We are delighted to share the latest book in our series of explorations over the past years of knowledge democracy, community-university research partnerships (CURP), social responsibility in higher education, and the creation of locally contextualised knowledge for social justice and sustainability. This chapter provides the background to our interest in the concept of knowledge cultures, a literature review that has helped us understand knowledge cultures in a variety of settings and a brief overview of the Bridging Knowledge Cultures (BKC) project, conducted between 2020 and 2022, that forms the basis of the case studies and reflections presented in this book.
We start by recognising that knowledge is created everywhere. It is created by everyone in negotiating the life in which they are immersed. We create our own knowledge individually as we grow and experience life. We usually refer to this as ‘learning’ when it happens on an individual level. The social construction of knowledge happens everywhere as well. Families, neighbourhoods, communities, workplaces create knowledge through shared experience to enable them to survive or flourish depending on their contexts. Indigenous peoples around the world have accumulated knowledge over the millennia through interaction with rest of nature, including the spirit world. Civil society organisations create knowledge with a focus on finding solutions to community or global challenges, and/or to back up requests for financial or political support for their work (Leadbeater et al., 2011; Lutz & Neis, 2008). Trade unions work with knowledge creating capacities of working individuals to fight for better pay and healthier workplaces. Social movements create knowledge through their conversations internally and through their interactions with the authority and the broader public outside their movements. In higher education institutions, which are often seen as the only place where ‘real’ knowledge is created, knowledge is constructed, used, shared and acted upon in quite different ways. In the broadest terms, knowledge within the academy serves several purposes, such as deepening theoretical understandings of disciplinary fields, contributing to career advancement, and sometimes to support community or policy partners (Britten & Maguire, 2016; Newman et al., 2016).
While the English language word ‘knowledge’ is used in all the above settings, we cannot assume that people in diverse organisational, institutional,
In the face of global crises and the challenges posed by socio-ecological systems and economic and political uncertainties, a variety of knowledge workers, such as academic researchers, practitioners, policymakers, governments and community members – each with a particular knowledge culture and different interests invested into knowledge processes – are called to work together in the long term to co-develop practical solutions to pressing societal issues. In this context, CURP have been presented as inter-organisational/institutional arrangements able to involve university and community partners in a mutually beneficial, iterative process of learning, reflection and action, whereby the results of such a process are useful to create positive social and institutional change (Hall et al., 2015). To achieve such goals, CURP deploys various strategies: capacity-building, knowledge translation, participatory research, citizen-centric development, and policy advocacy, to name a few.
Community-university research partnerships are often based on the assumption (or the ideal) that both the community organisation and the university are – or should be – equal partners and co-owners of the research process as well as the research outputs (Hall et al., 2018; Tandon, 2005). CURP can be also seen as autonomous ‘entities’, ‘mechanisms’ or even ‘machines’ that can be designed and adjusted in a relatively simple way to deliver its promises (Fransman et al., 2021). However, tensions commonly arise in most types of research partnerships based on real or perceived power differences between the academy and the community, for instance, in terms of: decision-making and control of funding; governance and direction of the partnership; ownership of the research process and knowledge outcomes; different understandings of what research and knowledge mean; dynamics of time; analysis and sharing of research results. Structurally, universities often lead community organisations that typically have insufficient institutional and financial capacity to support research activities and collaborations (Hall et al., 2011; Tremblay, 2015), thus putting communities at an unfair disadvantage. Sullivan and Skelcher (2002) refer to such practices as ‘pessimist collaboration’, a term that indicates one party’s “attempts to control or influence the other’s activities”, thus emphasising that power “resides implicitly in the other’s dependency” (p. 40).
One of the biggest challenges faced by those in the academia working in the field of CURP is indeed the establishment of truly respectful, mutually beneficial and equitable knowledge creation partnerships with diverse communities, social movements and organisations. Not unusually, conflicts between knowledge cultures are based on divergent views of ownership of the research process and control over its knowledge creation, validation and dissemination. Conflicts between the worldviews and traditions of different knowledge cultures in research partnerships remain, rather than being the exception, reifying power differences that inhibit consensus building among partners, and leading to the privileging of one knowledge system over others. These considerations lead us to ask the following question: in establishing trusting and respectful CURP, how can diverse knowledge cultures be bridged so that perceived or actual power inequalities between collaborating CURP partners are taken into consideration in a way that makes these connections sustainable, secure over time, and able to contribute to better lives, social justice, climate solutions or healthier communities?
To answer this general question, we decided to lead a global research project titled “Bridging Knowledge Cultures” (BKC) that looked at 10 CURP experiences working on different research areas, such as prenatal health, water management, education, etc. Broadly speaking, in this context we use the term bridging to refer to transformative changes at policy, institutional and individual level, which reconfigure system dynamics and power relationships within CURP and lead to the development of inclusive partnership governance arrangements that ensure co-responsibility between academic researchers and a range of research stakeholders (including community and voluntary groups, civil society organisations, state agencies, industry, and professionals).
