at least three levels at whichcomplexity impinges on scientific enquiry of coupled socio-ecological systems (Gal-lopn et al. 2001):

Physical reality where the properties of self-organisation, irreducible uncer-tainty, emergence and others come into play

The need to consider different epistemologies (when a plurality of percep-tions or viewpoints must be acknowledged and respected, even if not acceptedas equally valid)

The need to consider different intentionalities (differing goals of the relevantstakeholders)

Attention to those complex system properties is not only necessary for the improve-ment of scientific research, but the existence and nature of those properties is by itselfan interesting and important topic of scientific research. This chapter focuses on partof the second level of complexity identified abovebeing aware that the plurality ofperceptions and viewpoints goes well beyond knowledges (also beliefs, values andworld-views), and that the consideration of different epistemologies or knowledgesystems goes beyond the articulation of knowledges including, for example, the studyof different knowledge and belief systems by anthropologists.

The need for articulation of knowledges may arise out of different considerations, asdiscussed earlier, but here we will focus on the articulation of alternative knowledgesas part of the scientific research processrequired for epistemological reasonsalongthe lines that the incorporation, articulation, hybridisation, combination, or takinginto account of, forms of knowledge with, or in addition to, scientific knowledge withinthe process of scientific research of socio-ecological systems results in a demonstrablybetter1 characterisation of the problem/issue and thus in better solutions.


1 Better, that is, according to standard scientific criteria (accuracy, completeness, fruitfulness, rele-vance, etc.).


All through history, developments in Western or formal science have created oppor-tunities for inputs from indigenous, traditional, local or alternative knowledges. How-ever, the power to narrate or to block other narratives from forming or emerging hasbeen shown to be very important to culture and political domination (Said 1994). His-torically, science has developed a powerful narrative that delegitimised other descrip-tions of the world. This narrative is based on, and in turn sustains, a dominant dis-course of development (Vessuri in press). In contrast, research for sustainabledevelopment is based on the postulate of an irreducible plurality of pertinent analyti-cal perspectives for a situation of enquiry, starting in the middle of the road with awillingness to work with several analytical perspectives simultaneously in permanentconversation seeking mutual understanding (even if not full reconciliation) across themany points of view. It is not only about deciding which is the best selection of rele-vant criteria to be used in order to generate a sound representation, but it is funda-mentally about deciding how to weigh them (OConnor 1998).

The articulation of knowledges may take place at different epistemic levels, fromdata and facts to explanations to world-views. The task has been easier (although oftenreduced to a mere absorption) at the level of data or factual pieces of information, aswas the case of the medicinal properties of native plants (knowledge that is todayactively collected by scientists and companies from indigenous people across the worldand assigned an economic value). Even so, there are many instances in which usefulfacts were rejected by science because they did not fit within the scientific schemes ofthe time.

When turning to the level of explanations of the phenomena considered, challengesto articulation have been more severe. Explanations are connected to prevailing theo-ries and paradigms and therefore are less likely to be accepted or integrated acrossknowledge systems (even within science itself); belonging to a well-accepted knowl-edge system (such as the scientific one) is no guarantee of truth. For instance, Dickson(2003) provides an interesting example in which foreign agricultural experts were verysceptical of accounts of farmers in Ghana that there was a tree under which their cropsgrew well, and that this was because the tree itself provided water for the crops. Thelatter explanation conflicted with the standard scientific knowledge that trees have aroot system that extract water from soil into the leaves, from which it evaporates intothe atmosphere, thus making the ground underneath the trees drier not wetter. How-ever, not only were the facts genuine, but also the explanation, for that tree species hasa root system that really does siphon water into the surrounding earth.

