The ignorance contract: recollections of apartheid childhoods and the construction of epistemologies of ignorance

Working with the recollections of everyday experiences of apartheid collected by the Apartheid Archives project, and drawing on the emerging theorization of ignorance in the critical philosophy of race, this article explores how an ‘ignorance contract’ – the tacit agreement to entertain ignorance – lies at the heart of a society structured in racial hierarchy. Unlike the conventional theorization of ignorance that regards ignorance as a matter of faulty individual cognition, or a collective absence of yet-to-be-acquired knowledge, ignorance is understood as a social achievement with strategic value. The apartheid narratives illustrate that for ignorance to function as social regulation, subjectivities must be formed that are appropriate performers of ignorance, disciplined in cognition, affect and ethics. Both white and black South Africans produced epistemologies of ignorance, although the terms of the contract were set by white society as the group with the dominant power.     

The logic of strategic ignorance

Ignorance and knowledge are often thought of as opposite phenomena. Knowledge is seen as a source of power, and ignorance as a barrier to consolidating authority in political and corporate arenas. This article disputes this, exploring the ways that ignorance serves as a productive asset, helping individuals and institutions to command resources, deny liability in the aftermath of crises, and to assert expertise in the face of unpredictable outcomes. Through a focus on the Food and Drug Administration's licensing of Ketek, an antibiotic drug manufactured by Sanofi-Aventis and linked to liver failure, I suggest that in drug regulation, different actors, from physicians to regulators to manufacturers, often battle over who can attest to the least knowledge of the efficacy and safety of different drugs - a finding that raises new insights about the value of ignorance as an organizational resource.     

Back to the future? From pragmatic approaches in the social sciences to the development of the patchwork theory

The debate on the function of the social sciences in complex societies, and more generally of the role of knowledge, leads necessarily to a discussion on pragmatism. The gap between theoretical approaches and empirical research still exists and has even widened, in part as a result of the use and abuse of social science knowledge in politics and by the media. However, the academic system is equally to blame for this. Mutual ignorance and scholastic fights are barriers against openness, creative and imaginary thinking. The structures and the practices of the academic system reinforce this trend. Pragmatism aims at overcoming these cleavages by looking at commonalities between different approaches rather than by disputing their validity. It aims at a comprehensive understanding of the process of knowledge production and at the productive use of results. Defining itself in this tradition, the patchwork theory goes beyond the traditional pragmatic approaches: it catches part of the reality of social phenomena from a certain perspective that allows for an overview without having the full picture. Methodologicall, the approach guided by patchwork theory emphasizes the relevance of stakeholders’ knowledge and citizen science, and calls for public participation and democratic access to the production and use of knowledge in a discursive manner.     

Intersectional Epistemologies of Ignorance: How Behavioral and Social Science Research Shapes What We Know,Think We Know,and Don’t Know About U.S. Black Men’s Sexualities

Epistemologies of ignorance describe how ignorance influences the production of knowledge. Advancing an intersectional epistemologies of ignorance approach that examines how conscious (or unconscious) ignorance about racism, heterosexism, and classism shapes empirical knowledge about Black men’s sexualities, we conducted a critical review of the behavioral and social science research on U.S. Black men, ages 18 and older, for two time frames: pre-1981 and the most recent decade, 2006–2016. Our search yielded 668 articles, which we classified into five categories: sexual violence, sexual experiences and expressions, sexual identities, cultural and social-structural influences, and sexual health and sexual risk. We found that most of the research, particularly pre-1981, centered the experiences of White heterosexual men as normative and implicitly constructed Black men as hypersexual or deviant. Most of the research also color-blinded White privilege and ignored how racism, heterosexism, and classism structured Black men’s inequities. We also found notable exceptions to these trends. Black men who are gay, bisexual, or who have sex with men, and research on HIV risk were prominent in the past decade, as was research that emphasized the social-structural (e.g., poverty, heterosexism, racism) and cultural (e.g., masculinity, religion) contexts of Black men’s lives and sexualities. We provide 10 recommendations to avoid intersectional epistemic ignorance in future research.     

Sparks and Ashes

The conditions for liberal democracy – by any operational definition of that concept – include some minimum level of knowledge. We can assume everybody knows something about local matters. But total ignorance of non-local matters must make people incompetent to deliberate about those issues. If a majority of citizens know nothing about such problems, are they ready for non-local democracy? This question has been raised by scholars with reference to the pace of democracy in developing countries. But it is equally relevant for some developed countries where widespread ignorance is demonstrable. Some theorists argue that ‘democratic ignorance’ is not harmful because electoral democracies are actually run by well-informed elites. The problem with this model of elite politics is that ignorant citizens vote (even if their voting rate is lower),1 For an estimate of the relation between political knowledge and voting in the US, see Michael X. Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter, What Americans Know About Politics and Why it Matters, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996, p. 227. View all notes and are sampled in political polls. Elections and polls are used to legitimize both policies and rule by particular elites. Ignorance, therefore, has consequences. There is no democratic society where a majority of the electorate are completely ignorant about non-local matters. But large proportions of the population in some countries are uninformed to the point of ignorance. What is the minimum level of non-local knowledge which should be the goal of a democratic society? This abstract question has implications for education, for political citizenship, and for the evolution of democratic politics in developing and developed countries.     