We used the Knowledge for Change (K4C) Consortium as a ‘laboratory’ that allowed us to analyse the interaction between diverse (even conflicting) knowledge cultures involved in CURP, and how collaborating partners within and outside academia address extant power inequalities. The K4C Consortium is an international partnered training and research initiative of the UNESCO Chair in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education. Launched in 2017, the K4C Consortium aims to develop research capacities for the co-creation of knowledge through collective action by community groups and academics working together in training hubs around the world on issues related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, such as Indigenous wellbeing, water governance, poverty and inequality, climate action, gender equality and violence against women. Each local K4C hub is a formal CURP made up of at least one Higher Education Institution (HEI) and a Civil Society Organisation (CSO) working together on strengthening individual research capacities and professional skills using a variety of training methods, such as classroom-based instruction, professional development workshops, open online courses, field research projects and individual mentorship. These training hubs support trans-disciplinary research partnerships that provide practical experience to students, and co-create and mobilise knowledge to university and community members and to local, national and international policy makers. There are currently 22 K4C hubs in 10 countries around the globe (Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Ireland, Italy, Canada, South Africa, Colombia, Cuba, Uganda and Tanzania).
The reason for focusing on the K4C Consortium for conducting this research on power inequalities among knowledge cultures is that, while the Consortium was launched with strong support in its various sites, we cannot yet know the extent to which the hubs have been able to overcome the challenges inherent in developing trusting and egalitarian relations between the distinct knowledge cultures of their partners. In some of the K4C hubs (e.g., Victoria, Canada; Gulu, Uganda; and Arusha, Tanzania) work on bridging different knowledge cultures and power relations is well underway. However, in other locations, it is now clear that it will take more research to uncover how far bridging has proceeded, and how and to what extent those hubs have overcome knowledge
The BKC project allowed us to create a process of collective knowledge exchange and self-reflection about the nature of the academic and non-academic partnerships in the distinct cultural, institutional and political environments where the K4C hubs are located. In the process, we tried to identify and build more robust forms of networking and co-construct reciprocal understandings about knowledge, power, trust and equality to strengthen the K4C Consortium in particular, and contribute to an in-depth understanding of structural barriers and power dynamics that prevent mainstream research institutions from collaborating effectively with community groups, in more general terms.
1 The Bridging Knowledge Cultures Project
To conduct the BKC project, in September 2019 a research team led by Hall and Tandon submitted a partnership development grant proposal to the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). The partnership development funding stream provides funds for formal partnerships between postsecondary institutions and/or organisations of various types to develop research-related activities that can result in best practices or models. In preparing the grant application, the lead team was supported by a diverse set of K4C partners from various regions, with experience in different local, cultural and institutional settings. In order to achieve the project goals, we envisaged a decentralised governance structure able to reflect the diversity of knowledge cultures of our partners. The K4C hubs participating in the BKC project were divided into four regions – Latin America, Africa, Southern Asia, Global North (Canada and Europe) – and a research team was conformed in each region to develop, plan and conduct studies with their regional K4C partners, which would contribute to answering the BKC research question. The teams were led by a member of a K4C hub, who would be responsible for collecting and analyzing primary data from other hubs in their region through field work and community engagement, and for preparing a synthesis of secondary data illustrating the existing knowledge cultures in their regions.
The grant application was positively evaluated and approved by SSHRC, and funds were provided in March 2020. The onset of the Covid-19 global pandemic, however, disrupted the original research plans severely. The Covid-19
Each case study is informed by an analytical framework on knowledge cultures (see Chapter 2 for more details) designed from inputs from the regional syntheses prepared by the four research teams. The authors of the case studies, which are presented in different chapters of this book, were asked to reflect on the socio-political context where the hub is embedded and the nature of their partnership, to describe the case study methodology, to present a ‘map’ of knowledge cultures in the hub, to conduct a comparative analysis of academic and community knowledge cultures found in the hub, and to make suggestions for bridging knowledge cultures that could be applied locally in their hubs and transferred to other similar research partnerships.
The empirical part of the project (case studies) started in March 2021. Taking into consideration that local Covid-19 sanitary restrictions might have delayed different stages of the research process (especially for those teams that planned to collect data through art-based methods and community engagement), the teams were given one year to complete their research and submit a final version of their case study. After three rounds of reviews by the editorial team, the outcomes of this global study are presented in this book. Later in the year, this book will be accompanied by a practical guide with recommendations for bridging knowledge cultures within CURP in diverse contexts.
