The Practice of Knowledge and Change

Friday 1st of October

In the past two days the conference has places the concepts of Knowledge and Change in light of the politics of knowledge and the practice of knowledge. The third day we will try to understand how you can generate knowledge during a plenary session that looks at the alternative methodologies to generate knowledge and a feed forward session that looks towards the future of knowledge and change.

Plenary session Practice of Knowledge and Change: There are many ways to generate knowledge; however, the dominance of traditional ‘academic research’ practice has become rather disempowering. The various knowledge programmes therefore tried to use alternative methodologies to generate, activate and disseminate knowledge. But how to make sure knowledge generation is actually empowering and triggering social change? After all, the practice of knowledge generation and dissemination often differs from the initial intentions. This session explores the practice of knowledge development methodologies, how these can contribute to change, and which lessons can be learned. Four methodologies will be shared and discussed: Four methodologies will be shared and discussed: knowledge integration, participatory action research with social movements, knowledge decentralisation and affective knowledge. Contributions by Nishant Shah (CIS), Ram Kakarala (CSCS), José Manuel Valverde (Hivos), Wenny Ho, Kees Biekart (ISS) and Josine Stremmelaar (Hivos)

 

Feed forward session: In this session we will reflect on the three dialogue days and particularly we will focus on the three guiding questions. Four ‘trackers’ will give their insights and prompt the audience to share theirs. Based on these reflections we will look towards the future and draft a Knowledge & Change agenda. Contributions by Ben Witjes (Hivos) and four ‘trackers’.

 

At the end of the conference there is time for some bilateral and multilateral dialogues and make plans for the future during drinks.