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SCIENCE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: ARTICULATING KNOWLEDGES

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SCIENCE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: ARTICULATING

KNOWLEDGES

Gilberto Gallopín and Hebe Vessuri

Introduction

Reaching a useful and usable understanding of the sustainability,

dynamics, vulnerabilities, and resilience of the complex socio-ecological systems
that are the basis of sustainable development will require a strong push to
advance focused scientific research, including building up classical disciplinary
knowledge from the natural and the social sciences, and an even stronger
development of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research (Schellnhuber and
Wenzel 1998, Kates et al. 2001, ICSU 2002).

But the challenge goes beyond scientific knowledge itself; many

discussions and consultations on the role and nature of S&T for sustainable
development emphasize the importance of incorporating knowledge generated
endogenously in particular places and contexts of the world, including empirical
knowledge, knowledge incorporated into technologies, into cultural traditions, etc.
(ICSU 2002). Indeed, science and technology for sustainable development
create historic opportunities to use inputs from other forms of knowledge, by
exploring the practical, political and epistemological value of traditional/local/
empirical/ indigenous knowledge; the incorporation of “lay experts” in the
processes of public decision-making and the research agenda makes good
sense in terms of using the expertise that is available, even when it is found in
unexpected places (Collins & Pinch, 1998).

Scientific research is nourished by many roots, including the earlier work

of other scientists. The imagination of scientists often draws also on another,
quite different, “extra-scientific” type of source. Such hints point to paths that
historical scholarship on science have explored reluctantly -tracing
cultural/epistemic roots that may have helped shape scientific ideas in the first
place. So far, there have been comparatively few such investigations that
encompass the wider, intellectual-cultural directions. The full understanding of
any particular scientific advance requires attention to both content and context.
But the meaning of ‘context’ is much broader than what is conventionally
accepted in sociology of science, not to mention science, involving eventually
other knowledges as well.

New challenges in a growing number of cognitive fields, force science to

take into account further knowledge systems and in so doing revise its own
standards of efficiency 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 for rejecting traditional practices and the knowledge,
however it is expressed, that underpins them. We lack, however, a
comprehensive framework regarding the multiplicity of local knowledges that
could be used as inputs for scientific research and have thus far remained largely
unrecognized by formal research systems as potential sources of innovation. A
point of contention has been that the key knowledge generated by the local lay
experts is often contextual, partial and localized, and has not been easy to
translate or integrate into a more scientifically manageable conceptual
framework.

The participation of other social actors, in addition to S&T professionals, in

the different phases of the scientific and technological research process and 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 have a
bearing on their wellbeing (such as the installation of a nuclear plant in their area)
is undeniable; Political: It is essential to guarantee society’s control over research
and development outputs, particularly those that have an impact on health and
the environment; Pragmatic. In certain cases (e.g. new agricultural technologies,
new health treatments), it can be especially important to encourage the social
groups who are the intended beneficiaries to have a sense of ownership over the
scientific and technological knowledge. For this it may be essential to engage
these groups at the R&D phases in order to incorporate their interests and
perceptions into the process; Epistemological: The complex nature of the
sustainable development problematique, in which biogeophysical and social
processes usually overlap, often makes it necessary to consider the different
perceptions and objectives of the social actors involved.

The need to include other knowledges and perspectives in the S&T

enterprise poses important methodological challenges to S&T for sustainable
development, as it requires the adoption of criteria of truth and quality that are
more sophisticated, and better able to incorporate complexity, than those
conventionally accepted by the S&T community, yet not less solid and rigorous
(otherwise, the relevance and credibility of S&T could be gravely damaged). To
what degree, in which situations, what type and in what form extra-scientific
types of knowledge will need to be incorporated into science for sustainable
development are open questions that need to be addressed (Gallopín 2004)

In this article, we analyze the nature of knowledge (scientific and

otherwise), the need for and characteristics of articulating knowledges as part of
scientific research on sustainable development, we discuss the different types of
knowledge, and we end with the identification of four important questions that
can help to define a scientific research agenda for the articulation of knowledges
in scientific research for sustainable development.

