Title: Knowledge Structures: Review I
1Knowledge Structures Review I
2Knowledge Structures Review
- Module I - Knowledge Structures and Moral Order
- critical theory theoretical tradition (the
Frankfurt school Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse
ludic and resistance postmodernist theory) - developed method of generating dangerous
knowledge, the kind of information and insight
that upsets institutions and threatens to
overturn regimes of truth - notion of hegemony, contradictions of class
societies, epistemes, analysis of consciousness,
revolutionary action - goal of critical analysis to critically analyze
modes of thinking (epistemes, Orientalism) to
open channels for experience of everyday life,
practice informing theoretical thought, as
shapers of knowledge systems to counter
oppression of thought by creating critical
consciousness - librarianship is revolutionary in how it meets
the needs of the public (upholding institutions
and facilitating social change, universal
access to information)
3Knowledge Structures Review
- Module II - Knowledge Domains and Communities of
Practice - critique of modernist science and
post-Enlightenment thought (critical feminist
studies, critique of technoscience, cultural
studies movement) - thought is mediated by power relations that are
social and historically constituted and therefore
facts can never be isolated from the domain of
values or removed from ideological inscription
(relationship bw concept and object are mediated
through language / discourse and therefore in
existing power relations in society) - mainstream research practices are implicated in
the reproduction of systems of class, race, and
gender oppression - postmodern science and theory reject assumptions
of Enlightenment rationality, traditional Western
epistemology, and supposedly secure
representation of reality that exists outside of
discourse itself (knowledge is mediated in
communities / networks of practice)
4Knowledge Structures Review
Module I - Knowledge Structures and Moral
Order 3. Knowledge and Experience (deCerteau)
4. Knowledge and Practice (Lave) 5.
Multicultural Perspectives Deconstructing
Orientalism (Said) 6. Historical Perspectives
Deconstructing the Enlightenment (Foucault, Said)
5 Module I Knowledge Structures and Moral Order
- Knowledge and Experience
- Knowledge and Practice
- Multicultural Perspectives Deconstructing
Orientalism - Historical Perspectives Deconstructing the
Enlightenment - multiple perspectives of the processes that shape
the production of knowledge (and
representations), and its circulation how
knowledge creates epistemes (schemas for
processing of information) and how epistemes can
be critiqued
6Module I Knowledge Structures and Moral Order
- experience knowledge built through community
memory and immediate reality, localization of
experience in contrast to hyperreality of
mediated experience communities seek autonomy
and self-reflection - practice formal knowledge systems (education)
vs. informal knowledge (situational)
legitimation of knowledge through traditional
modernist science regulates what can be said
under the flag of scientific authority practical
knowledge is excluded from this discourse yet it
is the practical knowledge accumulated through
work / practice that may influence the creation
of knowledge and innovation practitioner
research vs. expert research (practitioners
closer to purposes, cares, everyday concerns, and
interests of work) need to acknowledge the
progressive impact of practical knowledge
7Module I Knowledge Structures and Moral Order
- multiculturalism the position of the knower is
related to institutional authority, reflects
power relations and ruptures of East / West,
South / North knowledge is a system shaping
reality but it is perspectival knowing styles
are localized in the postmodern condition the
perception of the world is fragmented - historical epistemes are shaped by communities /
networks of practice and institutional discourse,
knowledge trails knowledge is cumulative and
shaped by antecedents institutions maintain
privileged knowledge systems
8 Knowledge and Practice Lave
- Student responses to readings / presentations
9 Knowledge and Experience deCerteau
- The grand narratives from television and
- advertising stamp out or atomize the small
- narratives of streets or neighborhoods
- (deCerteau, pp. 142-3)
10 Multicultural Perspectives Said
- Is knowledge self-replicating, fatalistic, a text
that does not have the ability of reflecting
experiences or perspectives of the Other?
11 Historical Perspectives Said, Foucault
- Student response to readings / presentations
12Knowledge Structures Review
Module II - Knowledge Domains and Communities of
Practice 1. Science Technology (Bijker,
Haraway) 2. Social Sciences (Budd, Rowland) 3.
Arts Humanities (Panofsky) 4. Popular Culture
(Freccerro)
13 Module II Knowledge Domains and Communities of
Practice
- Science Technology
- Social Sciences
- Arts Humanities
- Popular Culture
- scholarly communication is shaped by the
communities / networks of practice which impose
their own views on the nature of truth (formal
knowledge systems in various disciplinary
domains science, technology, social sciences,
arts humanities)
14 Module II Knowledge Domains and Communities of
Practice
- traditional modernist research focused on rigor
while neglecting the dynamics of the lived world
and the pursuit of justice in the lived world
post-Enlightenment science focused research on
the how and the form of inquiry to the neglect of
the what and the substance of inquiry
traditional research argues that the only way to
produce valid information is through the
application of a rigorous research methodology
(strictly following a set of objective procedures
that separate researchers from those researched - critical postmodern research respects the
complexity of the social world (research humility
implies a sense of unpredictability of the
sociopolitical microcosm loss of faith in the
privileged frame of reference claims to truth
are relative to social context of knowledge
creation
15 Module II Knowledge Domains and Communities of
Practice
- cultural studies (popular culture) critically
examine mediated representations and knowledge - humanities acknowledge the subjective nature of
knowledge as interpretation - social inquiry needs to be social critique, not
only technology that focuses on reducing human
beings to taken-for-granted social outcomes
(scientific research works with hypotheses about
reality and then collects data to support them
thus theory is used to validate existing power
relationships) - science and applied science (technology) are the
most modernist of the knowledge domains, least
concerned with critical perspective
16 Science Technology Bijker, Haraway
- Progress, science, reason, nature how far do we
go? The promises and limitations of
post-Enlightenment thought
17 Social Science Budd, Rowland
- Social science as method of understanding with
high internal validity and hope for
generalizability (external validity across
contexts) but how does it accommodate the
unpredictable character of sociopolitical
realities?
18 Arts Humanities Panofsky
- The strength or the frailty of humanistic study?
19 Popular Culture Freccero
- Whose knowledge is it really (knowledge
representations created by the media and the
processes of capitalist society or authentic
expression of social groups)? - Why important to study cultural forms as critical
study and analysis of power relations?