The articulation of alternative world-views is likely to be the most difficult. Kuhn(1962) has shown how, within science itself, prevailing paradigms2 can maintain theirdominance against alternative ones for long periods and even after their inadequacieshave been exposed. A major challenge for the articulation of knowledges is how toavoid scientific imperialism (i.e. only scientific knowledge is true and objective) with-out falling into epistemological relativism (i.e. all knowledges are culturally deter-mined, equally valid and they all need to be included). A consequence of the first is thatwhen the alternative knowledge conflicts with the modern scientific world-view, ithas tended to be discarded as little more than superstition. Its lack of an apparentlyrational basis is itself seen as a reason for ignoring it, without adequate awareness that


2 Conceptual world-views consisting of formal theories, classic experiments and trusted methods.


the rationality test being applied is itself a cultural product of Western societies. On theother hand, a relativist position would lead to attempts to include all forms of knowl-edge, with equal weight, which may result into incoherent mixtures and inconsistentproblem characterisation and misleading solutions.

OConnor (1998) distinguished three epistemological stances in the context of asearch for methods for valuation of environmental amenities and natural capital,which can also be useful for the kinds of problems discussed here. These perspectives,concerning the nature of scientific knowledge and its purposes, are called respectivelyCartesian, Democratic and Complexity. The Cartesian perspective privileges objec-tive description (as a basis for obtaining a theoretically organised and universal knowl-edge about reality), and explanations based on axiomatic formulations of the cate-gories for system description and behaviour. It is clearly akin to our scientificimperialism characterisation. The Democratic perspective prioritises the status ofeach member of a social group to contribute to both knowledge and judgement (delib-eration), and it is compatible (but not identical) with our characterisation of episte-mological relativism. Finally, the Complexity perspective is based on the postulate ofan irreducible plurality of pertinent analytical perspectives, and starts with willingnessto work with several analytical perspectives simultaneously.

In terms of science for sustainable development, it seems that some kind of com-plexity perspective is needed to guide the search for articulation of knowledges for sus-tainable development research, recognising that not all forms of knowledge are equallyvalid or required in a given situation, but also accepting the need to include a numberof possibly irreducible knowledges in the research process.

Different forms of knowledges

A variety of knowledges may be relevant for a given research problem, and particularlyfor its solution (Fig. 2.1).

Grouping together all non-scientific forms of knowledge uncritically into a singlecategory and separating them from their context makes it nearly impossible to avoidoversimplification. Such unhelpful generalisations jeopardise the potentially uniqueand important contribution that different forms of knowledge can make to sustainabledevelopment.

Thus, we distinguish in Figure 2.1 the carriers of several kinds of knowledge. Scien-tific advisors today, for instance, have a different sort of knowledge relative to that ofscientists and policy-makers (Ravetz 2001). The productive system has become so com-plex, pervasive and also problematic in a variety of ways that the state is intimatelyinvolved in its management, creating new problems for governance, variouslydescribed as risk society by Beck (1992) or the domain of post-normal science by Fun-towicz and Ravetz (1999). There are basic differences between science in the processesof government and in its more traditional functions. In basic science, the context ofapplication of the research is the same as that of the research itself; it is isolated andessentially simple. In industrial development, the products of research are tested by theessentially straightforward mechanisms of the market. However, when science advice



uses research, it is deployed directly in a context that is all about policyits formation,execution and justification. Quite different criteria of adequacy and value are at workin this latter case. For policy, the non-technical aspects may come to dominate the deci-sion process, so that the scientific quality of the material is of distinctly less signifi-cance. Users in this case are persons in a policy process, extending from advisorsthrough administrators to politicians.

In addition, traditional knowledge is distinguished from science. The AmericanAssociation for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Project on Traditional EcologicalKnowledge3 defines traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) as the information thatpeople in a given community, based on experience and adapted to local culture andenvironment, have developed over time, and continued to evolve. This knowledge isused to sustain the community and its culture, and to maintain the biological resourcesnecessary for the continued survival of the community. The term traditional used todescribe it does not imply that this knowledge is old, non-scientific or non-technical innature, but tradition-based. It is traditional because it is created in a manner thatreflects the traditions of the communitiestherefore not relating to the nature of theknowledge itself, but to the way in which that knowledge is created, preserved and dis-seminated. Traditional knowledge is collective in nature and considered the propertyof the entire community. It does not belong to any single individual within the com-


3 See shr.aaas.org/tek/connection.htm.

Figure 2.1 A plurality of knowledges


munity, and is transmitted through specific cultural and traditional informationexchange mechanisms. Traditional knowledge is often maintained and transmittedorally through elders or specialists (breeders, healers, etc.), and often to only a selectfew people within a community.