The nature of knowledge

 For the present discussion, knowledge, including scientific knowledge, will
be defined as a body 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” but also the “know how” (i.e. skills), and indirect knowledge
(or “knowledge by description”) as well as “knowledge by acquaintance”, and
“embodied knowledge” (the knowledge embedded in artifacts and technology in
general).

Philosophers have been concerned primarily with the truth claims of

science (and thus with epistemology) and have generally neglected its rhetorical
dimensions, tending to contrast truth and rhetoric: ‘mere’ rhetoric is often
considered to be the refuge of false opinions and therefore to have no legitimate
place in science. However, unless we are to believe that truth is manifest we
need to view rhetoric as an integral part of science. Indeed, far from being
rhetorically free, modern scientific prose appears to have become the most
potent instrument of persuasion in our culture (Gooding, Pinch, and Schaffer
1993, p.161). Theories are not checked by comparison with a passive world with
which we hope they correspond. We invent devices that produce data and isolate
or create phenomena, and a network of different levels of theory is true to these
phenomena. The process of modifying the workings of instruments-both
materially (we fix them up) and intellectually (we redescribe what they do)-
furnishes the glue that keeps our intellectual and material world together. It is
what stabilizes science. Thus there evolves a curious tailor-made fit between our
ideas, our apparatus, and our observations. “A coherence theory of truth? No, a
coherence theory of thought, actions, materials, and marks” (Hacking, 1992, pp.
57-58).

Knowledge does not stand outside of practical activity: it is made and

sustained through situated practical activity. Saying this, however, is not very
helpful, beyond admitting that it is embedded in streams of practical activity.
What are the practices by which different types of scientific knowledge are made
and how their credibility has evolved 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 knowledge in seventeenth-century England. He
argues that preexisting gentlemanly practices provided working solutions to
problems of credibility and trust that presented themselves at the core of the new
empirical science. In securing our knowledge we rely upon others, and we
cannot dispense with that reliance.

Thus the role of trust appears to be crucial in building and maintaining the
cognitive order. The making of knowledge in general takes place on a moral field
and mobilizes particular appreciations of the virtues and characteristics of types
of people. Who to trust is a key question. The identification of trustworthy agents
is necessary to the constitution of any body of knowledge. The ineradicable role
of people-knowledge in the making of thing-knowledge is important just because
the stabilization of the latter pervasively involves rendering the former invisible
(Shapin, 1995). What we know of comets, icebergs, and neutrinos irreducibly
contains what we know of those people who speak for and about these things,
just as what we know about the virtues of people is informed by their speech
about things that exist in the world.

The social order has always been recognized to be trust-dependent as

witness a long literature from Cicero, in classical Rome, to Luhmann, Giddens, or
Ezrahi (1990). By contrast, the role of trust and authority in the constitution and
maintenance of systems of valued knowledge has been practically invisible.
Much modern epistemology has systematically argued that legitimate knowledge
is defined precisely by its rejection of trust. If we are heard to say that we know
something on the basis of trust, we are understood to say that we do not possess
genuine knowledge at all. It is unwise to take the world on trust. Trust and
authority stand against the very idea of science. Knowledge is supposed to be
the product of a sovereign individual confronting the world; reliance upon the
views of others produces error. The very distrust which social theorists have
identified as the most potent way of dissolving social order is said to be the most
potent means of constructing our knowledge.

Nevertheless, despite the rhetoric against trust, the very identity and
solidarity of the scientific community stem from members’ need to trust each
other if each individual is to add to the stock of credible knowledge. Without need
to argue for the role of trust against that of experience and its modes (including
replication), it is valid to draw attention to how much of our empirical knowledge
is held solely on the basis of what trustworthy sources tell us. There is an
ineradicable role of trust, even in the skeptical search for an individual and
independent grounding of knowledge. Kuhn (1962) offered detailed insight into
the nature of scientific training and described how the transmission of knowledge
and competence relied upon trust and the acceptance of authority. He pointed
out the continuing importance of authority and collectively agreed judgment in the
process of research itself.

