Alternative ways of knowing

This paper argues that the crafts provide an alternative way to look at world and have a distinctive role to play in defining new pathways to sustainability conceived of as "the art of longevity", that is to say, the long-term, strategic thinking that promotes effective stewardship of the world natural, social, and economic resources. Based upon an anthropological discussion of the different worldviews, philosophies and ethos of the crafts and science, this paper provocatively argues that the shift towards more sustainable societies and life styles requires of more crafts and less science. It does so by using the example of biodiversity, Defined conventionally as "the wide variety of ecosystems and living organisms: animals, plants, their habitats and their genes", the scientific view of biodiversity excludes humans and considers them as a threat to nature. This scientific view of the world, premised upon the principle of detachment and upon a model of life that radically disjoins Humans from Nature, lies at the core of the current environmental, economic and societal crisis. Craft ethos based upon practice not only does question the separation between humans and nature, but it also presents the possibility of a genuine "ecology of life" that stems from the principle of engagement with, rather than detachment from, the world. As such, it provides a better way to conceptualize a notion of the environment in which humans are an integral rather than a separate part of the earth community, and helps theorizing the relationship between humans and their environment in terms of stewardship rather than exploitation.

"By inviting educators from diverse backgrounds to participate in creative conversations I had hoped to reflect on experiences that had helped construct our theories of environmental education, and inform practice. I sought consistency across the espoused ethics of co-participants, namely critical perspectives grounded in environmental justice. However, this quest was interrupted by a growing awareness of the interference of power dynamics between myself and the other participants, and of my own commitment to respect the stories being told. This narrative describes my “dance” of meaning making.
The community dance examining privilege, identity and meaning is a study of how I may be contributing to the same oppressive situations I passionately strive to work against. Concepts of knowledge, power, and identity ebbed and flowed within stories drawn from the mountains of Tanzania to the hills of Colombia, and from the frozen shores of Kirkland Lake to the trout filled streams of Karman, Iran. Making meaning is itself an act of power and privilege, so I danced to make room for multiple understandings of these stories, of environmental education, and of research. This work offers an experience of disruption that raises questions and broadens the inclusion of people, ideas and other life into “accepted” research and pedagogical practices.
Conventions embedded within research and education were disrupted throughout this reflexive process. As the author of this text, I was uncomfortable with the role of being the dominant voice, and consciously chose not to impose my interpretation on the stories shared by co-participants. The struggle to resist the very privilege in which my own education practice and this research process are so deeply steeped revealed normative forces that often threaten to undermine attempts by educators and researchers to act according to critical theories and environmental justice ethics. To accept the invitation to dance with the text is to step into the rhythmic intricacies of a collaborative process of reflexion. Circling hand-in-hand and giving weight to fellow dancers’ movements shifts individuals from being carriers of truths to being community members sharing in the collaborative process of dancing the world into existence."

Miyazaki documents the persistence of hope in the people of Suvavou, the original owners displaced in 1882 from the whole area on which the capital, Suva, was established. Their persistence, in the face of continual rebuffs and failure, in seeking government compensation for this alienation can only, he suggests, be explained by understanding that hope for them is rehearsed in many cultural practices through which they constitute self-knowledge. Thus, he suggests, hope is not a forlorn wishfulness or Polyanna-ish optimism, but a deeply-grounded method of knowledge that demands of us a ‘radical temporal reorientation of knowledge’.

Drawing upon multisited ethnographic case studies in the United States and Mexico, I demonstrate sobrevivencia, a survivalist way of knowing of Mexican-origin families. Through an underdog mentality, family members persisted and sometimes thrived. However, the grittiness of the underdog mentality did not always work out. By understanding sobrevivencia, educators can better engage transnational families, and researchers can further explore transnational ways of knowing with continuing multisited research.

One important aim of Theory of Knowledge in the International Baccalaureate is to teach students how to think for themselves. The student is encouraged to reflect on what they are learning and to reflect on themselves as learners. Theory of Knowledge is different from other areas in the International Baccalaureate because there are few hard facts to be learned. The Theory of Knowledge program aims to develop a certain attitude of questioning and the skills needed to ask these questions and find answers to them. Another aim of Theory of Knowledge is to ask students to look at the whole of what they are learning and relate their knowledge to themselves as individuals and to life as they know it outside of the classroom. This book is an attempt to achieve both of these aims.

