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Knowledge Democracy

From Kula

Definition

Knowledge Democracy refers to the democratization of knowledge creation, validation, and dissemination. It challenges dominant paradigms that privilege academic or Western knowledge and promotes the inclusion of diverse epistemologies, especially those rooted in community, Indigenous, and experiential knowledge. It emphasizes co-creation, accessibility, and social justice[1].

Knowledge Democracy also describes a "inclusive and robust framework of social responsibility in higher education," which is "a comprehensive and organic approach to understanding the role of knowledge that transcends the limits of earlier concepts of knowledge economy and knowledge society."[2]

Seeking to bring the democratic ethos into the practice of research and teaching in universities implies changes in administrative structures, and those changes have been explored and discussed in depth. [3]

Key Features

Key features of socially responsible higher education include:

  • Recognition of diversities of knowledge systems and epistemologies
  • Coherence and integration of teaching, research and engagement missions
  • Contextually responsive, locally rooted, place based, and linguistically plural
  • Socially inclusive, seeking diversity amongst students and academics
  • Pluriversality replacing universality
  • Transcending rankings
  • Reclaiming the purpose of higher education as a public good [2]

Other prominent features of Knowledge Democracy are:

  • Institutional Support and Structure
    • Institutionalizing community-based research requires supportive policies, funding, and recognition within higher education. Structures like research offices, ethics boards, and curriculum design must evolve to support engagement and co-creation.[4]
  • Pedagogy and Curriculum
    • Teaching community-based research involves integrating participatory methods into curriculum and pedagogy. It prepares students to engage ethically and effectively with communities and fosters critical thinking and civic responsibility.[5]
  • Global and Local Balance
    • Universities must balance global responsibilities with local relevance. Socially responsible institutions engage with local communities while contributing to global sustainability and justice.[6]
  • Evaluation and Impact
    • Evaluating community-based research requires new metrics that value social impact, mutual learning, and empowerment. Traditional academic metrics often fail to capture the transformative potential of engaged scholarship.[7]
  • Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement
    • The Carnegie Foundation’s elective classification recognizes institutions that demonstrate excellence in community engagement. It provides a framework for assessing institutional commitment to public purpose.
  • SDGs and Lifelong Learning
    • Community-based research contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by addressing local challenges through inclusive and participatory approaches. Lifelong learning is essential for sustainable development. [8]
  • Open Science and Knowledge Accessibility
    • Open Science promotes transparency, accessibility, and inclusivity in research. It aligns with Knowledge Democracy by removing barriers to knowledge and encouraging collaboration across disciplines and sectors.

History

"Knowledge Democracy" has its roots in the work of Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) a Germen-American psychologist known as the founder of social psychology, and Orlando Fals Borda (1925-2008) a foundational figure in Latin American sociology and counter-colonial thinking. They pioneered an evolving group of approaches to research eventually including, Action Research, Community-Based Research, Participatory Research[9], and Community-Based Participatory Research, among others. These research approaches form the theoretical and practical basis of Knowledge Democracy's call to take seriously other epistemologies and re-orient higher education away from corporate, colonizing, and special interests and toward the public good, broadly conceived.

The term "Knowledge" has a diversity of complex meanings across cultures and languages. In the Western academic context, knowledge is a key philosophical term; the study of "how we know" is called epistemology.[10] There are nearly 2000 entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophyaddressing "knowledge."

"Democracy" in this context refers not only to a system of political organization, but more substantially to the values underpinning democratic commitments. These values are commonly understood in academia to have their origins in Greece and Rome, but in fact their proximate genesis lies in conversations between Europeans and North American indigenous thinkers, most effectively communicated by Kondiaronk, a prominent strategist and diplomat of the Huron people.[11]

Epistemic (Knowledge) Justice

Knowledge Democracy at UVic

Knowledge Democracy & Kula

For the purposes of Kula, the primary consideration of knowledge is that it has positionally within a given cultural context. Moreover, it is a term with an often complicated history in the Western academic tradition, which tends to privilege one type of knowledge over others.

Kula supports building capacity around Community-Based Research in its role of bringing the academy and communities together.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ Tandon, R., Singh, W., Clover, D. E., & Hall, B. L. (2016). Knowledge Democracy and Excellence in Engagement. http://hdl.handle.net/1828/8331
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Tandon, R., & Hall, B. (2021). Towards a Framework for Knowledge Democracy. In B. L. Hall & R. Tandon (Eds.), Socially Responsible Higher Education (pp. 288–301). BRILL. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004459076_024
  3. ↑ UNESCO. (2022). Beyond Limits: New Ways to Reinvent Higher Education [Working document for the World Higher Education Conference].
  4. ↑ UNESCO Chair in Community-based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education. (2015). Institutionalizing Community University Reseach Partnerships: A User’s Manual. Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) and University of Victoria. http://hdl.handle.net/1828/6921
  5. ↑ Hall, B. L., Etmanski, C., & Dawson, T. (Eds.). (2014). Learning and teaching community-based research: Linking pedagogy to practice. University of Toronto Press.
  6. ↑ Grau, F. X., Goddard, J., Hall, B. L., Hazelkorn, E., & Tandon, R. (2017). Towards a Socially Responsible University: Balancing the Global with the Local. (No. 6; Higher Education in the World). Global University Network for Innovation (GUNi). https://www.guninetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/guni_print_2017.pdf
  7. ↑ Hall, B. L., Edward Jackson, Rajesh Tandon, Jean-Marc Fontan, & Nirmala Lall. (2013). Knowledge, democracy and action: Community-university research partnerships in global perspectives. Manchester University Press.
  8. ↑ UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning. (2017). Community-based Participatory Research and the SDGs: (Programme and Meeting Document No. UIL/2017/PI/H/6; Lifelong Learning Policy Brief, 8). UNESCO.
  9. ↑ Hall (1975), "Participatory Research: An Approach for Change," Convergence, 8(2), pp. 24–32
  10. ↑ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-how/
  11. ↑ Graeber, D. and D. Wengrow (2020). Hiding in Plain Sight: Democracy’s indigenous origins in the Americas. Lapham’s Quarterly, 13(4). https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/democracy/hiding-plain-sight


Author: Michael Lines Author: Matt Huculak

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