Traditional ecological knowledge includes mental inventories of local biologicalresources, animal breeds and local plant, crop and tree species. It may include suchinformation as trees and plants that grow well together, and indicator plants such asthose that grow only in a narrow range of soil salinity or that are known to flower atthe beginning of the rains. It includes practices and technologies, such as seed treat-ment, storage methods and tools used for planting and harvesting. TEK also encom-passes belief systems that play a fundamental role in a peoples livelihood and in main-taining their health and the environment, and which may be instrumental in protectingnatural areas for religious reasons or maintaining a vital watershed. TEK is dynamic innature and may include experimentation in the integration of new plant or tree speciesinto existing farming systems or a traditional healers tests of new plant medicines.

Some authors prefer to use the notion of indigenous knowledge systems to refer tothe complex set of knowledge and technologies existing and developed around specificconditions of populations and communities indigenous to a particular area (NRF 1999).Indigenous knowledge, in this sense, is the knowledge unique to a given culture or soci-ety. It is the basis for local-level decision-making in agriculture, healthcare, food prepa-ration, education, natural resource management and a host of other activities in ruralcommunities. Indigenous information systems are based on experience, often testedover centuries of use, adapted to local culture and environment, dynamic and chang-ing. Indigenous knowledge is an important part of the lives of the poor: inherent in foodsecurity, human and animal health, education and natural resource management(Scidev.Net 2004). Sometimes it is used as synonymous of local, traditional knowledge;sometimes it identifies a developing-country patrimony that originated quite indepen-dently of science and Western culture.

Others speak of local knowledge as the one that focuses on understanding theimmediate situation and environment, building on observation and refined experience(Vessuri 2004). As argued by authors such as Wynne (2002), the non-expert localworld is treated by science as epistemically vacuous while in fact it is:

complex, reflexive, dynamic and innovative, material and empirical, and yetalso theoretical. It is experimental and flexible, not dogmatic and closed.Whatever its ultimate merits or demerits, it is epistemically alive and sub-stantive.

In this context it is refreshing to read an example of the rhetoric valorising the tacitknowledge of the unlettered in the 17th century. Boyle encouraged:

experimentalists to take craft and artisan knowledge seriously, to extract thatempirical and factual knowledge from those who possess it, to give it system-atic form, and not to stint in that enterprise because of false notions of socialpride and prejudice (Boyle 1663, as quoted by Shapin 1995: 395).

Interestingly enough, this notion is increasingly present in current concerns aboutdemocratic participation in contemporary societies, where many more voicesbothestablished ones and those in the alternative frontare to be heard. Clearly, it is linked



to bottom-up strategies involving public or movement-oriented participation in theformation of science and technology policy for sustainable development. It is markedby spontaneity, with local initiatives and cultural diversity as a guideline. The pursuitof environmental sustainability provides a catalyst for experimentation with new formsof sociality and association. And, particularly when combined with cultural events andaesthetic expression, modes of participation can take on the character of exemplaryaction, performing and disseminating sustainability through setting example or modelbehaviour (Jamison and Ostby 1997).