Theory of Knowledge or TOK is a holistic endeavour: it aims to make connections between the ways of knowing and various areas of knowledge studied during the International Baccalaureate. In conventional philosophical terms, it might be termed practical epistemology (“epistemology” = study of knowledge). In contrast to the dry debates with which philosophers of knowledge concern themselves, TOK attempts to understand knowledge as an organic process involving situated knowers in a world of facts and information, which require interpretation. The knower begins to interpret this information by means of various ways of knowing and drawing upon, and influencing, a number of areas of knowledge.
The four ways of knowing are emotion, reason, language, and sense perception. It is taken for granted in TOK that each of these facets of knowing is crucial for determining our knowledge and knowledge claims. Knowledge is more than rationality, though reason too is a vital part of knowing. Quite often we base our judgements on things other than reason, as this book will make plain. The means by which each of these ways of knowing contribute to what we take to be knowledge is a matter of considerable importance to both individual human life and civilization. An understanding of these processes, and the role they play in knowledge, is part of what it means to be an “educated person”. Hence the importance of TOK for the International Baccalaureate.

The Ethiopian Highlands have been studied extensively, hosting a large amount of research for development projects in agriculture and forestry over several decades. The encounters in these projects were also encounters of different ways of knowing that were negotiated by the actors meeting in the space provided by the projects. This research explores these encounters and the social worlds they are embedded in, drawing on actor-oriented approaches as well as theories of narratives and framing. Ways of knowing and citizen epistemologies are taken as a lens to understand the role of identities in knowledge production and use.
The two case studies were agroforestry research projects in the Ethiopian Highlands. The research followed a range of qualitative and ethnographic research methods. Different types of farmers and scientists meet in the case studies. I recognise that they all have individual agency, nevertheless I use the terms ‘scientist’ and ‘farmer’ in this thesis. I use the terms to describe certain groups of actors who all draw on different ways of knowing, and different value systems, when interacting with each other and their environment.
The results indicate that the importance of social worlds at different scales and the contexts of research projects tend to be underestimated. In spite of good intentions scientific methodologies, terminologies and narratives tend to dominate. Scientists in the case studies acknowledged the existence of farmers’ ‘indigenous’ knowledge, but they determined the value of knowledge by its scientific applicability and the replicability of experiments. Research systems force the scientists into a certain modus operandi with limited possibilities to experiment and to respond to the complexities and diversities of people's social worlds.
Farmers in the case studies preferred observation from their parents, observing from others or the environment as a way of learning and gaining knowledge. Depending on their personalities and their life histories they also relied on alternative ways of knowing rooted in spirituality, emotions and memories. Powerful influences on ways of knowing resulted from the way languages and authority had been used. These often led to the exclusion of marginalised community members from access to knowledge and technologies.
Unfortunately, common narratives prevailed in the case studies, and alternative ways of knowing were often marginalised. By acknowledging different ways of knowing and the importance of different social worlds and different ways of doing research, both scientists and farmers could benefit and develop more sustainable pathways for agricultural and forestry land use.

Within a system ever more characterised by globalization, which is to say a world where the western liberal tenets of consumerism, the free market and individualism are now so pervasive, a twofold experience has taken place. On the one hand with the actions of global corporations, national governments, despite their rhetoric, and the average western individual, a sense of infinitude has been so deeply ingrained within our consciousness that we no longer think in terms of what is finite. On the other hand, however, there is the reality, stark and obvious for the majority of this world, of finitude. From local fishers in Micronesia, to farmers in the drylands of Nicaragua, the effects of climate change and the increasing hunger of elitist markets are clear, with the ramifications of it being allowed to continue disastrous.