A future for the humanities?

The future of the humanities is an extremely complex question as it bears upon the status of a particular form of knowledge in society, the flexibility of a set of academic disciplines and institutions, the openness of political leaders to changing conceptions of education, and a host of other difficult issues. In order to illuminate these problems, it is necessary to focus upon the peculiar character of humanistic knowledge, why such insight is indispensable to individual and collective self-understanding, how the humanities as they are conventionally practised contribute to their own malaise and why the humanities must be accorded pride of place among the studies of human action. There is, in fact, a considerable demand for humanistic knowledge and the fruit of humanistic scholarship in our technological culture, especially in the area of adult education. The discussion ends with several examples of various ways in which that demand is being met.     

Evaluating social science and humanities knowledge production: an exploratory analysis of dynamics in science systems

Knowledge is gaining increasing importance in modern-day society as a factor of production and, ultimately, growth. This article explores the dynamics in university knowledge production and its effect on the state of university–industry–policy exchange in the Netherlands. Science systems are said to be in transformation. The university has evolved from performing conventional research and educational functions to serving as an innovation-promoting knowledge hub; dynamics that have received mixed reactions. The social sciences and humanities (SSH) take a special position, insofar as their focus seems primarily to be placed on conventional research and educational functions, and not directly on (commercial) valorization. Societal changes are, however, pressing for a reconsideration of the role of SSH. In our article, we distinguish between three important new movements that seem to be affecting SSH. It is believed that these movements, which are already having an impact today, will considerably influence SSH in the future. These developments are further differentiation, synthesis between the various subdisciplines of SSH and the natural sciences, and shifts in paradigms. The aims of this article are twofold: (1) to assess what is believed to be the most likely development of SSH by means of discovering relevant subsets of factors influencing university knowledge production; and (2) to discover whether the knowledge production factors show characteristics of a general development similar to the “Mode 2” concept. A systematic qualitative database was created by means of 22 semi-structured personal interviews with key representatives from business, university and the policy sector. Our explanatory framework employs an artificial intelligence method, i.e. rough set analysis. On the basis of these results, we find that a small minority of the respondents prefers a closer relationship of SSH to society, government and industry, and other institutional centers of authority, whilst interdisciplinarity in particular is regarded as having an overall positive influence on the future of SSH in the Netherlands. Consequently, the idea of a clear distinction between Mode 1 and Mode 2 knowledge production, i.e. traditional knowledge and knowledge carried out in the context of application, is not supported by our data.     

“知识城市”的理论构建与发展

知识城市是知识经济的产物和城市转型的客观需要,知识城市作为一种全新的城市可持续发展理念已经进入国际城市发展的视野。“知识城市”作为一种发展战略,有其一套硬性的衡量指标。知识城市建设涉及到城市生活的诸多方面,因此发展知识城市必须得到整个社会的支持。     

The authority of complexity*

The assertion about the unique 'complexity' or the peculiarly intricate character of social phenomena has, at least within sociology, a long, venerable and virtually uncontested tradition. At the turn of the last century, classical social theorists, for example, Georg Simmel and Emile Durkheim, made prominent and repeated reference to this attribute of the subject matter of sociology and the degree to which it complicates, even inhibits the develop and application of social scientific knowledge. Our paper explores the origins, the basis and the consequences of this assertion and asks in particular whether the classic complexity assertion still deserves to be invoked in analyses that ask about the production and the utilization of social scientific knowledge in modern society. We present John Maynard Keynes' economic theory and its practical applications as an illustration. We conclude that the practical value of social scientific knowledge is not dependent on a faithful, in the sense of complete, representation of social reality. Instead, social scientific knowledge that wants to optimize its practicality has to attend and attach itself to elements of social situations that can be altered or are actionable.     