Judgements by lay people (i.e. local knowledge) seem more risk-averse than those ofexperts or politicians, and have been recognised as reflecting different framings oftechnologys social implications, different perceptions of the feasibility of control, dif-ferent appraisals of the values at stake, and different judgements about fairness in thedistribution of risks, and benefits (Jasanoff 2002). In an era when global science andglobal capital enjoy increasing levels of institutionalisation and state support, it isunderstandable that civil societies emerge with local voices to insist that the produc-tion of policy-relevant knowledge should be made available for public scrutiny andinput. There is increasing awareness in contemporary societies that policy-relevant sci-ence can never be completely neutral. Values and judgement enter into the equationlong before issues are isolated for technical analysis. Policy-relevant expertise, too, isknown to be widely distributed, not only within but also outside the scientific commu-nity. Those who are at risk, and are so from hazards that are not in all cases amenableto technical analysis and control, should be an integral part of the politics of assessment(Callon et al. 2001).

Although indigenous or local knowledge has proved its value in many cases it can-not, and should not, be promoted without first being critically assessed. Not all indige-nous knowledge offers sustainable solutions to todays pressing problems. Commonobjections raised at non-scientific knowledge forms are that most local solutions arevery context-specific. If the environment changes, the existing knowledge usuallybecomes irrelevant and trial-and-error learning has to start all over again. This can beillustrated in cases of conuco agriculture in Venezuela and other tropical lands (Vessuri1977), where the traditional agricultural practices that worked well in one environmentbecame unsustainable when farmers moved to a different one. This sort of close depen-dence on particular contextual conditions has led to the argument that the robustnessof such knowledge is precarious, because it cannot create and maintain the conditionsfor its vitality. But the notion of place itself as historical and emergent exacerbates theproblem of uncertainty associated with the sheer complexity of ecosystems, begging anumber of questions.

It is precisely the way that those extra-scientific types of knowledge are embeddedin the local situation that makes them so valuable. Nonetheless, it has also been noted(Dickson 2003) that traditional knowledge may, in practice, be more universal thanmany social scientists like to think. This pours cold water on the suggestion that one ofthe key distinctions between traditional knowledge and modern science is the extent towhich the former is embedded in local culture while the latter is independent of localconstraints and is universally valid. It may be likened to common sense, which seemsin fact to be universally distributed.

Common sense is one of those ubiquitous concepts whose semantic boundarieschange constantly with regard to other forms of knowledge (Vessuri 2001). It is admit-



ted to be found in every culture and to have the distinctive features of being a relativelyordered body of thought, characterised by its own denial of being it (Geertz 1983).Common sense rests on the statement that it is not. As science, it is knowledge aboutthe worldthe world of nature, the world of society, the world of the individual. But itconsists only of those opinions that have the aspect of being given for granted, of beingobvious or natural. Common sense supposes that there is a world external to us, thatthis world has a certain determinate order and that this order is independent of the actsof observation and representation by which it is known and reported.

Everyday thought and action, therefore, are predicated on robust and confidentcommon-sense realism. There are large differences between science and commonsense; though, rather than discard common sense as useless, it has been suggested tolook at the differences in how knowledge economies are organised, how their membersinteract with each other and how they relate to their cultures stock of knowledge. Ithas also been suggested that the objects of comparison be individuated: science ver-sus common sense does not work, but it would be interesting to explore the differ-ences and similarities obtaining among, for example, accountancy and botanical tax-onomy, fly-fishing and neurology, cooking and chemistry (Shapin 2001).

Figure 2.2 shows a number of problem areas where indigenous, traditional or localknowledge has been applied to local problem-solving. For example, many environ-mental scientists have come to recognise the effectiveness of indigenous land manage-mentfire strategies in particular. Perhaps the most pragmatic reasons for both indige-


Figure 2.2 Indigenous knowledge and local problem-solving



nous people and scientists to participate in the joint workshops that are taking place indifferent countries is a desire to find ways to negotiate over fire management (in aneveryday sense). In many places, natives and scientists must co-operate, and both sideshold quite strong views on when and how to set fire to specific tracts of land. This canlead to serious tension and distrust, and sometimes confrontation between the twosides. Environmental scientists of the tropical savannas and aborigines need a way ofreconciling prescribed burning and traditional fires, which is robust enough for limitedpurposes. A recent paper by Verran (2002) tells some stories useful for both the scien-tists and the Australian aborigines struggling to work with each other, and with thebush. The author shows ways in which land managers can negotiate in making arrange-ments for firings that might be credited in both traditions.

