Knowledge for a change

Ria Brouwers

You know what? There is a new buzzword in the international aid language. Since aid began half a century ago, with goals of modernisation and growth, key words have come and gone. Remember the ideas of distribution and basic needs in the 1970s, equality and emancipation in the 1980s, joined by gender mainstreaming, poverty reduction, social capital. Not to forget participation, good governance, ownership and aid harmonisation. Each new term comes with the promise of a more sophisticated understanding of how aid works. So, civil society building and advocacy are seen to be far superior to conventional service delivery, and aid effectiveness is bound to increase if governments show leadership and take ownership of their development. There is a strong belief that the results of aid will improve with the new jargon.

And now the buzzword is ‘knowledge’. Like many of the previous magic bullets the meaning of knowledge is quite open. Not uncommon in politics and policy-making, as my professor of political science explained long ago, the wider the concept the more people get together under the same banner. It comes with a price, because a lack of specification leads to a perfect babel, as we have experienced in the Knowledge Programme. Without a differentiation of the perspectives of knowledge, its generation and its application, a ‘knowledge’ discussion is likely to be highly confusing since we use the same words for different things. In this piece I will unpack the word ‘knowledge’ from my perspective, in an effort to make clear my expectations of the Knowledge Programme, and to counter-balance doubts about this new hype in the development sector. I do the unpacking around the questions: what knowledge, whose knowledge, knowledge for what?

What knowledge?

Starting point is that the knowledge we deal with in the Knowledge Programme is about social development, where disciplines of economics, social and political sciences, anthropology and some psychology come in, and of course management knowledge and organisational theory. It is knowledge about how people shape their lives, how they interact, relate to each other, govern themselves and behave. When we say ‘knowledge’ we are not talking about knowledge in the physical, chemical or medical sciences, not knowledge for the automobile industry, nano- or space technology. We deal with knowledge about power, beliefs, rights and relationships.

Whose knowledge?

The actors generating and sharing knowledge are a colourful batch. An initial idea of the Knowledge Programme on Civil Society Building was to open up the treasure house of Hivos. Staff and partners were thought to have a wealth of knowledge from experiences, but most of it remained hidden so that knowledge available within the organisation did not accumulate and people were not learning from each other. The KP was to be a space to uncover the treasures and to turn these into useful lessons for future Hivos work.

A widely accepted idea in the CSB KP is that knowledge should be generated by people who live the situation that is to be “known”. They are in the best position to uncover the dynamics of civil society processes of which they are part. Localised knowledge is the most useful for development in a given situation, while the engagement in knowledge generation empowers those involved. So, not only does this approach promise to engender good knowledge, equally valued is the transformatory potential of the process. Here, knowledge = change.

An essential feature of the KP is that practice-oriented knowledge producers are joined by academics from universities or research institutes. It was expected that researchers in the South might be difficult to find, research being so low on the priority list in many developing countries. The fear has been proven right, be it that the experiences in Central America differ widely from those in Southern Africa. But, with an international community of students in development studies, the ISS is a breeding ground for researchers worldwide. Students have become a major asset of the KP, some 15 received a small grant to conduct fieldwork for their MA thesis. Their studies have become important parts of the KP, see the Working paper series.

So there it is: knowledge and actors, producing and sharing. But what for? What’s the use? How does knowledge work?

Knowledge for what?

Carol Weiss (1986) has written an insightful article about the many meanings of utilisation of research for policy making. Three of those meanings may help our quest of the use of knowledge in international development processes.

A plausible meaning is of research being used for problem-solving, The connotation here is of a linear process that goes as follows: there is a problem, researchers set out to collect information and analyse the data, the knowledge thus acquired is documented, reported and applied. Problem solved. This instrumental and action-oriented perspective on knowledge is the sociologist’s dream, but Weiss warns that the expectation that knowledge thus generated forms the basis for decision-making is “wildly optimistic”.

Then there is the political utilisation of research, where knowledge is used to back-up decisions that have already been taken, or that are certain to be taken because they suit the interests of those in power to decide. In this case, knowledge is used as ammunition to support ideologies, assumptions or pre-set positions. This may sound like a stupid application of knowledge, perverse and mischievous, but coming to think of it, the political use of knowledge is a very common category in social and political life. A notorious example is the research that the US government commissioned to discover the nuclear weapons in Iraq, but I’m sure we all have examples of research and evaluation studies legitimising support to organisations or activities that serve the interests of few and will solve no development problems whatsoever.

The third meaning of utilisation of knowledge that I draw from Weiss, is use through a process called enlightenment. It refers to knowledge that sinks in gradually, that broadens the horizon, serves as part of a puzzle, ‘creeping knowledge’. Not the findings of a single study, not even of a body of related studies directly affect policy, rather the imagery is of a social science knowledge “percolating through informed publics and coming to shape the way in which people think about social issues”. Knowledge that challenges current truths may work its way into public consciousness and overturn accustomed values and patterns of thought. Actually, the notion of research utilisation in the enlightenment mode has a comforting quality. It seems to promise that gradually the light will break through.

For a change

The aid industry operates in the problem-solving mood. Driven by the pressure to spend money and to show results, it aims to find quick fixes for complex problems, or works with solutions drawn from completely different situations, ironically called ‘good practices’. The pressure and standardisation also calls for research that can be used in the political mode, the objective being to show that aid works. Should we have to conclude that it doesn’t work, we are at least expected to find another buzzword that will keep the spell alive.

Ria Brouwers is Researcher at the ISS, The Hague, The Netherlands

It will come as no surprise that my expectations of the knowledge hype are surrounded by hesitations. There is one ray of hope. If the KP could start a process of enlightenment in South and North, as a counterweight to the quick fixes of the problem-solving use of knowledge and the false promises of the political mode, then it may be worthwhile to jump on the bandwagon. With that in mind, let’s try knowledge for a change.