Misplaced Metaphor: A Critical Analysis of the “Knowledge Society”*

Cet article soutient que la métaphore de la société du savoir est une transposition non critique de L'économie du savoir. On y examine trois approches différentes: L'idée d'un citoyen bien informé, les mesures institutionnelles et les attentes sociales pour être bien informé ainsi que le rôle d'Internet dans sa prestation de renforcements critiques d'une société du savoir. Ces trois approches se révèlent sérieusement déficientes. L'article suggGre qu'une culture peu encline au savoir serait une meilleure métaphore dans la mesure où les processus sociaux créant un haut degré de spécialisation du savoir en milieu de travail peuvent servir à accroître L'ignorance dans la société en general. This paper argues that the knowledge society metaphor is an uncritical transposition from the knowledge economy. It examines three different approaches to the former. These include the idea of the well‐informed citizen, the institutional arrangements and social expectations for being knowledgeable, and the role of the Internet in providing critical underpinnings of a knowledge society. All three approaches are found to be seriously deficient. The paper suggests that a knowledge‐aversive culture may be a better metaphor, as the social processes creating a high degree of knowledge specialization in the workplace may serve to increase ignorance in the broader society.     

International labour migration and tacit knowledge transactions: a multi‐level perspective

Abstract There has been limited research on the role of international migration in the transfer of tacit knowledge, as opposed to skills and capital. In part, this results from lack of engagement between research on migration and that on knowledge and learning, even in debates concerning the relative importance of distanciated versus localized knowledge transfers. However, positioning international migration in relation to the literature on knowledge management opens up new perspectives on its role in the overall transfer of knowledge in the economy. Starting from the premise that all tacit knowledge transactions are socially situated, in this article I set out a multi‐level approach to understanding the role of migrants in knowledge exchanges. The national, the urban and the firm constitute key levels in this study, although these are understood as interfolded rather than as discrete sites of analysis.     

Critical discourse analysis of perspectives on knowledge and the knowledge society within the Sustainable Development Goals

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is employed to analyze discourses of knowledge and the knowledge society in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Discourse analysis is a collective name for a number of scientific methodologies for analyzing semiosis, namely how meaning is created and communicated though written, vocal or sign language. Employing a genealogical approach which locates discourses in the field of prior discourses, two prior discourses of the knowledge society are identified in the key document of the SDGs. The concepts knowledge and knowledge society are found to have a marginal position within the main policy document “Transforming our world,” adopted by the United Nations in September 2015. The techno‐scientific‐economic discourse is found to be dominant at the level of implementation and of goals, while there is some evidence of the pluralist‐participatory discourse at the level of vision and strategy. Analysis of some of the policy advice provided by international organizations and civil society indicates that more pluralist‐participatory discourses on knowledge were represented when the SDGs were being formulated. Developed countries and the corporate sector were very influential in determining the final text and were probably instrumental in excluding more transformational discourses and maintaining the status quo.     

Developing common ground for a sustainable knowledge base for social work education in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

This article is about a research project focused on the development of a common knowledge base for social work education in the Netherlands. Recent substantial changes in society and social policy were the reason for a reconsideration of the educational content of social work education. A great urgency was established with regard to the adaptation of the study programs, including a higher level of knowledge. The aim of the project was to provide a knowledge base that creates a bridge between theory and practice and between social work practice and the societal context. The project started with an exploration of literature focusing on the significance of knowledge for professional practice and on existing classifications of the knowledge base in social work education. Subsequently a design-based empirical study was carried out using the Delphi-method. Experts agreed about the definition of the knowledge base and about the design requirements: practice-based, science-based, usable and sustainable. After an exploration of the content, a model was developed consisting of seven building blocks (BBs). The common knowledge base has been established by the Dutch Council of Schools of Social Work and is being used as the basis for the body of knowledge in all curricula of social work education in the Netherlands.     

The inner circle: Building bridges or boundaries between researchers and practitioners

An epistemological and methodological approach, The Change Laboratory, is analysed to determine which forms of distributing knowledge are apparent during cross-cultural research. Distributing knowledge is intricately related to methodological design, to researchers’ and practitioners’ life experiences and to roles of power. The article concludes that research conducted across cultures necessitates careful analysis of the power found within forms of distributing knowledge. This power is derived from a tacit belief that certain knowledge is only available to those within a given circle or that it is available to those outside a given circle without alteration.     

THE NEED TO KNOW: Cultured Ignorance and Jewish Resistance in the Ghettos of Warsaw, Vilna, and Łódź

This article explores the role of knowledge in collective action with an examination of resistance efforts in the Jewish ghettos of Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Vilna, and Łódź during World War II. Because sustained collective resistance took place in Warsaw but not in the other two ghettos, a comparison of these cases is useful toward an understanding of the factors that facilitate collective action. Drawing on Schwartz's concept of "structured ignorance" and Snow and Benford's discussion of "empirical credibility," I show that resistance occurred when and where Jews were able to gain information about the Nazi regime's genocidal plans and believed that information to be credible. The cases therefore suggest that in addition to being "structured," ignorance may also be "cultured," in the sense that there may be limits to what individuals will interpret as possible and true. Warsaw Jews fought back in part because they were able to overcome both structured and cultured ignorance, while Jews in the other ghettos were not able to overcome these barriers to collective action. Suggestions for further research are outlined.     

