Essays
Following our call for short essays, we received many interesting essays on how knowledge can(not) trigger change. Some address the knowledge "hype", others the power inbalances around knowledge and again others discuss kowledge & change in local communities. You can read the essays here.
From activist research to promiscuous theories and methodologies
Sexual diversity in Peru found political expression at the beginning of the 1980s, with the formation of the Movimiento Homosexual de Lima and the Grupo de Autoconciencia Lésbico Feminista. The movement spread to include other groups, for example, those who identify with a ‘trans’ identity, and outside the capital to other regions of the country. There are now more than 60 groups engaged in the fight for sexual diversity and gender identity in the country, with a wide range of identities, age...
Knowledges and the Politics of Social Change: The Inseparability of Practices
“Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society. ...We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them.” — Michel Foucault
Combining technical and political knowledge – an opportune skill for local expert organizations?
In an ideal world of development cooperation, local actors use their knowledge and other resources to deliberate and advance social change, while foreign agencies function as humble catalysts. Numerous critical comments can be raised to this position. Still, let’s take it as a starting point by inquiring about the type of knowledge aid agencies should have in order to optimally facilitate the interaction of local actors so as to advance development.
Ongoing poverty
The world order is in a process of transition leading to a rapid disintegration of peasant civilizations and their transformation into urbanised societies based on non-agrarian economies. China in particular is far ahead in this global shift as is demonstrated by the 150 million men and women who have trekked eastwards from the hinterland in the western regions of the country, first and foremost to the agglomerations in the coastal provinces.
Power, knowledge and the question of women’s pleasure in Nicaragua
Some years ago I became interested in the subject of women’s pleasure. Two events triggered my curiosity. My own experience of feeling powerful when I got rid of many taboos and moral constraints, which enhanced my own capacity to experience sexual pleasure; and the public condemnation of some feminists by a pro-government newspaper for alleged acts of sexual complacency.
Confronting the Monoculture of Scientific Knowledge
Modern science often flourishes at the top of what might be considered a hierarchy of knowledges. The dominance of Western scientific approaches to health and development over sociological or ‘traditional’ approaches reflects the universal and hegemonic position of modern science that is often deemed the “sole criteria of truth and aesthetic quality” (Santos 2006). The epistemological privilege granted to modern science, whether intentionally or unintentionally, often discredits (or declares...
Mayan knowledge as an alternative for change
Guatemala has a multilingual, multicultural and multiethnic society. Mayan communities and peoples form more than 60% of the 13 million population and have a thousand-year old written and oral legacy of knowledge that has been passed down from generation to generation. Since 1524, the Mayan peoples have suffered invasion and the imposition of a colonial, racist, exclusive, patriarchal and genocidal state that has worked with national and transnational capital to threaten them and Mother Earth...
More gender equality in sustainable livelihoods
“Gender equality could be practiced by anyone. So I have started practicing at my home”.[1] In November 2009 the Sustainable Land Use Forum (SLUF, Ethiopia) showed some remarkable results regarding the improvement of gender mainstreaming in the organisation and at programme level. Remarkable because traditionally sustainable land use is often considered and worked on as a technical, gender-blind issue and the organisations that deal with such issues usually don’t stand out by being gender sen...
African democracy
Some people say that the concept of democracy is alien to Africa. They say that it is a concept that has come from the Western world. This statement may be right or wrong or just fair, depending on what other questions are taken into consideration
Research by and for the people who know what they need
Participatory generation of policy proposals: the way to knowledge that brings about change There are two important conditions for knowledge to trigger change. First, the envisaged change must respond to needs assessed by the intended beneficiaries themselves. Second, knowledge must be generated in a way that makes acting on it immediate and inevitable. For both conditions, the keyword is organisation.