Neither scientists nor lay people have experience, as it were, by itself:

whenever experiments are performed and the results of empirical engagement
with the world are reported and assessed, this is done within some system in
which trust has been laid and background knowledge taken for granted. When
we have experience, we recognize it as experience-of-a-certain-sort only by
virtue of a system of trust through which our existing state of knowledge has
been built up. Our schemes of plausibility, which become so naturalized that
they appear wholly independent of trust, were themselves built up by crediting
the relations of trusted sources. The appearance of plausibility as an
independent criterion is the result of a massively consequential evaluation,
splitting judgments of what is the case from the everyday relations by which
knowledge is made, sustained, and transmitted. Plausibility incorporates
judgments of trustworthiness at a distance. It is trust institutionalized.
 The exercise of retrieving the role of trust in the construction and
maintenance of our most valued systems of knowledge is beset with particular
difficulties. A philosopher of science (Kitcher, 2001) has recently criticized the
doctrine of the solitary scientific knower. Kitcher argues against those who deny
the epistemological relevance of the social character of scientific and
mathematical knowledge. He draws attention to the fact that individuals’
knowledge is rooted in the authoritative knowledge of their community, which
knowledge is, in turn, historically grounded in the authoritative knowledge of
preceding communities. His argument recognizes a division of cognitive labor in
science but in his view, the grounds on which individuals are trusted and deemed
to be authoritative are empirically adjudicable and rationally explicable.

So to the aggregate of individuals we need to add the morally textured

relations between them, notions like authority and trust and the socially situated
norms 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 sustainable development issues have to deal with a compounding of
complexity at different levels. The interplay between the factors across the
different levels and layers adds to the complexity intrinsic to each of the layers.
There are at least three levels at which complexity impinges upon scientific
enquiry of coupled socio-ecological systems (Gallopín et al. 2001):

• Physical reality, where the properties of self-organisation, irreducible

uncertainty, emergence, and others, come into play.
• The need to consider different “epistemologies” (when a plurality of
perceptions or viewpoints must be acknowledged and respected, even if
not accepted as equally valid).
• The need to consider different “intentionalities” (differing goals of the
relevant stakeholders).

Attention to those complex system properties is not only necessary for the
improvement of scientific research, but the existence and nature of those
properties is by itself an interesting and important topic of scientific research.
This paper focuses on part of the second level of complexity identified above,
being aware that the plurality of perceptions and viewpoints goes well beyond
knowledges, including also beliefs, values and worldviews, and that the
consideration of different “epistemologies” or knowledge systems goes beyond
the articulation of knowledges, including e.g. the study of different knowledge and
belief systems by anthropologists.
 Also, the need for articulation of knowledges may arise out of different
considerations, as discussed earlier, but here we will focus on the articulation of
alternative knowledges as part of the scientific research process, required
because of epistemological reasons, along the lines that the incorporation,
articulation, “hybridization”, combination, or taking into account of, forms of
knowledge with, or in addition to, scientific knowledge within the process of
scientific research of socio-ecological systems results in a demonstrably better 1
characterization of the problem/issue and thus in better solutions.

All along its history, developments in Western or formal science have

created opportunities for inputs from indigenous, traditional, local, or alternative
knowledges. However, the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from
forming or emerging, has been shown to be very important to culture and political
domination (Said, 1994). Historically, science has developed a powerful narrative
that delegitimated other descriptions of the world. This narrative is based on, and
in turn sustains, a dominant discourse of development (Vessuri, forthcoming). In
contrast, research for SD is based on the postulate of an irreducible plurality of
pertinent analytical perspectives for a situation of enquiry, starting “in the middle
of the road” with a willingness to work with several analytical perspectives
simultaneously in permanent “conversation” seeking mutual understanding (even
if not full reconciliation) across the many points of view. It is not only about
deciding which is “the best” selection of relevant criteria to be used in order to
generate a sound representation, but it is fundamentally about deciding how to
weigh them (O’Connor 1998).

The articulation of knowledges may take place at different epistemic

levels, from data and facts to explanations to worldviews. The task has been
easier (although often reduced to a mere absorption) at the level of data or
factual pieces of information, as was the case of the medicinal properties of
native plants (knowledge that is today actively collected by scientists and firms
from indigenous people across the world, and assigned an economic value).
Even so, there are many instances in which useful facts were rejected by science
because they did not fit within the scientific schemes of the time.