Independent inventors,social capital,and knowledge transfer – the case of Slovenia

This paper explores the role and significance of independent inventors within the national innovation system. By using a case study based on interviews with 22 independent inventors, it examines the types of social capital facilitating independent inventors' access to relevant knowledge and information. The findings show that, in line with their marginalization in the national innovation system, independent inventors have very limited access to the services and assistance of supportive organizations of the national innovation system. They primarily rely on the social capital residing in civil society organizations as well as the social capital of their family and friends. Professional and interdisciplinary linkages can thus be regarded as their weak point hindering their access to relevant knowledge and information.     

Pluralistic ignorance in Sino–Hong Kong conflicts: the perception of mainland Chinese people living in Hong Kong

This study examined pluralistic ignorance in the context of conflicts between Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese in Hong Kong. This focus differs from past studies, which have mainly explored in-group pluralistic ignorance regarding whether people could correctly perceive the opinions of others who belonged to the same social group as they did. The present study investigated whether people could correctly perceive the public opinion of a collective to which they did not belong. Using two representative samples of mainland Chinese students and local students from three universities in Hong Kong, this study found that mainland students overestimated the local public’s unfavorability regarding Chinese mainlanders and the Chinese government. This overestimation was found to be positively associated with their attention to media content about the Sino–Hong Kong relationship and the extent to which they perceived the pertinent media content to be biased toward Hong Kong but negatively associated with their interpersonal communications with Hong Kongers about issues regarding the Sino–Hong Kong relationship. The overestimation of the local public’s unfavorability of Chinese mainlanders and the Chinese government reduced the willingness of mainland students to stay in Hong Kong for further study, work, or domicile. Based on the findings of this study, further research on pluralistic ignorance is recommended in order to determine how migrants perceive the mainstream opinion in the society to which they migrate.     

知识经济时代的城市布局——以澳洲城市为例

在知识经济时代,知识的产出、产地、生产方式与生产者是一座城市的生活质量和竞争力的最主要决定因素之一。在世界各个角落,作为知识产出中心的那些城市有着各式各样的称谓,譬如：知识城市、创意城市、泛生态城市、智能城市等。本文主要研究这些城市的核心建筑群——“知识区”,它是指对知识生产既有“催化”作用又有“磁铁”作用的基础设施。作者首先在知识经济的范畴内探讨以知识为基础的城市发展的重要性,以及为知识生产奠定根基的知识社区的角色;其次研究以知识为基础的城市发展,尤其是知识社区的发展,并以波士顿为参照,分析悉尼、墨尔本和布里斯班三座城市的潜力。文章最后还就以知识为基础的发展问题为其他城市总结规律并提出建议。     

The Potentials and Limitations of Civil Society Research: Getting Undone Science Done

The term "undone science" refers to absences of scientific research that social movement and other civil society organizations find when attempting to make epistemic claims in the political field. The existing literature has identified various pathways for addressing the knowledge needs of civil society organizations, including asking elected and appointed political leaders to shift funding priorities and directly seeking support and partnerships with scientists. Here, a third pathway is identified and explored: civil society organizations that have the resources to fund their own research. A sample of such "civil society research" from large, mainstream, U.S. environmental organizations demonstrates that although the large organizations do engage in such research, most of it is not published in peer-reviewed journals. The peer-reviewed research is found almost exclusively in large preservation and conservation organizations that have staffs of scientists. Most of the other research reports are oriented toward documenting environmental problems and providing policy and management solutions. The research is highly applied and does not represent fundamental contributions to large mainstream scientific fields. Comparisons with civil society research in the author's previous research projects on religion, health, and economic development are discussed to assess applicability of the concept for other sociological subfields.     

Advancing a sociology of ignorance in the study of racism and racial non‐knowing

By a wealth of indicators, ignorance appears a bona fide if often vexing social fact. Ignorance is socially constructed, negotiated, and pervasive; ignorance is often socially inevitable, even necessary; and, without a doubt, ignorance is socially consequential. Yet, despite its significance, ignorance has appeared a largely secondary concern among sociologists. Perhaps more perplexing, while sociologists of racism, power, and domination have long focused on the ways racial ideologies distort and mystify racial understanding to sustain White supremacy over time, we have done less to elaborate ignorance than is possible and warranted. Here, I join growing calls for a fully‐fledged “sociology of ignorance” and argue that antiracist and decolonial scholars have much to gain from and contribute to such an endeavor. This article traces the historical forebears of a “sociology of ignorance” and explores ignorance as a social concept before turning to examine precedents and increasing attention to ignorance scholarship on racism, racial domination, and racialized non‐knowing. Drawing from this work, I urge race‐critical scholars take advantage of our unique position to advance theory and methodology surrounding ignorance and the social‐cultural production of non‐knowledge as a broader area of social inquiry.