Partnerships are made with the most varied allies. A recent study that includesexperimental firing is being conducted by an international group of researchers andBrazilian farmers at the edge of the Amazon rainforest as part of a project of the LargeScale Amazon AtmosphereBiosphere Experiment. The focus of the study is to deter-mine the impact of fire on the transition forests that form a fragile boundary wherethe vulnerable rainforest meet the savannas (or cerrado) of central Brazil. The scrub-like cerrado is relatively well adapted to repeated burning. This happens naturallywhen lightning strikes, but local farmers also contribute to the process with fires calledqueimadas, which are used to control pests and weeds. Too many fires, however, couldresult in the runaway expansion of the savannah, triggering a process of biological ero-sion that threatens the edges of the Amazon rainforest. By designing fires, the scien-tists expect to measure what happens after the fires burn out (Leite 2004).

A point worth considering is that the differences between scientific and extra-scien-tific knowledge may not always be so neat. If we accept the broad definition of scienceofficially adopted by the Declaration of Science of the World Conference (ICSU 1999) asthe ability to examine problems from different perspectives and seek explanations ofnatural and social phenomena, constantly submitted to critical analysis, it is easy to seehow there could be many cases in which other forms of knowledge could overlap withscientific knowledge.

However, in all cases we may distinguish a part of knowledge that:

Is or can be made explicit (hard in the sense of Hildreth et al. 1999)

May be codified

Can be formally expressed and transmitted to others through manuals, spec-ifications, regulations, rules or procedures

Is easily expressed, captured, stored and re-used

Can be transmitted as data and is found in databases, books, manuals andmessages.

But there is another part of knowledge that is soft including:

What people know that cannot be articulated and which is highly personal

Tacit or implicit knowledge (semiconscious and unconscious knowledge heldin peoples heads and bodies)


Internalised experience, skills and domain knowledge

Cultural knowledge embedded in practice

If we accept this notion of the duality of all forms of knowledge, then the articulationof useful knowledges for sustainable development must include the participation of theholders of these knowledges, not just the compilation of the explicit knowledges.

This may have to include a negotiation of meaning as defined by Wenger (1998),involving the interaction of the two complementary processes of participation andreification. In his sense, the construction of knowledge involves both the social experi-ence of living in the world, including not only co-operation but also conflict (partici-pation) and the process of giving form to the knowledge by making, designing, repre-senting, naming, encoding and describing as well as perceiving, interpreting, using,re-using, decoding and recasting it (reification) (Fig. 2.3).


Figure 2.3 The two complementary processes of participation and reification Source: redrawn from Wenger 1998


Problematic issues

Four major issues regarding articulation of knowledges are put forward; each of thesemay be regarded as a source of specific propositions that need to be researched.

1. When is it important to articulate, combine and/or integratelocal/traditional/empirical/indigenous/lay knowledge andscientific knowledge regarding sustainable development? When isit not?

The peculiar localgeneral combination typical of modern science, with its emphasison controlled conditions, is often seen as the main (perhaps unique) answer to the chal-lenge of creating cosmopolitan, transportable knowledge, where the ascent from localto cosmopolitan is what counts. This requires interaction and infrastructure (visits toother laboratories, partial standardisation of conditions to improve replication, thecodification of measures and protocols). Utilisation of such general/universal knowl-edge is conditional on the existence or build-up of the relevant infrastructure (Rip2000). However, the ideology of universal knowledge claims and generalised applica-bility of modern science neglects what happens locally. This is a problem also for sci-ence itself, because the quality of cosmopolitan knowledge depends on what happenson location.