When turning up to the level of explanations of the phenomena

considered, challenges to articulation have been more severe. Explanations are
connected to prevailing theories and paradigms and therefore are less likely to
be accepted or integrated across knowledge systems (even within science itself),
and belonging to a well accepted knowledge 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 very skeptical of accounts of
farmers in Ghana that there was a tree under which their crops grew well, and
that this was because the tree itself provided water for the crops. The latter
explanation conflicted with the standard scientific knowledge that trees have a

1
Better, that is, even according to the standard scientific criteria (accuracy, completeness,
fruitfulness, relevance, etc.)
root system that extract water from soil into the leaves, from which it evaporates
into the atmosphere, thus making the ground underneath the trees drier not
wetter. However, not only the facts were genuine, but also the explanation, for
that tree species has a root system that really siphons water into the surrounding
earth.

The articulation of alternative worldviews is likely to be the most difficult.

Kuhn (1962) has shown how, within science itself, prevailing paradigms 2 can
maintain their dominance against alternative ones for long periods, even after
their inadequacies have been exposed. A major challenge for the articulation of
knowledges is how to avoid scientific imperialism (i.e. only scientific knowledge is
true and objective) without falling into epistemological relativism (i.e. all
knowledges are culturally determined, equally valid and they all need to be
included). A consequence of the first is than when the alternative knowledge
conflicts with the 'modern scientific world view', it has tended to be discarded as
little more than superstition. Its lack of an apparently rational basis is itself seen
as a reason for ignoring it, without adequate awareness that the rationality test
being applied is itself a cultural product of Western societies. On the other hand,
a relativist position would lead to attempts to include all forms of knowledge, with
equal weight, which may result into incoherent mixtures and inconsistent problem
characterization and misleading solutions.

O’Connor (1998) distinguished three “epistemological stances” in the

context of a search for methods for valuation of environmental amenities and
natural capital, that can be useful also for the kind of problems discussed here.
These perspectives, concerning the nature of scientific knowledge and its
purposes, are called respectively Cartesian, Democratic, and Complexity. The
“Cartesian” perspective privileges “objective” description (as a basis for obtaining
a theoretically organized and universal knowledge about reality), and
explanations based on axiomatic formulations of the categories for system
description and behaviors. It is clearly akin to our “scientific imperialism”
characterization. The “Democratic” perspective prioritizes the status of each
member of a social group to contribute to both knowledge and judgment
(deliberation), and it is compatible (but not identical) with our characterization of
“epistemological relativism”. Finally, the “Complexity” perspective is based on the
postulate of an irreducible plurality of pertinent analytical perspectives, a starts
with willingness to work with several analytical perspectives simultaneously.

In terms of science for sustainable development, it seems that some kind

of complexity perspective is needed to guide the search for articulation of
knowledges for sustainable development research, recognizing that not all forms
of knowledge are equally valid or required in a given situation, but also accepting
the need to include a number of possibly irreducible knowledges in the research
process.

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

A variety of knowledges may be relevant for a given research problem,

and particularly for its solution (Figure 1).

Insert Figure 1 near here

Grouping together all ‘non-scientific’ forms of knowledge uncritically into a

single category and separating them from their context, makes it nearly
impossible to avoid oversimplification. Such unhelpful generalizations jeopardize
the potentially unique and important contribution that different forms of
knowledge can make to sustainable development.

Thus, we have distinguished in figure 1 the carriers of several kinds of

knowledge. Scientific advisors today, for instance, have a different sort of
knowledge relative to that of scientists and policy-makers (Ravetz, 2001). The
productive system has become so complex, pervasive and also problematic in a
variety of ways, that the State is intimately involved in its management, creating
new problems for governance, variously described as ‘risk society’ by Beck
(1992), or the domain of ‘post-normal science’ by Funtowicz and Ravetz (1999).
There are basic differences between science in the processes of government
and in its more traditional functions. In basic science, the context of application of
the research is the same as that of the research itself: it is isolated and
essentially simple. In industrial development, the products of research are tested
by the essentially straightforward mechanisms of the market. However, when
science advice uses research, it is deployed directly in a context which is all
about policy: its formation, execution, and justification. Quite different criteria of
adequacy and value are at work in this latter case. For policy, the non-technical
aspects may come to dominate the decision process, so that the ‘scientific’
quality of the material is of distinctly less significance. Users in this case are
persons in a policy process, extending from advisors through administrators to
politicians.