The use of the K4C hubs as individual case studies has allowed for a better understanding of: (a) how university and their community partners understand knowledge, its creation and use; (b) what challenges the hubs have faced in working across both trans-disciplinary and community-university boundaries; (c) what the hubs have done to date to help bridge different knowledge cultures; and (d) what positive stories do they have of co-creation and development of trust and respect between hub members. Thus, we hope that the BKC project will not only contribute to strengthening and developing the K4C Consortium by engaging the hubs in a research and reflection process on the
2 The Road to the Bridging Knowledge Cultures Project
This research is a continuation of an extensive story about knowledge, community action and learning that for two of the editors began in the mid-1970s. Budd L. Hall, working in Tanzania at the time, and Rajesh Tandon, working in southern Rajasthan in India, both found themselves confronted by a challenge to their work as researchers. Trained in the mainstream research orthodoxies of the 1960s and 1970s, both found that their training did not prepare them for making the practical contributions to adult education and community development that they had hoped for. This story on the formulation of the discourse on participatory research and subsequent creation of the International Participatory Research Network has been written about in many places over the years (e.g., Hall et al., 1982; Hall, 2005; Hall & Tandon, 2017; Tandon, 1981). Budd L. Hall and Rajesh Tandon are co-holders of the UNESCO Chair in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education, created in 2012. In 2014, Walter Lepore, originally from Argentina with six years of experience working in higher education in Mexico, joined Tandon and Hall as Research Coordinator of the Next Gen research project. At the time, Lepore was a PhD candidate in Public Administration interested in researching how to address highly complex, dynamic and uncertain social issues (also known as wicked problems), which require a new generation of decision and policy makers to play an important role as network facilitators to create the conditions that enable interactions between diverse (and often conflicting) stakeholders, and/or as knowledge brokers to promote the use of various forms of knowledge co-created by different partners (see Lepore, 2018).
The first study conducted by the UNESCO Chair in 2013 study explored three questions: What are the roles of knowledge in society? What are the roles of higher education in society? And how can CURP be mainstreamed and contribute to knowledge democracy? (see Hall et al., 2015). It was in this study that we first articulated our understanding of knowledge democracy. We noted that the terms knowledge economy and knowledge society, while making specific suggestions on how to understand some roles of knowledge and society, did not bring into question the near monopoly of Eurocentric knowledge systems or the exclusion of experiential or Indigenous knowledges. Knowledge democracy, we suggested, combined an openness to a multiplicity of knowledges, and
The main findings of this first project were published in the book Strengthening Community University Research Partnerships: Global Perspectives (Hall et al., 2015). The evidence presented in the book shows the prevalence and diversity of CURP around the world. Further, it indicates the strong desire of post-secondary institutions for CURP to co-create knowledge with the community, and to enact positive change in the society through collaboration, but also the need for a range of policies, infrastructure and funding for bringing such partnerships into practice. Our findings also showed that democratic knowledge partnerships, where community action is united with academic knowledge, have the potential for social transformation in ways that the narrow application of university scientific knowledge solutions cannot achieve. Another major finding of the study was that there were few places for university students or practitioners to formally learn about community-based approaches to research.
This led to the next study published in Knowledge and Engagement: Building Capacity for the Next Generation of Community Based Researchers (Tandon et al., 2016), in which we explored three further questions: Where and how have people been learning about community-based research (CBR)? What pedagogical principles have emerged from the teaching and learning practices? What kinds of partnerships have facilitated effective learning of CBR? Overall, the study makes evident that there is a high interest in CBR training around the world, demanding diversified training and teaching modalities in a variety of settings. The results also show that a variety of skills are needed for the new generation of community-based researchers to contribute to engaged research processes and knowledge democracy; for instance, group facilitation skills, continuous reflection on ethics issues, and the creation of community-based advisory communities for long-term projects. However, we also learned that most people never received formal training in CBR or simply learn to do it through trial and error, and that the predominant ways of acquiring participatory research capabilities are autodidactic, self-directed learning and on-the-job training. Perhaps the most significant finding was that the training supply itself is skewed. That is, the training taking place in university settings typically focuses on theoretical or procedural approaches to participatory research, while training by community organisations puts emphasis on practical work in the field.