In general, it can be expected that the need for articulation of knowledges is lesspressing in those situations that are relatively simple, when the problem of sustain-ability can be solved by finding a particular technological solution, or in other relativelyuni-dimensional situations where the solution is obvious or generally agreed. However,in more complex situations (and even in some of the seemingly simple ones), an ade-quate framing of the problem is likely to require the taking into account of alternativeknowledgeseither to find the solution or to assess its implications and impacts, or toagree on the steps to follow to solve the problem.

2. Which are the major challenges in thisarticulation/combination/integration?

It is possible that a new understanding of science and other formal bodies of learnedknowledge are opened up or assisted once we are ready to look at other forms of know-ing and learning. We could end up finally with science again, but with a new andbroader understanding of it after having taken into consideration other angles of expe-rience. We might grasp more realistically how definitions of public issues are estab-lished and maintained, and what becomes salient and what is deleted from collectiveattention. We might be forced to rethink what are the issues and what kind of knowl-edge is salient. The issues of public meaning may turn out to be prior to the framing ofthe issues by scientists.

Currently, the major challenges to the articulation, combination or integration ofknowledges seem to be associated with the lack of tolerance towards the others view-points, cryptic technical or esoteric language, difficulties in translating concepts across



the different realms, ignorance about the other knowledges, and the existence of realincompatibilities between the different perspectives.

3. How to deal with irreducible conflict between scientific and layknowledge?

We must seek ways of reconciling what appear to be incompatible versions of theproper definition of the issue to be resolved and the purpose of the prevailing knowl-edge, and thus of which criteria should define sound science or knowledge(artificial)precision and control, or realism and comprehensiveness. Arguably, there should be apublic debate about this framing question, and about its corollary: what should be theproper epistemology for major public issues which also involve science?

We need to study and learn more about different normative concepts of the propersocial role and expectations of knowledge, as embodied in incompatible practical cul-tures.

In some cases where alternative knowledges or hypotheses about an issue are in con-flict, the disagreement can be resolved or mitigated by examining whether the practi-cal consequences of adopting one or another are really important for the overall out-come or not.

4. How can the quality of local knowledge be assessed?Rips argument is that, while post-colonial arguments can be put forward (about oth-ering) to undermine the intentional and de facto power play of science, and these cre-ate needed space, such a position risks devolving into accepting everything as long asit is non-scientific. In his view, what is needed is an additional criterion or better char-acterisation, one that has to do with quality and robustness of knowledge, rather thanwith its source. And it must be a criterion that does not recreate universalism.

Local (or indigenous) knowledge, in turn, is challenged to address its cognitive qual-ity instead of seeking shelter in the cultural reserves where appealing to political cor-rectness corners it. The ensuing negotiation process may lead to recognition of pro-found differences between knowledge systems, which is already an important step inrealising the possibility of mutual learning. The increasing hybridisation and hybridityof knowledge for sustainable development that can be envisaged would be an outcomeof the interaction taking place in increasing fields of science.

There is a need to problematise the prevailing boundaries of the scientific and thepublic (or the cultural or the political), and to analyse how dominant actors haverepeatedly condemned other forms and expressions of knowledge excluding peoples(and other knowledge claims) from negotiating what the salient questions are. Publicmeanings about public domain issues involve the continuities and interwoven texturesof public experiences, relationships, knowledges and interactions in essentially open-ended historical forms. The public domain requires a relational vision.

Some guidelines have been proposed and used for the articulation of lay knowledgewith scientific knowledge4 (Kinzing et al. 2004: 423). They involve:


4 Personal communication with R. Scholes at the Dahlem workshop on Earth Systems Analysis forSustainability, Dahlem, 2530 May 2003.


1. Avoiding making judgements about the adequacy of causal schemes orexplanatory models

2. Requiring that the knowledge be traceable to its source(s)

3. Requiring that there be repeatability among knowledge holders and internalconsistency in the information

4. Requiring that some degree of confidence be attached by the lay expert to theinformation, along with an explicit statement about the limits (in time or inspace) of the knowledge considered

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