Also traditional knowledge is distinguished from science. The AAAS

Project on Traditional Ecological Knowledge 3 defines traditional ecological
knowledge (TEK) as the information that people in a given community, based on
experience and adapted to local culture and environment, have developed over
time, and continued to evolve. This knowledge is used to sustain the community
and its culture and to maintain the biological resources necessary for the
continued survival of the community. The term "traditional" used to describe it
does not imply that this knowledge is old, nonscientific or non technical in nature,
but "tradition-based." It is "traditional" because it is created in a manner that
reflects the traditions of the communities, therefore not relating to the nature of

3
see: http://shr.aaas.org/tek/connection.htm
the knowledge itself, but to the way in which that knowledge is created,
preserved and disseminated. Traditional knowledge is collective in nature and
considered the property of the entire community. It does not belong to any single
individual within the community, and is transmitted through specific cultural and
traditional information exchange mechanisms. Traditional knowledge is often
maintained and transmitted orally through elders or specialists (breeders,
healers, etc.), and often to only a select few people within a community.

Traditional ecological knowledge includes mental inventories of local

biological resources, animal breeds, and local plant, crop and tree species. It
may include such information as trees and plants that grow well together, and
indicator plants, such as plants that grow only in a narrow range of soil salinity or
that are known to flower at the beginning of the rains. It includes practices and
technologies, such as seed treatment, storage methods and tools used for
planting and harvesting. TEK also encompasses belief systems that play a
fundamental role in a people's livelihood and in maintaining their health and the
environment, and that may be instrumental in protecting natural areas for
religious reasons or maintaining a vital watershed. TEK is dynamic in nature and
may include experimentation in the integration of new plant or tree species into
existing farming systems or a traditional healer's tests of new plant medicines.

Some authors prefer to use the notion of Indigenous Knowledge Systems

to refer to the complex set of knowledge and technologies existing and
developed around specific conditions of populations and communities indigenous
to a particular area. (NRF South Africa, 1999). Indigenous knowledge, in this
sense, is the knowledge that is unique to a given culture or society. It is the basis
for local level decision-making in agriculture, health care, food preparation,
education, natural resource management, and a host of other activities in rural
communities. Indigenous information systems are based on experience, often
tested over centuries of use, adapted to local culture and environment, dynamic
and changing. Indigenous knowledge is an important part of the lives of the poor:
inherent in food security, human and animal health, education and natural
resource management (Scidev.Net Dossier, 2004). Sometimes it is used as
synonymous of local, traditional knowledge; sometimes it identifies a non
western, often a developing country patrimony that originated quite
independently of science and western culture.

Others speak of local knowledge as the one that focuses on

understanding the immediate situation and environment, building on observation
and refined experience (Vessuri, 2004). The ‘non expert’, local, world, an author
like Wynne (2002) has argued, is treated by science as ‘epistemically vacuous’
while in fact it is ‘complex, reflexive, dynamic and innovative, material and
empirical, and yet also theoretical. It is experimental and flexible, not dogmatic
and closed. Whatever its ultimate merits or demerits, it is epistemically alive and
substantive’. In this context it is refreshing to read an example of the rhetoric
valorizing the tacit knowledge of the unlettered in the seventeenth century. Boyle
encouraged “experimentalists to take craft and artisan knowledge seriously, to
extract that empirical and factual knowledge from those who possess it, to give it
systematic form , and not to stint in that enterprise because of false notions of
social pride and prejudice” (Boyle, 1663, as quoted by Shapin, 1995, p. 395).