Este artículo se adentra en los sistemas generales de identificación y en los modelos de clasificación de la naturaleza y del entorno humano que elaboraron los estamentos negros del Virreinato de la Nueva Granada durante el siglo XVIII y comienzos del XIX. A partir de las pocas anotaciones que sobre este tema dejó la documentación colonial, cotejándolas con tradiciones orales de larga duración, y por referencias  obtenidas en comunidades étnicas actuales, se evidenció que –a pesar de no ser valorados por los grupos de la élite- aquellos saberes no sólo hicieron parte de su producción intelectual y
científica, sino que les allanó el camino para la fijación de las identidades, propiedades e interacciones de todas las entidades que componían el cosmos circundante. Crearon así unos marcos propios de sentido desde los cuales desarrollaron nuevas formas de pensar y de actuar cotidianas que le agregaron otras dimensiones a la realidad que trató de imponérseles como la única versión posible.

This article explores the general systems of identification and models of classification of nature and the human environment elaborated among the black population of the Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Based on the few annotations on this topic in colonial documentation, and checking them against a longstanding oral tradition and references obtained among present-day ethnic communities, it became clear that despite the disdain of elite groups, said knowledge not only formed part of their intellectual and scientific production, but also paved the way for establishing identities, properties and interactions among all the entities that composed the cosmos around them. They thus created their own frameworks of meaning from which they developed new forms of thought and everyday action that added new dimensions to the reality that tried to impose itself on them as the only version possible.

Este artigo se aprofunda nos sistemas gerais de identificação e nos modelos de classificação da natureza e do ambiente humano que elaboraram os estamentos negros do Vice-reino da Nova Granada no século XVIII e início do XIX. A partir dessas poucas anotações que a documentação colonial deixou sobre esse tema e comparando-as com tradições orais de longa duração e por referências obtidas em comunidades étnicas atuais, evidenciouse que —apesar de não serem valorizados pelos grupos da elite— aqueles saberes não somente fizeram parte de sua produção intelectual e científica, como também que lhes abriram caminho para a fixação das identidades, propriedades e interações de todas as entidades que compunham o cosmos circundante. Criaram, assim, referenciais próprios de sentido a partir dos quais desenvolveram novas formas de pensar e de atuar cotidiano que acrescentaram outras dimensões à realidade que tentou ser imposta a eles como a única versão possível.

This critical/creative work responds to a call from Krauth and Watkins for a more radical form of the scholarly paper. Its hybrid form presents poems written in response to events at the second Poetry on the Move festival at the University of Canberra in 2016. Key ideas about the intersections between poetry and knowledge from David McCooey and William Carlos Williams are considered together with readings and discussions by poets Tusiata Avia and Simon Armitage. The article charts writing experiences, tracking the drafts and the editing process for ways in which my festival-inspired poems reflect on the intersections between poetry and knowledge, knowing and unknowing. Specifically, the poems concern the topics of knowing and observing the world; knowing memory and integrating the past with the present; and knowing the body. They embrace embodiment, imagination and biography, conscious of antagonisms between memory and the present. In this article, I problematise the use of the noun knowledge as opposed to the verb knowing and demonstrate that the former is unnecessarily privileged. I argue that articulating the full scope of poetry composition from inspiration to the final stages of editing demonstrates that artistic knowledge is best defined as a process of knowing. It is my contention that poets do demonstrate the knowledge of how to make things, as identified by Aristotle (1954); and also that we show 'knowing as a process of inquiry' (Johnson 2010). In doing so, we offer readers 'new ways of knowing and doing' (Webb 2012, my emphasis). At the same time, our own new work, as I demonstrate here, responds to knowledge as 'a living current' (Williams 1923), an active state characterised by the verb 'to know'.

Have you ever had an inexplicable experience that was so tangible and real that it challenged everything you have been taught, or could rationally comprehend? Have you ever tried to write about it academically? This chapter describes my search for understanding why it is so challenging to include intangible and often mysterious encounters into our work, and what might be necessary to create a soulful scholarship where this is not only welcome but seen as a fertile research strategy. It discusses other ways of knowing beyond but inclusive of rationality in a multidisciplinary ‘alchemy of the soul.’

