Advanced Studies of Knowledge
Advanced Studies of Knowledge
Kunnskap er overalt. Kunnskap er ikke bare noe som er utviklet og formidlet av forskere, akademikere og lærere. Kunnskap er også produsert, sirkulert, absorbert og glemt i vår hverdag, i praksiser der vi jobber, lærer, avslapper, sorger, elsker, og blir fornærmet. Forskningsgruppen Advanced Studies of Knowledge fokuserer på den bredest mulige betydning av kunnskap, med et særfokus på kunnskap som ikke vanligvis blir gjenkjent som kunnskap. Hvordan utvikler håndverker og kunstner kunnskap? Hvordan tilpasser (eller tilpasser ikke) tradisjonelle og urfolk-baserte kunnskap de moderne Vestlige vitenskapelige former, og hvordan fører det utstenging eller inkludering av disse kunnskapsformene? Hvordan kommer uvitenhet og ignorering av kunnskap til å være, og kan vi forske på dem slik som vi kan forske kunnskap? Og hvordan atskiller de seg fra dumhet og tull? Hvordan kommer kunnskap til å sirkulere når den blir kommersialisert? Hvordan produserer, transformerer og formidler kunstformer kunnskap?
Vår forskning retter seg mot produksjon, sirkulasjon, konsum og destruksjon av all slags kunnskap. Vi tar en åpen tilnærming til kunnskap, og innstrammer vår synsvinkel ikke på forhånd. Vi bruker innsikter fra filosofi, grounded theory, antropologi, practice theory, sosiologi, og mer generelt alle heterogene metoder som brukes i fagfeltet vitenskaps- og teknologistudier.
Vi avholder lunsjseminarer på en uregelmessig måte, der ‘avvikende’ former av kunnskap blir diskutert.
Pågående prosjekter
The project studies governance and management of risk in information societies from the perspective of 'epistemic justice'. Epistemic justice is the idea that not all sorts of knowledge are given the same possibilities to speak, and effort is needed to distribute this speaking power more fairly. Especially formal expertise, coming from academic and otherwise certified knowledge producers, has a natural tendency to dominate debates, and governance and management processes. Notwithstanding the value of such expertise, this may entail that other valuable sorts of knowledge fail to get included in management and governance processes. The project will deliver insights that help improve innovation and governance in information societies by mobilizing a broader range of knowledges than is currently the case.
Project leader: Govert Valkenburg (NTNU)
Project members: Govert Valkenburg (NTNU); Sofia Moratti (NTNU); Maja Urbanczyk (NTNU)
Funding: The Research Council of Norway
Duration: 2020-2024
A digital bioplatform and microbial process to prospect and utilize macroalgae responsibly and sustainably
The iCULTURE project aims to prospect new seaweed resources and to generate a catalyst that can convert such seaweed residual side-streams into high value bioactives. In a broader sense, iCULTURE aims to contribute to answer the needs of the marine, feed, food, and industrial pharma sectors by establishing a novel zero-waste value chain. Importantly, the protection of ocean’s biodiversity life, and the utilisation of bioresources will be a combined goal of the project in a most unusual way. Among its goal, the project will turn potential blooming and invasive seaweed species that plague Europe into valuable biomass.
Project website: iCULTURE project (iculture-project.eu)
Contact person: Govert Valkenburg
Project period: 2023-
Funded by the EU.
A PhD Project by Maja Urbanczyk about non-knowledge and ignorance in (political) decision-making processes regarding the societal introduction of software is part of the RCN-funded Research Project EpiJustInf: Risk in the information society: towards epistemic justice, led by Govert Valkenburg, that will be conducted until 2024.
The project explores the impact and agency of non-knowledge and ignorance in decision-making processes, including negotiations between different stakeholders with different knowledge sets and in different power positions. The studied decision-making processes are tied to the introduction of software, which shall be introduced to and used by public user groups. One of the study's specific examples is the decision-making process around the introduction of Corona Contact Tracing Apps in 2020.
RRI workpackage on knowledge production in a heterogeneous situation with both commercial and academic interests
Researcher project funded by the Research Council of Norway
Project leader Vidar R. Jensen, UiB
Duration: 2022-2027
Ekstern deltaker
publikasjoner
Democracy requires some sort of exchange of knowledge between holders of different knowledge positions. The concept of epistemic justice brings the ability to know and the right to be recognised as a knowledgeable person under a scheme of justice. It problematises social conditions that potentially compromise the ability to share knowledge and thereby effectuate change and the possibility of being recognised as a knowing subject and being granted access to equitable means of producing knowledge. This paper engages with temporal aspects of epistemic justice. What role do temporalities play in people’s possibilities to create knowledge and the way they create knowledge? What role does time play in the valuation and circulation of knowledges? How do hegemonic conceptions of time potentially make some knowledges circulate more freely than others? Since conceptions of time connect to specific forms of knowledge, hierarchies and speakabilities of temporalities form an immediate correlate of hierarchies of knowledge. By extension, such hierarchies feed into schemes of epistemic justice. Thus, democracy’s duty to emancipate suppressed voices requires emancipating the times from which those suppressed voices speak.
Valkenburg, G. (2022). Temporality in epistemic justice. Time & Society, 31(3), 437–454.