3 The BKC Project in Context: A Transformative Moment in Higher Education and Knowledge Production
Traditionally, representations of knowledge in academic settings have often been defined as what Nowotny et al. (2006) call Mode 1 research that is characterised by “the hegemony of disciplinary science, with its strong sense of an internal hierarchy between the disciplines and driven by the autonomy of scientists and their host institutions, the universities” (p. 39). Mode 1, which includes natural and social sciences, linguistics, and literature (Gibbons, 2013), represents a discipline-based research structure, where knowledge validation and quality is controlled primarily by disciplinary peers within a system with powerful hierarchies built into the higher education institutions (Carayannis & Campbell, 2019). In the last few decades, we have been witnessing an expansion of scientific knowledge production towards ‘Mode 2’ and ‘Mode 3’ research paradigms. Mode 2 knowledge is “socially distributed, application-oriented, trans-disciplinary and subject to multiple accountabilities” (Nowotny et al.,
This changing approach to knowledge production is reflected in the concept of engaged research that can be seen in the intersection of various strands of scholarship and practice that have one overlapping characteristic: a democratisation of knowledge and its production. This ambition has led to a renewed interest in how researchers and research institutions interact with non-academic knowledge workers. Engaged researchers, often in collaboration with community groups and/or non-governmental organisations, are at the vanguard of this approach. Such a collective approach to responsibility requires support by public debate and democratic involvement in governance, paralleled by wider and more active participation of citizens in the research and innovation processes. From this perspective, the production of knowledge is conceived as a two-way learning process that redefines how conventional academia investigates and relates to other forms of knowledge production that are developed in the daily life of communities.
Yet, while the idea and practices of engaged research are not new, a generalised growing interest in engaged research is observed within the academic community during the past decades all over the world (Hall et al., 2014; Stoker, 2019; Tapia, 2018). A great variety of studies and initiatives on the ground have indeed flourished in various disciplinary fields in relation to diverse societal issues (Fransman, 2018). In consequence, the list of methods and approaches that identify themselves as a form of engaged research can seem bewildering. Etmanski et al. (2014) identified 27 different types of knowledge production configurations that fall under the umbrella of the community-based research approach. A national survey of Irish researchers carried out in 2017 discovered 47 different terms that were used by different kinds of researchers to describe their collaboration with communities (Campus Engage, 2017). The difference between prevalent engaged research methodologies is, however, often artificial, reflecting distinctive disciplinary concerns and scopes. For instance, what health researchers refer to as ‘public patient involvement’, other scientists may call ‘citizen science’. What some social scientists call ‘participatory action research’, is called ‘action research’ in business studies. This varied group of approaches to research are all characterised by an intention to include as many people as possible in deliberative fora designed to provide advice, tacit knowledge and insights for political action and/or policy interventions. Some of the methods employed in engaged research deliberately seek out relevant
Community-university research partnerships are a central component of the engaged research approach in the training hubs that make up the K4C Consortium, as they provide a medium/platform/network arrangement that brings university scholars into involvement with those in the community who are often the most disempowered (e.g., newly arrived immigrants, homeless individuals, people with disabilities, etc.) (Silka et al., 2008). To date, research partnerships have expanded remarkably in Canada and internationally as an effective approach to community-university engagement and the co-creation of knowledge. We have reached a stage of maturity in understanding: (a) benefits of collaboration between diverse knowledge actors; (b) changes in research from a focus on individual and institutionally grounded partnerships to broader knowledge systems with their own cultures and incentive structures (Fransman et al., 2021); and (c) a wealth of descriptive and prescriptive literature and toolkits instructing different groups on how to do partnerships (Aniekwe et al., 2012; Cornish et al., 2017; KFPE, 2014; Stevens et al., 2013; Winterford, 2017). We have also found evidence that expressions of power inequalities persist in knowledge creation collaborations, especially in issues related to structures and processes, roles and relationships, artefacts and discourses, partnership configurations and transformations over time, and partners’ identities and status. These challenges are further complicated by issues of gender, race, abilities, urban-rural differences, language and social class, which impact the way people engage with research and knowledge, hindering the transformative potential of CURP (Chouinard & Cram, 2020; Cornish et al., 2017; Muhammad, & Wallerstein, 2015; Wallerstein, 1999; Zurba et al., 2022). What seems to continue to be overlooked are the more analytical and practical questions around how to address power inequalities between a wide range of stakeholders (some with divergent interests and values) in research partnerships. The BKC project aimed to fill this knowledge gap and provide practical recommendations to help remove a range of structural barriers and address power dynamics, which prevent mainstream research institutions from collaborating effectively with community groups.
4
Following this Introduction, in Chapter 2 we develop an in-depth review of previous literature on the concept of knowledge cultures, including mainstream references, grey literature and global sources produced and/or identified by our K4C hub research teams during the pre-investigation phase of the BKC project. Based on findings coming from this literature review, we make the case for a refined and expanded understanding of the concept of knowledge cultures, and an original analytical framework for the purposes of addressing the goals of the BKC project. Chapter 3 focuses on understanding what is community knowledge and the ways in which it is produced, stored, shared and used for action.
Chapters 4 to 13 present the 10 case studies written by our K4C hub research teams. Chapter 14 synthesises the learnings from the case studies, reflecting on possibilities and ways in which the gap between academic and community knowledge cultures can be bridged. Chapter 15 provides final thoughts on the importance of the concept of knowledge cultures, and the need for community voice in our discussions about knowledge and epistemology, raising questions about how best to implement the findings from this and related studies into our community-university research partnerships.
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