Keywords
epistemology
shamanism
anthropology
intersubjectivity
ways of knowing

Recognizing and taking into consideration multiple forms of disorder constitutes a privileged way to grasp what is at the core of the idea of complexity. From physics and biology to psychology, sociology and anthropology, it seems legitimate to question the role of disorder in the everyday life. Considering phenomena such as chance, hazard, agitation, dispersion, perturbation, accident, noise, error, it seems therefore critical for practitioners and researchers in education to focus their attention on complementary, antagonistic and concurring relationships between order and disorder, and to question the role they play in the processes through which education and learning self-organize themselves. Disorder appears therefore as a key concept that has to be considered in education, in conjunction with the ideas of order, interaction and organization.
Promoting a conception of education that acknowledges and embraces the role played by heterogeneous forms of disorder appears therefore as a critical project. It raises at least three questions, respectively from an epistemological, educational and ethical perspective.

This study focuses on an analysis of the counter-hegemonic discourse of Guarani indigenous leaders Timóteo Verá Popyguá and Marçal de Souza, focusing on the strategy of envolvimento (involvement) with the larger capitalist world as a means for achieving cultural survival and autonomy. The core idea of this study is how the 'privatization of public potential' can be employed both for and against initiatives that foster the strengthening of indigenous ways of knowing and relating with the land. I argue that, in order to subvert private property and the domination of space for capitalist production, envolvimento seeks the privatization of lands for the Guarani, who will develop this parcel of land according to their own cultural principles. Counter-hegemonic adaptation, in this case, requires a deep understanding of dominant practices and ideologies, and the desire to take part in the larger economy. Ultimately, I argue that the negative effects of neoliberalism can be diminished by making more private spaces communal.

1999) ‫الثنائي‬ ‫التفكير‬ ‫أسلوب‬ ‫و‬ ، Dichotomous Thinking Inventory DTI (Oshio, 2009) ‫على‬ ، 961 ‫المرحلة‬ ‫من‬ ً ‫طالبا‬ ‫اعمارهم‬ ‫متوسط‬ ‫الثانوية‬ 91 ‫سنة.‬ ‫أعلى‬ ‫ميل‬ ‫لديهم‬ ‫ا‬ ‫كانو‬ ‫الثانوية‬ ‫المرحلة‬ ‫طالب‬ ‫أن‬ ‫النتائج‬ ‫أظهرت‬ ‫وقد‬ ‫التفكير‬ ‫نحو‬ ‫المتوسط‬ ‫من‬ ‫أعلى‬ ‫ميال‬ ‫مستويات‬ ‫الطالب‬ ‫أظهر‬ ‫كما‬ ‫تجنبه،‬ ‫وعدم‬ ‫الجدل‬ ‫في‬ ‫الرغبة‬ ‫نحو‬ ‫المنفصلة.‬ ‫فة‬ ‫المعر‬ ‫نحو‬ ‫ميال‬ ‫أكثر‬ ‫ا‬ ‫وكانو‬ ‫الثنائي،‬ ‫التباين‬ ‫تحليل‬ ‫نتائج‬ ‫أظهرت‬ ‫كما‬ ANOVA ‫عندما‬ ‫أنه‬ ‫الطال‬ ‫سجل‬ ‫لخوض‬ ‫الميل‬ ‫في‬ ‫دالة‬ ‫وبدرجة‬ ‫عالية‬ ‫درجات‬ ‫ا‬ ‫سجلو‬ ‫المنفصلة‬ ‫المعرفة‬ ‫في‬ ‫عالية‬ ‫درجات‬ ‫ب‬ ‫في‬ ‫دالة‬ ‫وبدرجة‬ ‫عالية‬ ‫درجات‬ ‫ا‬ ‫سجلو‬ ‫المتصلة‬ ‫فة‬ ‫المعر‬ ‫في‬ ‫عالية‬ ‫درجات‬ ‫الطالب‬ ‫سجل‬ ‫وعندما‬ ‫الجدل،‬ ‫المسار‬ ‫تحليل‬ ‫أكد‬ ‫وقد‬ ‫الجدل.‬ ‫تجنب‬ Path Analysis ‫المعرفة‬ ‫أن‬ ‫التحليل‬ ‫أظهرت‬ ‫حيث‬ ‫النتيجة،‬ ‫هذه‬ ‫الجدل.‬ ‫لتجنب‬ ‫بالميل‬ ‫المتصلة‬ ‫فة‬ ‫المعر‬ ‫تنبأت‬ ‫حين‬ ‫في‬ ‫الجدل،‬ ‫خوض‬ ‫نحو‬ ‫بالميل‬ ‫تنبأت‬ ‫قد‬ ‫المنفصلة‬ ‫اإل‬ ‫ضوء‬ ‫في‬ ‫النتائج‬ ‫تفسير‬ ‫تم‬ ‫وقد‬ ‫السابقة‬ ‫اسات‬ ‫الدر‬ ‫و‬ ‫النظري‬ ‫طار‬ ‫و‬ ‫التوصيات‬ ‫بعض‬ ‫تقديم‬ . ‫مفتاحية‬ ‫كلمات‬ ‫الثنائي.‬ ‫التفكير‬ ‫المعرفة،‬ ‫طرق‬ ‫الجدل،‬ ‫في‬ ‫الرغبة‬ : ( ‫اهيم‬ ‫إبر‬ ‫أسامة‬ 3192 .) ‫الثنائي‬ ‫التفكير‬ ‫و‬ ‫فة‬ ‫المعر‬ ‫لطرق‬ ‫كمخرج‬ ‫الجدل‬ ‫في‬ ‫الرغبة‬ . ‫ان‬ ‫بأسو‬ ‫بية‬ ‫التر‬ ‫كلية‬ ‫مجلة‬ ‫العدد‬ ( 31 )