Interestingly enough, this notion is increasingly present in current

concerns about democratic participation in contemporary societies, where many
more voices, both established ones and those in the alternative front, are to be
heard. Clearly, it is linked to ‘bottom-up’ strategies involving public or movement-
oriented participation in the formation of science and technology policy for
sustainable development. It is marked by spontaneity, with local initiatives and
cultural diversity as a guideline. The pursuit of environmental sustainability
provides a catalyst for experimentation with new forms of sociality and
association. And, particularly when combined with cultural events and aesthetic
expression, modes of participation can take on the character of ‘exemplary
action’, performing and disseminating sustainability through setting example or
model behavior (Jamison & Ostby, 1997).

Judgments by lay people, i.e. local knowledge, seem more risk averse
than those of experts or politicians, and have been recognized as reflecting
different framings of technology’s social implications, different perceptions of the
feasibility of control, different appraisals of the values at stake, and different
judgments about fairness in the distribution of risks, and benefits (Jasanoff,
2002). In our era when global science and global capital enjoy increasing levels
of institutionalization and state support, it is understandable that civil societies
emerge with local voices to insist that the production of policy-relevant
knowledge should be made available for public scrutiny and input. There is
increasing awareness in contemporary societies that policy-relevant science can
never be completely neutral. Values and judgment enter into the equation long
before issues are isolated for technical analysis. Policy-relevant expertise, too, is
known to be widely distributed, not only within but also outside the scientific
community. Those who are at risk, and are so from hazards that are not in all
cases amenable to technical analysis and control, should be an integral part of
the politics of assessment.

Although indigenous or local knowledge has proven its value in many

cases it cannot, and should not, be promoted without first being critically
assessed. Not all indigenous knowledge offers sustainable solutions to today’s
pressing problems. Common objections raised at non scientific knowledge forms
are that most local solutions are very context-specific. If the environment
changes, the existing knowledge usually becomes irrelevant, and trial-and-error
learning has to start all over again. This can be illustrated in cases of conuco
agriculture in Venezuela and other tropical lands (Vessuri, 1977), where the
traditional agricultural practices that worked well in one environment, became
unsustainable when farmers moved to a different one. This sort of close
dependence on particular contextual conditions has led to the argument that the
robustness of such knowledge is precarious, because it cannot create and
 maintain the conditions for its vitality. But the notion of ‘place’ itself as historical
and emergent exacerbates the problem of uncertainty associated with the sheer
complexity of ecosystems, begging a number of questions.

It is precisely the way that those “extra-scientific” types of knowledge are

embedded in 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 than many social scientists like to think, pouring some cold
water on the suggestion that one of the key distinctions between traditional
knowledge and modern science is the extent to which the former is embedded in
local culture, while the latter is independent of local constraints and is universally
valid. It may be likened to common sense, which seems in fact to be universally
distributed.

Common sense is one of those ubiquitous concepts whose semantic

boundaries change constantly with regard to other forms of knowledge (Vessuri,
2001). It is admitted to be found in every culture and to have the distinctive
features of being a ‘relatively ordered body of thought, characterized by its own
denial of being it‘ (Geertz, 1983). Common sense rests on the statement that it is
not. As science, it is knowledge about the world: the world of nature, the world of
society, the world of the individual. But it consists only of those opinions that
have the aspect of ‘being given for granted’, of being obvious or natural.
Common sense supposes that there is a world external to us, that this world has
a certain determinate order, and that this order is independent of the acts of
observation and representation by which it is known and reported. Everyday
thought and action, therefore, are predicated upon robust and confident
commonsense realism. There are large differences between science and
common sense although rather than discard common sense as useless it has
been suggested to look at the differences in how knowledge economies are
organized, how their members interact with each other and how they relate to
their cultures’ stock of knowledge. It has also been suggested ”that the objects of
comparison be individuated: ‘science’ versus ‘common sense’ does not work, but
it would be interesting to explore the differences and similarities obtaining
among, for example, accountancy and botanical taxonomy, fly-fishing and
neurology, cooking and chemistry” (Shapin, 2001).