This paper is part of a book review forum on Mark Purcell's "The Down-Deep Delight of Democracy", where I argue that the boundary between childhood and adulthood is deeply problematic and consequently we cannot discount the political agency of children, particularly in building a more autonomous version of democracy.

This case discusses the role students play in field-based survey research and offers a guide to ensuring that their role is beneficial. Student researchers can be integral to the data collection process, benefit tremendously from research experiences, and learn a great deal about the communities they study. It is important, however, to integrate students into collaborative knowledge production. Drawing on my own experience as well as feedback from members of my team, I present several strategies for how undergraduates can best become part of a research team. This overview will help students to understand their important role in field work and guide faculty and graduate students in incorporating undergraduates into their research.

Find Your Way is the outcome of my mystic vision that I had when I was 9 years old. I was given a gift and guided along the way. I wish to share this with you.

To help ourselves we must ponder the challenge that Socrates proposed. We must examine our life by considering the origins of our thoughts and beliefs. It is from gaining insight into who we are that we can know what we can do. This is what I am trying to teach. To offer you tools that will give you insight into the forces that shaped you.

I believe that life is not linear. There is not one single path laid out before us in an unchanging situation. We change over time and thus opening up many diverse and divergent paths. I believe we should be open to doubt and inspiration. This is the meaningful coincidences of synchronicity. Look around with eyes, ears, and hearts open. Unexpected invitations are dancing lessons from the Divine and thus do not be afraid to take time to dance.

This brings to mind the pleasant wisdom of my childhood friend, Winnie the Pooh. He, with his Taoist simplicity, accomplished many things that direct action by itself did not achieve. One could think of him as you recall the words of J. R. R. Tolkien: ‘Not all those who wander are lost.’

May you find your way.

The Ethiopian Highlands have been studied extensively, hosting a large amount of research for development projects in agriculture and forestry over several decades. The encounters in these projects were also encounters of different ways of knowing that were negotiated by the actors meeting in the space provided by the projects. This research explores these encounters and the social worlds they are embedded in, drawing on actor-oriented approaches as well as theories of narratives and framing. Ways of knowing and citizen epistemologies are taken as a lens to understand the role of identities in knowledge production and use. The two case studies were agroforestry research projects in the Ethiopian Highlands. The research followed a range of qualitative and ethnographic research methods. Different types of farmers and scientists meet in the case studies. I recognise that they all have individual agency, nevertheless I use the terms ‘scientist’ and ‘farmer’ in this thesis. I use the ter...