Insert Fig 2 near here

Figure 2 shows a number of problem areas where indigenous, traditional,

or local knowledge has been applied to local problem-solving. For example,
many environmental scientists have come to recognize the effectiveness of
indigenous land management, fire strategies in particular. Perhaps the most
pragmatic reasons for both indigenous people and scientists to participate in the
joint workshops that are taking place in different countries is a desire to find ways
to negotiate over fire management, in an everyday sense . In many places,
natives and scientists must co-operate, and both sides hold quite strong views on
when and how to set fire to specific tracts of land. This can lead to serious
tension and distrust, and sometimes confrontation between the two sides.
Environmental scientists of the tropical savannas and aborigines need a way of
reconciling prescribed burning and traditional fires that is robust enough for
limited purposes. A recent paper by Verran (2002) tells some stories useful for
both the scientists and the Australian aborigines struggling to work with each
other, and with the bush. The author shows ways in which land managers can
negotiate in making arrangements for firings that might be credited in both
traditions.

Partnerships are made with the most varied allies. A recent study that
includes experimental firing is being conducted by an international group of
researchers and Brazilian farmers at the edge of the Amazon rainforest as part of
a project of the Large Scale Amazon Atmosphere-Biosphere Experiment. The
focus of the study is to determine the impact of fire on the 'transition' forests that
form a fragile boundary where the vulnerable rainforest meet the savannas — or
cerrado — of central Brazil. The scrub-like cerrado is relatively well adapted to
repeated burning. This happens naturally when lightning strikes, but local farmers
also contribute to the process with fires called queimadas, which are used to
control pests and weeds. Too many fires, however, could result in the runaway
expansion of the savanna, triggering a process of biological erosion that
threatens the edges of the Amazon rainforest. By 'designing' fires, the scientists
expect to measure what happens after the fires burn out (Leite, 2004).

A point worth considering is that the differences between scientific and

extra-scientific knowledge may not always be so neat. If we accept the broad
definition of science officially adopted by the Declaration of Science of the World
Conference (ICSU 1999), as “the ability to examine problems from different
perspectives and seek explanations of natural and social phenomena, constantly
submitted to critical analysis”, it is easy to see how there could be many cases in
which other forms of knowledge could overlap with scientific 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), that is codifiable
and that can be formally expressed and transmitted to others through manuals,
specifications, regulations, rules or procedures, that is easily expressed,
captured, stored and reused. It can be transmitted as data and is found in
databases, books, manuals and messages. But there is another part of
knowledge that is ‘soft’, including what people know that cannot be articulated,
that is highly personal, including tacit or implicit knowledge (semiconscious and
unconscious knowledge held in peoples' heads and bodies), internalized
experience, skills, internalized domain knowledge and cultural knowledge
embedded in practice.

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

This may have to include a ‘negotiation of meaning’ as defined by Wenger

(1992), involving the interaction of the two complementary processes of
participation and reification. In his sense, the construction of knowledge involves
both the social experience of living in the world, including not only cooperation
but also conflict (participation) and the process of giving form to the knowledge
by making, designing, representing, naming, encoding and describing as well as
perceiving, interpreting, using, reusing, decoding and recasting it (reification).
(Figure 3 from Wenger, 1998)

Insert Fig 3 near here

Problematic issues

Four major issues regarding articulation of knowledges are put forward;

each of these may be regarded as a source of specific propositions that need to
be researched.

1. When it is important to articulate/ combine/ integrate local/ traditional/

empirical/ indigenous/ lay knowledge and scientific knowledge regarding
sustainable development? When it is not?

The peculiar local-general combination typical of modern science, with its

emphasis on controlled conditions, is often seen as the main, perhaps unique
answer to the challenge of creating cosmopolitan, transportable knowledge,
where the ascent from local to cosmopolitan is what counts. This requires
interaction and infrastructure (visits to other laboratories, partial standardization
of conditions to improve replication, the codification of measures and protocols).
Utilization of such general/universal knowledge is conditional on the existence or
build-up of the relevant infrastructure (Rip, 2000). However, the ideology of
universal knowledge claims and generalized applicability of modern science
neglects what happens locally. This is a problem also for science itself, because
the quality of cosmopolitan knowledge depends on what happens on location.

In general, it can be expected that the need for articulation of knowledges

is less pressing in those situations that are relatively simple, when the problem of
sustainability can be solved by finding a particular technological solution, or in
other relatively uni-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 adequate framing of the problem is likely to require
taking into account alternative knowledges, either to find the solution or to assess
its implications and impacts, or to agree on the steps to follow to solve the
problem.
 2. Which are the major challenges in this articulation/ combination/ integration?

It is possible that a new understanding of science and other formal bodies

of learned knowledge are opened up or assisted once we are ready to look at
other forms of knowing and learning. We could end up with science again at the
end but with a new and broader understanding of it after having taken into
consideration other angles of experience. We might grasp more realistically how
definitions of public issues are established and maintained, and what becomes
salient and what is deleted from collective attention. We might be forced to
rethink what are the issues, and what kind of knowledge is salient. The issues of
public meaning may turn out to be prior to the framing of the issues by scientists.

Currently, the major challenges to the articulation, combination, or

integration of knowledges seem to be associated to the lack of tolerance towards
the other’s viewpoints, cryptic technical or esoteric language, difficulties in
translating concepts across the different realms, ignorance about the other
knowledges, and the existence of real incompatibilities between the different
perspectives.

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

We must seek ways of reconciling what appear to be incompatible

versions of the proper definition of the issue to be resolved and the purpose of
the prevailing knowledge, and thus of which criteria should define sound science
or knowledge: (artificial) precision and control, or ‘realism’ and
comprehensiveness. Arguably there should be a public debate about this framing
question, and about its corollary: what should be the proper epistemology for
major public issues which also involve science.

We need to study and learn more about different normative concepts of

the proper social role and expectations of knowledge, as embodied in
incompatible practical cultures.

In some cases where alternative knowledges or hypothesis about an issue

are in conflict, the disagreement can be resolved or mitigated by examining
whether the practical consequences of adopting one or another are really
important for the overall outcome or not.

4. How can the quality of local knowledge be assessed?

Rip’s argument 2000) is that while post-colonial arguments can be put up

(about ‘othering’) to undermine the intentional and de facto power play of
science, and these create needed space, such a position risks devolving into
accepting everything as long as it is non-scientific. In his view, what is needed is
an additional criterion, or better characterization, one which has to do with quality
and robustness of knowledge, rather than with its source. And it must be a
criterion which does not recreate universalism.

Local (or indigenous) knowledge, in turn, is challenged to address its

cognitive quality instead of seeking shelter in the cultural reserves where
appealing to political correctness corners it. The ensuing negotiation process
may lead to recognition of profound differences between knowledge systems,
which is already an important step in realizing the possibility of mutual learning.
The increasing hybridization and hybridity of knowledge for sustainable
development that can be envisaged would be an outcome of the interaction
taking place in increasing fields of science.

There is need to problematize the prevailing boundaries of ‘the scientific’

and ‘the public’ (or ‘the cultural’ or ‘the political’). And analyze how dominant
actors have repeatedly condemned other forms and expressions of knowledge
excluding peoples (and other knowledge claims) excluding them from negotiating
what the salient questions are. Public meanings about public domain issues
involve the continuities and interwoven textures of 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
knowledge with scientific knowledge (Robert Scholes, pers. comm.; Kinzing et al
2004, p 423). They involve 1) avoid making judgments about the adequacy of
causal schemes or explanatory models; 2) requiring that the knowledge be
traceable to its source(s); 3) requiring that there be repeatability among
knowledge holders and internal consistency in the information; and 4) requiring
that some degree of confidence be attached by the lay expert to the information,
along with an explicit statement about the limits (in time or in space) of the
knowledge considered.
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Figure 1. A plurality of knowledges

of policy makers
'Knowledges'
of technicians

of managers
of workers

of scientists

local
of scientific advisors

autochthonous
of firms
traditional
of customers empirical
of patients
ethnic

of engineers and technologists

Figure 2. Indigenous knowledge and local problem-solving

agriculture
animal
production
intercropping biology
techniques

pest control
botany
fish breeding techniques
crop diversity
animal healthcare
seed
varieties
human healthcare education

use and management of

oral traditions
natural resources traditional
medicine
local languages

irrigation
soil conservation
poverty alleviation
other forms of in general
water management
 Figure 3. The two complementary processes of participation and reification, redrawn
from Wenger 1998).

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